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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43975
   :PG.Title: The Lost Cabin Mine
   :PG.Released: 2013-10-18
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Frederick Niven
   :DC.Title: The Lost Cabin Mine
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1908
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE LOST CABIN MINE
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      *THE*
      LOST CABIN
      MINE

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      *By*

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      FREDERICK NIVEN

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      *New York*
      DODD, MEAD 6 COMPANY
      1929

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      title page

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      COPYRIGHT, 1908
      BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

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      PRINTED IN U. S. A.

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      TO MY SISTER

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   Contents

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   CHAPTER

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I.  `Introduces "The Apache Kid" with whom Later I become Acquainted`_
II.  `Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date`_
III.  `Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled`_
IV.  `I Take my Life in my Hands`_
V.  `I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense`_
VI.  `Farewell to Baker City`_
VII.  `The Man with the Red Head`_
VIII.  `What Befell at the Half-Way House`_
IX.  `First Blood`_
X.  `In the Enemy's Camp`_
XI.  `How it was Dark in the Sunlight`_
XII.  `I am Held as a Hostage`_
XIII.  `In which Apache Kid Behaves in his Wonted Way`_
XIV.  `Apache Kid Prophesies`_
XV.  `In which the Tables are Turned—at Some Cost`_
XVI.  `Sounds in the Forest`_
XVII.  `The Coming of Mike Canlan`_
XVIII.  `The Lost Cabin is Found`_
XIX.  `Canlan Hears Voices`_
XX.  `Compensation`_
XXI.  `Re-enter—The Sheriff of Baker City`_
XXII.  `The Mud-Slide`_
XXIII.  `The Sheriff Changes his Opinion`_
XXIV.  `For Fear of Judge Lynch`_
XXV.  `The Making of a Public Hero`_
XXVI.  `Apache Kid Makes a Speech`_
XXVII.  `The Beginning of the End`_
XXVIII.  `Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way House to Kettle`_
XXIX.  `So-Long`_
XXX.  `And Last`_





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.. _`Introduces "The Apache Kid" with Whom Later I Become Acquainted`:

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   *The Lost Cabin Mine*

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   CHAPTER I

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   *Introduces "The Apache Kid" with Whom Later
   I Become Acquainted*

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The Lost Cabin Mine, as a name, is
familiar to many.  But the true story
of that mine there is no man who
knows.  Of that I am positive—because
"dead men tell no tales."

It was on the sixth day of June, 1900, that I first
heard the unfinished story of the Lost Cabin, the
first half of the story I may call it, for the story is
all finished now, and in the second half I was destined
to play a part.  Of the date I am certain because
I verified it only the other day when I came by
accident upon a pile of letters, tied with red silk ribbon
and bearing a tag "Letters from Francis."  These
were the letters I sent to my mother during my
Odyssey and one of them, bearing the date of the
day succeeding that I have named, contained an
account, toned down very considerably, as I had
thought necessary for her sensitive and retired heart,
of the previous day's doings, with an outline of the
strange tale heard that day.  That nothing was
mentioned in the epistle of the doings of that night, you
will be scarcely astonished when you read of them.

I was sitting alone on the rear verandah of the
Laughlin Hotel, Baker City, watching the cicadi
hopping about on the sun-scorched flats, now and
again raising my eyes to the great, confronting
mountain, the lower trees of which seemed as though
trembling, seen through the heat haze; while away above,
the white wedge of the glacier, near the summit,
glistened dry and clear like salt in the midst of the
high blue rocks.

The landlord, a thin, quick-moving man with a
furtive air, a straggling apology for a moustache, and
tiny eyes that seemed ever on the alert, came shuffling
out to the verandah, hanging up there, to a hook
in the projecting roof, a parrot's cage which he
carried.

His coming awoke me from my reveries.

"Hullo," he said: "still setting there, are you?
Warmish?"

"Yes."

"You ain't rustled a job for yourself yet?" he
inquired, touching the edge of the cage lightly with
his lean, bony fingers to stop its swaying.

I shook my head.  I had indeed been sitting there
that very moment, despite the brightness of the day,
in a mood somewhat despondent, wondering if ever
I was to obtain that long-sought-for, long-wished-for
"job."

"Been up to the McNair Mine?" he asked.

I nodded.

"The Bonanza?"

I nodded again.

"The Poorman?"

"No good," I replied.

"Well, did you try the Molly Magee?"

"Yes."

"And?" he inquired, elevating his brows.

"Same old story," said I.  "They all say they only
take on experienced men."

He looked at me with a half-smile, half-sneer, and
the grey parrot hanging above him with his head
cocked on one side, just like his master's, ejaculated:

"Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"

Shakespeare says that "what the declined is he
will as soon read in the eyes of others as feel in his
own fall."  I was beginning to read in the eyes of
others, those who knew that I had been in this
roaring Baker City almost a fortnight and was still idle,
contempt for my incapacity.  Really, I do not believe
now that any of them looked on me with contempt;
it was only my own inward self-reproach which I
imagined there, for men and women are kindlier than
we think them in our own dark days.  But on that
and at that moment it seemed to me as though the
very parrot jeered at me.

"You don't savvy this country," said the landlord.
"You want always to say, when they ask you: 'Do you
understand the work?'  'why sure!  I'm experienced
all right; I never done nothing else in my life.'  You
want to say that, no matter what the job is you 're
offered.  If you want ever to make enough money
to be able to get a pack-horse and a outfit and go
prospectin' on your own, that's what you want to say."

"But that would be to tell a downright lie," said I.

"Well," drawled the landlord, lifting his soft hat
between his thumb and his first finger and scratching
his head on the little bald part of the crown with
the third finger, the little finger cocked in the air;
"well, now that you put it that way—well, I guess
it would.  I never looked at it that way before.  You
see, they all ask you first pop: 'Did you ever do it
before?'  You says: 'Yes, never did anything else
since I left the cradle.'  It's just a form of words
when you strike a man for a job."

I broke into a feeble laugh, which the parrot took
up with such a raucous voice that the landlord turned
and yelled to it: "Shut up!"

"I don't have to!" shrieked the parrot, promptly,
and you could have thought that his little eyes sparkled
with real indignation.  Just then the landlord's wife
appeared at the door.

"See here," cried Mr. Laughlin, turning to her,
"there 's that parrot o' yourn, I told him to shut up
his row just now, and he rips back at me, 'I don't
have to!'  What you make o' that?  Are you goin'
to permit that?  Everything connected with you
seems conspirin' agin' me to cheapen me—you and
your relations what come here and put up for months
on end, and your—your—your derned old grey
parrot!"

"Abraham Laughlin," said the lady, her green
eyes flashing, "you bin drinkin' ag'in, and ef you
ain't sober to-morrow I go back east home to my
mother."

It gave me a new thought as to the longevity of the
human race to hear Mrs. Laughlin speak of her mother
back east.  I hung my head and studied the planking
of the verandah, then looked upward and gazed at the
far-off glacier glittering under the blue sky, tried to
wear the appearance of a deaf man who had not heard
this altercation.  Really I took the matter too
seriously.  Had I only known it at the time, they were a
most devoted couple and would—not "kiss again
with tears" and seek forgiveness and reconciliation,
but—speak to each other most kindly, as though no
"words" had ever passed between them, half an hour
later.  But at the time of the little altercation on the
verandah, when Mrs. Laughlin gave voice to her threat
and then, turning, stalked back into the hotel, Laughlin
wheeled about with his head thrust forward, showing
his lean neck craning out of his wide collar, and
opened his lips as though to discharge a pursuing
shot.  But the parrot took the words out of his
mouth, so to speak, giving a shriek of laughter
and crying out: "Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"

The landlord looked up quizzically at the bird and
then there was an awkward pause.  I wondered what
to say to break this silence that followed upon the
exhibition of the break in the connubial bliss of my
landlord and his wife.  Then I remembered
something that I decidedly did want to ask, so I was
actually more seeking information than striving to
put Mr. Laughlin at his ease again, when I said:

"By the way, what is all this talk I hear about the
Lost Cabin Mine?  Everybody is speaking about it,
you know.  What is the Lost Cabin Mine?  What
is the story of it?  People seem just to take it for
granted that everybody knows about it."

"Gee-whiz!" said the landlord in astonishment,
wheeling round upon me.  He stretched out a hand
to a chair, dragged it along the verandah, and sat
down beside me in the shadow.  "You don't know
that story?  Why, then I 'll give you all there is to
it so far.  And talking about the Lost Cabin, now
there's what you might be doin' if on'y you had the
price of an outfit—go out and find it, my bold buck,
and live happy ever after——"

He stopped abruptly, for a man had come out of
the hotel and now stood meditating on the verandah.
He was a lithe, sun-browned fellow, this, wearing a
loose jacket, wearing it open, disclosing a black shirt
with pearl buttons.  Round his neck was a great,
cream-coloured kerchief that hung half down his
back in a V shape, as is the manner with cowboys
and not usual among miners.  This little detail of the
kerchief was sufficient to mark him out in that city,
for the nearest cattle ranch was about two hundred
miles to the south-east and when the "boys" who
worked there sought the delights of civilisation it was
not to Baker City, but to one of the towns on the
railroad, such as Bogus City or Kettle River Gap,
that they journeyed.  On his legs were blue dungaree
overalls, turned up at the bottom as though to let
the world see that he wore, beneath the overalls, a
very fine pair of trousers.  On his head was a round,
soft hat, not broad of brim, but the brim in front was
bent down, shading his eyes.  The cream-colour of
his kerchief set off his healthy brown skin and his
black, crisp hair.  There were no spurs in his boots;
for all that he had the bearing of one more at home
on the plains than in the mountains.  A picturesque
figure he was, one to observe casually and look at
again with interest, though he bore himself without
swagger or any apparent attempt at attracting attention,
except for one thing, and that was that in either
ear there glistened a tiny golden ear-ring.  His brows
were puckered as in thought and from his nostrils
came two long gusts of smoke as he stood there
biting his cigar and glaring on the yellow sand and
the chirring cicadi.  Then he raised his head,
glancing round on us, and his face brightened.

"Warmish," he said.

"That's what, right warmish," the proprietor
replied affably, and now the man with the ear-rings,
having apparently come to the end of his meditations,
stepped lightly off into the loose sand and Laughlin
jogged me with his elbow and nodded to me, rolling
his eyes toward the departing man as though to say,
"Take a good look at him, and when he is out of
earshot I shall tell you of him."  This was precisely
the proprietor's meaning.

"That's Apache Kid," he said softly at last, and
when Apache Kid had gone from sight he turned
again to me and remarked, with the air of a man
making an astounding disclosure:

"That's Apache Kid, and he's in this here story
of the Lost Cabin.  Yap, that's what they call him,
though he ain't the real original, of course.  The real
original was hanged down in Lincoln County, New
Mexico, about twenty-five year back.  Hanged at the
age of twenty-one he was, and had killed twenty-one
men, which is an interesting fact to consider.  That's
the way with names.  I know a fellow they call Texas
Jack yet, but the real original died long ago.  I mind
the original.  Omohundro was his correct name; as
quiet a man as you want to see, Jack B. Omohundro,
with eyes the colour of a knife-blade.  But I 'm driftin'
away.  What you want to get posted up on is the
Lost Cabin Mine."

He jerked his chair closer to me, tapped me on
the knee, and cleared his throat; but I seemed fated
not to hear the truth of that mystery yet, for
Mrs. Laughlin stood again on the verandah.

"Abraham," she said in an aggrieved tone, "there
ain't nobody in the bar."

Up jumped Abraham, his whole bearing, from his
bowed head to his bent knees, apologetic.

"I was just tellin' this gentleman a story," he
explained.

"I 'm astonished at you then," she said.  "An old
man like you a-telling your stories to a young lad like
that!  You 'd be doin' better slippin' into the bar and
takin' a smell at that there barkeep's breath."

Mr. Laughlin turned to me.

"Come into the bar, sir; come into the bar.  We 've
got a new barkeep and the mistress suspects him o'
takin' some more than even a barkeep is expected to
take.  I hev to take a look to him once in a while."

Mrs. Laughlin disappeared into her own sanctum,
satisfied; while the "pro-prietor" and I went into the
bar-room.

The "barkeep" was polishing up his glasses.  In
one corner sat a grimy, bearded man in the prime of
life but with a dazed and lonely eye.  He always sat
in that particular corner, as by ancient right,
morning, noon, and evening, playing an eternal solitary
game of cards, the whole deck of cards spread before
him on a table.  He moved them about, changing
their positions, lifting here and replacing there, but,
though I had watched him several times, I could
never discover the system of his lonely game.

"Who is that man?" I quietly inquired.  "He is
always playing there, always alone, never speaking to
a soul."

"The boys call him 'The Failure,'" Laughlin
explained.  "You find a man like that in the corner
of most every ho-tel-bar you go into in this here
Western country—always a-playing that there lonesome
game, I 'm always scared to ask 'em what the
rudiments o' that game is for they 're always kind o'
rat-house,—of unsound mind, them men is.  I heerd a
gentleman explain one day that it's a great game for
steadyin' the head.  He gets a remittance from
England, they say.  Anyhow, he stands up to the bar once
every two months and blows himself in for about
three-four days.  Then he goes back to his table there and
sets down to his lonesome card game again and
frowns away over it for another couple o' months.  I
guess that gentleman was right in what he explained.
I guess he holds his brains together on that there
game."

We found seats in a corner of the room and
Laughlin again cleared his throat.  He had a name
for taking a real delight in imparting information and
spinning yarns, true, fictitious, and otherwise, to his
guests, and this time we were not interrupted.  He
told me the story of the Lost Cabin Mine, or as much
of that story as was known by that time, ere his
smiling Chinese cook came to inform him "dinnah vely
good.  Number A1 dinnah to-day, Misholaughlin,
ledy in half-oh."





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.. _`Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date`:

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   CHAPTER II


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   *Mr. Laughlin Tells the Story up to Date*

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Mr. Laughlin's suggestion that I
should go out and look for this Lost
Cabin and, finding it, "live happy
ever after," made me but the more
anxious to hear all that was to be
told regarding it.

"Well, about this here Lost Cabin Mine," he said.
"There's a little, short, stubby fellow that you maybe
have noticed around here, with a pock-marked
face,—Mike Canlan, they call him.  He was up to
Tremont putting in assessment on a claim he has in the
mountains there away, and he was comin' along back
by the trail on the mountains that runs kind o'
parallel with the stage road, but away up on the hills,
and there he picks up a feller nigh dead,—starved
to death, pretty nigh.  Mike gets him up on his
pack-horse and comes along slow down through the
mountain till he hits the waggon road from the
Poorman.  There a team from the Poorman Mine makes
up on him.  That there fellow, Apache Kid, was
drivin' the team, and along with him was Larry
Donoghue, a partner o' his, with another team.
They had been haulin' up supplies for one of the
stores, and was comin' down light.  They offer to
help Canlan down with the dying man, seein' as how
the hoss was gettin' pretty jaded with all Canlan's
outfit on its back, and this here man, too, tied on,
and wabbling about mighty weak."

Laughlin broke off here to nod his head sagaciously.
"From what has transpired since, I guess
Canlan was kind o' sorry he fell in with them two,
and I reckon he wondered if there was no kind of an
excuse he could put up for rejecting their offer o'
service and continuin' to pack the feller down
himself.  Anyways, they got the man into the Apache's
waggon, and my house bein' the nighest to the
waggon road and the mountain, they pulled up at
my door and we all carries the fellow up to a room.
I was at the door.  Canlan was sitting on the
bed-foot.  Apache Kid and Larry Donoghue was laying
him out comf'able.  The fellow groans and mumbles
something, and Canlan gave a bit of a start forward,
and says he: 'There, there now, that 'll do; you 've
got him up all right.  I reckon that's all that's
wanted.  You can go for a doctor, now, if you want
to help at all.'  There was something kind o' strained
in his voice, and I think Apache Kid noticed it the
way he looks round.  'Why,' he says, 'I think, seein'
as you,' and he stops and looks Canlan plumb in the
eye, 'seein' as you *found* the man, you had better
fetch the doctor and finish your job.  My partner
and I will sit by him till the doctor comes.'  Canlan
looked just a little bit rattled when Apache Kid says,
lookin' at the man in the bed: 'He seems to have
got a kind o' a knock on the head here.'  'Yes,' says
Canlan, 'I got him where he had fallen down.  I
reckon he got that punch then.'  And then Apache
Kid looks at Larry Donoghue, and Larry looks at
him, and they both smile, and Canlan cries out: 'Oh,
if that's what you think, why I 'll go for the doctor
without any more ado!'"

Laughlin paused, and, "You savvy the idea?" he asked.

"Not quite," I said.

He tapped me on the knee, and, bending forward,
said: "Don't you see, Apache Kid and Larry hed
no suspicions o' foul play at all, but they was
wanting to get alone in the room with the feller, and this
was just Apache's bluff to get a move on Canlan.
Canlan was no sooner gone than Apache Kid asks
me to fetch a glass o' spirits.  It was only thinkin'
it over after that I saw through the thing; anyhow,
I come down for the glass, and when I got up, derned
if they did n't hev the man propped up in bed, and
him mumblin' away and them bendin' over him
listening eager to him.  They gave him the liquor, and he
began talking a trifle stronger, and took two-three
deep gusts o' breath.  Then he began mumblin' again."

Mr. Laughlin looked furtively round and then,
leaning forward again, thrust his neck forward and with
infinite disgust in his voice said: "And damn me if
that wife o' mine did n't come to the stair-end right
then and start yellin' on me to come down."

Laughlin shook his head sadly.  "Seems her derned
old parrot was shoutin' for food and as it had all give
out she wants me to go down to the store for some
more.  But I must say that she had just come in
herself and did n't know nothin' about the business that
was goin' on upstairs.  When Canlan and the doctor
did arrive and go up the fellow was dead—sure
thing—dead as—dead as—" he searched for the simile
without which he could not speak for long.  "Dead
as God!" he said in a horrible whisper, raising his
grey eyebrows.

I shuddered somehow at the words, and yet in
such a red-hot, ungodly place as Baker City I could
almost understand the phrase.  There was another
pause after that and then Laughlin cleared his throat
again and held up a lean finger in my face.

"There's where the place comes in," said he,
"where you says 'the plot thickens,' for I 'm a son
of a gun if word did n't come down next day that the
fellers up at the Poorman Mine had picked up just
such another dead-beat.  This here corpse of which
I bin tellin' you was indemnified after as having been
in company with the other.  But the man the
Poorman boys picked up was jest able to tell them that
he had seen the lights o' their bunk-house and was
trying to make for it.  Told them that he and two
partners had struck it rich in the mountains, pow'ful
rich, he said, and hed all been so fevered like that
they let grub run out.  Then they went out looking
for something to shoot up and could n't find a thing.
One of 'em went off then to fetch supplies, lost his
way in them mountains, wanders about nigh onto
a week—and hits their own camp ag'in at the end
o' that time.  Isn't it terrible?  You'd think that
after striking it luck jest turned about and hed a
laugh at 'em for a change.  They comes rushin' on
him, the other two, expecting grub—  Grub nothing!
He was too derned tired to budge then, and so the
other two sets out then—  This fellow what the
Poorman boys picked up was doin' his level best to tell
'em where the place was, for the sake of his partner
left there, and in the middle of his talk he took a fit
and never came out of it.  All they know is that
there was a cabin built at the place.  That's the
story for you."

"But what about the man who was brought down
here; did he not leave any indication?"

"Now you 're askin'," said Laughlin.  "But I see
you bin payin' attention to this yere story.  Now
you're askin'.  Nobody knows whether he did or
not.  But this I can tell you—that Apache Kid and
Larry Donoghue has done nothing since then but
jest wander about with the tail of an eye on Canlan,
and Canlan returns the compliment.  And here 's
miners comin' in from the Poorman and stoppin' in
town a night and trying to fill Apache Kid and his
mate full, and trying the same on Canlan to get them
to talk, and them just sittin' smilin' through it all, and
nobody knows what they think."

"But," said I, "if they do know, could the three of
them not come to some agreement and go out and
find the place?  If the third man is dead there, I
suppose the mine would be theirs and they could share
on it.  Besides, while they stay here doubtless other
men will be out looking for the cabin."

The landlord listened attentively to me.

"Well," said he, "as for your first remark, Canlan
is too all-fired hard a man to make any such daffy
with them, and there's just that touch of the devil in
Apache Kid and that amount of hang-dog in
Donoghue to prevent them making up to Canlan, I
reckon.  Not but what they pump each other.
Sometimes they get out there on the verandah nights, and,
you bein' in the know now, you 'll understand what's
running underneath everything they say.  As for the
other men goin' out and looking for a cabin!  Shucks!
Might as well go and look for that needle you hear
people talk about in the haystack.  Not but what a
great lot has gone out.  Most every man in the
Poorman Mine went off with a pack-hoss to hunt it, and
plenty others too.  And between you and me," said
the landlord, "I reckon they 're all on the wrong
scent.  They 're all away along Baker Range, and I
reckon they must be on the wrong scent there or else
them three others wouldn't be sittin' here in Baker
City smiling; that is, if they dew know where the
location is."

Just then the Chinese cook arrived quietly on the
scene to inform Mr. Laughlin of the progress of
dinner.  Then a laugh sounded in the passage and
Apache Kid entered the bar-room accompanied by a
heavy-set, loose-jawed man of thirty years or thereby,
a man with a slovenly appearance in his dress and a
cruel expression on his face.

"That's them both," said Laughlin, prodding me
with his elbow as they marched through the bar and
out to the rear verandah where we heard them dragging
chairs about, and the harsh voice of the parrot,
evidently awakened from his reveries in the sunshine:

"Well, well!  If this ain't——" and a dry cackle of
laughter.

"They 're lookin' right lively and pleased with
themselves," said the proprietor.  "I reckon if
Canlan comes along to-night it will be worth your while,
now that you know the ins and outs of the business,
to keep an eye on the three and watch the co-mical
game they keep on playin' with each other.  But it
can't go on forever, that there game.  I do hope, if
they make a bloody end to it, it don't take place in
my house.  Times is changed from the old days.
I 've seen when it was quite an advertisement to have
a bit of shooting in your house some night.  And if
there was n't enough holes made in the roof and
chairs broke, you could make some more damage
yourself; and the crowd would come in, and you 'd
point out where so-and-so was standing, and where
so-and-so was settin', and tell 'em how it happened,
and them listening and setting up the drinks all the
time.  It certainly was good for business, a little
shooting now and then, in the old days.  But times
is changed, and the sheriff we hev now is a very lively
man.  All the same, we ain't done with Lost Cabin
Mine yet—and that ain't no lie."





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.. _`Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled`:

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   CHAPTER III


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   *Mr. Laughlin's Prophecy is Fulfilled*

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A sense of exhilaration filled me, as
I strolled down town that evening,
which I can only ascribe to the rare
atmosphere of that part of the world.
It was certainly not due to any
improvement in my financial condition, nor to any hope
of "making my pile" speedily, and to "make a pile"
is the predominating thought in men's minds there,
with an intensity that is known in few other lands.
I was pondering the story of the Lost Cabin Mine as
I went, and in my own mind had come to the decision
that Apache Kid and his comrade knew the
whereabouts of that bonanza.  Canlan, I argued, if he
knew its locality at all, must have come by his news
before he fell in with his rivals on the waggon road,
for after that, according to the hotel-keeper's
narrative, he had had no speech with the dying man.

I was in the midst of these reflections when I turned
into Baker Street, the main street of Baker City.  There
was a wonderful bustle there; men were coming and
going on either sidewalk thick as bees in hiving time;
the golden air of evening was laden with the perfume
of cigars; indeed, the blue of the smoke never seemed
to fly clear of Baker Street on the evenings; and the
sound of the many phonographs that thrust their
trumpets out from all the stores on that thoroughfare,
added to the din of voices and laughter, rose above
the sounds of talk, to be precise, with a barbaric
medley of hoarse songs and throaty recitations.  So
much for the sidewalks.  In the middle of the street,
to cross which one had to wade knee-deep in sand,
pack-horses were constantly coming and going and
groaning teams arriving from the mountains.  To add
to the barbarous nature of the scene, now and again
an Indian would go by, not with feathered head-dress
as in former days, but with a gaudy kerchief bound
about his head, tinsel glittering here and there about
his half-savage, half-civilised garb, and a pennon of
dust following the quick patter of his pony's hoofs.
I walked the length of Baker Street and then turned,
walking back again with a numb pain suddenly in my
heart, for as I turned right about I saw the great, quiet
hills far off, and beyond them the ineffable blue of the
sky.  And there is something in me that makes me
always fall silent when amidst the din of men I see the
enduring, uncomplaining, undesiring hills.  So I went
back to the hotel again, and without passing through
the bar but going around the house, found the rear
verandah untenanted, with its half dozen vacant chairs,
and there I sat down to watch the twilight change the
hills.  But I had not been seated long when a small
set man, smelling very strongly of whisky, came out
with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and,
leaning against one of the verandah props, looked up at
the hills, spitting at regular intervals far out into the
sand and slowly ruminating a chew of tobacco.

"Canlan, for a certainty," I said to myself, when he,
looking toward the door from which he had emerged,
attracted by a sudden louder outbreak of voices and
rattling of chairs within, revealed to me a face very
sorely pock-marked, as was easily seen with the
lamplight streaming out on him from the bar.  On seeing
me he made some remark on the evening, came over
and sat down beside me, and asked me why I sat at
the back of the hotel instead of at the front.

"Because one can see the hills from here," said I.

He grunted and remarked that a man would do
better to sit at the front and see what was going on
in the town.  Then he rose and, walking to and fro,
flung remarks to me, in passing, regarding the doings
in the city and the mines and so forth, the local
gossip of the place.  He had just reverted to his first
theme of the absurdity of sitting at the rear of the
house when out came Apache Kid and Donoghue
and threw themselves into the chairs near me,
Donoghue taking the one beside me which Canlan
had just vacated.  If Canlan thought a man a fool for
choosing the rear instead of the front, he was
evidently, nevertheless, content to be a fool himself, for
after one or two peregrinations and expectorations
he drew a chair to the front of the verandah and
seated himself, half turned towards us, and began
amusing himself with tilting the chair to and fro like
a rocker.  The valley was all in shadow now, and as
we sat there in the silence the moon swam up in
the middle of one of the clefts of the mountains,
silhouetting for a brief space, ere it left them for the
open sky, the ragged edge of the tree-tops in the
highest forest.

Apache Kid muttered something, Donoghue
growled, "What say?"  And it surprised me somewhat
to hear the reply: "O!  I was only saying 'with
how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies.'  It's
lonesome-like, up there, Larry."

"Aye!  Lonesome!" replied Larry with a sigh.

A fifth man joined us then, and, hearing this,
remarked: "A man thinks powerful up there."

"That's no lie," Donoghue growled, and so the
conversation, if conversation you can call it, went on,
interspersed with long spaces of silence, broken only
by the gurgling of the newcomer's pipe and Canlan's
"spit, spit" which came quicker now.  Men are
prone in such times as these to sit and exchange
truisms instead of carrying on any manner of
conversation.  Yet to me, not long in the country, there
was a touch of mystery in even the truisms.

"I never seen a man who had spent much time in
the mountains that was just what you could call all
there in the upper story," said the man with the
juicy pipe.

"Nor I," said Donoghue.

"They 're all half crazy, them old prospectors,"
continued the first, "and tell you the queerest yarns
about things they 've seen in the mountains and
expect you to believe them.  You can see from the
way they talk that they believe 'em themselves.  But
I don't see why a man should lose his reason in the
hills.  If a man lets his brain go when he 's up there,
then he don't have any real enjoyment out of the
fortune he makes—if he happens to strike it."

The moon was drifted far upward now and all the
frontage of the hill was tipped with light green,
among the darker green, where the trees that soared
above their neighbours caught the light.  "And there
must be lots of fortunes lying there thick if one knew
where to find them," continued the talker of truisms.

"Where?" said Apache in a soft voice.

"In the mountains, in the mountains," was the reply.

"Why do you ask where?" said Donoghue
sharply.  "Do you think if this gentleman knew
where to find 'em he would be sitting here this
blessed night?"

I felt my heart take a quicker beat at that.
Knowing what I knew of three of these men here I began
to see what Mr. Laughlin meant by the "game" they
were playing.

"O, he might," said Canlan, now speaking for the
first time since Apache's arrival.

"That would be a crazy thing to do," said
Donoghue.  "That would—a crazy thing—to set here
instead of going and locating it."

"O, I don't know about *crazy*," said Mike.  "You
see, he might be waiting to see if anybody else
knew where it was."

The soft-footed Chinese attendant appeared
carrying a lamp which he hung up above our heads,
and in the light of it I saw the face of the man
whose name I did not know, and he seemed
mystified by the turn the conversation had taken.  I
was looking at him now, thinking to myself that I
too would have been mystified had I not been posted
in the matter that afternoon, and suddenly I heard
Donoghue say: "By God! he knows right enough,
Apache," and a gleam of light flashed in my eyes.
It was the barrel of a revolver, but not aimed at
me.  It was in Donoghue's hand, and pointed fairly
at Canlan's head.  With a sudden intake of my
breath in horror I flung out my hand and knocked
the barrel up.  There was a little shaft of flame, a
sharp crack and puff of bitter smoke, and next
moment a clatter of feet within and a knot of men
thronging and craning at the door, while the
window behind was darkened with others shouldering
there and pressing their faces against the glass.

"O you——" began Apache, and "What's this?"
cried Laughlin, coming out, no coward, as one might
imagine, but calm enough and yet angry as I
could see.

"What in thunder are you all rubber-necking at
the door there for?" cried Apache Kid, springing up.

"Was it you fired that gun?" challenged the landlord.

"No, not I," cried Apache so that all could hear.
"Not but what I was the cause of it, by betting my
partner here he could n't snap a bat on the wing
in the dusk.  I never thought he'd try it, but he's
as crazy——"

"I crazy!" cried out Donoghue; and to look at
him you would have thought him really infuriated
by the suggestion; but they knew how to play into
each other's hands.

All this time I sat motionless.  The stranger rose
and passed by, remarking: "This ain't my trouble,
I guess," and away indoors he went among the
throng, and I heard him cry out in reply to the
questions: "I don't know anything about it—saw
nothing—I was asleep—I don't even know who
fired."

"Haw!  Did n't even wake in time to see whose
pistol was smoking, eh?"

"No," cried he, "not even in time for that."

"Quite right, you," cried another.  But the
trouble was not yet quite over on the verandah, for
Laughlin, with his little eyes looking very fierce
and determined, remarked: "Well, gentlemen, I
can't be having any shooting of any kind in my
hotel.  Besides, you know there 's a law ag'in'
carrying weapons here."

"No there ain't!" cried Donoghue.  "It's concealed
weapons the law is against, and I carry my
gun plain for every man to see."

Canlan had sat all this while on his seat as calm
as you please, but suddenly the crowd at the door
opened out and somebody said: "Say, here 's the
sheriff, boys," and at these words two men sprang
from the verandah; the one was Donoghue, and
Canlan the other.  I saw them a moment running
helter-skelter in the sand, but when the sheriff
made his appearance they were gone.

The sheriff had to get as much of the story as he
could from the proprietor, who was very civil and
polite, but lied ferociously, saying he did not know
who the men were who had been on the verandah.

"I know you, anyhow," said the sheriff, turning on
Apache Kid.  "Allow me, sir," and walking up to
Apache Kid he drew his hand over his pockets and
felt him upon the hips.

Then I knew why Canlan, though entirely innocent
in this matter, had fled at the cry of "sheriff."  He, I
guessed, would not have come off so well as Apache
Kid in a search for weapons.

At this stage of the proceedings the Chinese
attendant passed me, quiet as is the wont of his race,
and brushed up against Apache Kid just as the
sheriff turned to ask Mr. Laughlin if he could not
describe the man who had fired the shot.  "I ain't
been out on the verandah not for a good hour,"
began the landlord, when Apache Kid broke in, "Well,
Sheriff, I can tell you the name of one of the men
who was here."

"O!" said the sheriff, "and what was his name?"

"Mike Canlan," said the Apache Kid, calmly.

"Yes," said the sheriff, looking on him with
narrowing eyes, "and the name of the other was Larry
Donoghue."

"Could n't very well be Larry," said Apache Kid.
"Larry was drunk to-night before sunset, and I
believe you 'll find him snoring in room number thirty
at this very moment."

The sheriff gazed on him a little space and I
noticed, on stealing a glance at Mr. Laughlin, that a
quick look of surprise passed over his colourless
face.

There was a ring as of respect in the sheriff's voice
when, after a long, eye-to-eye scrutiny of Apache Kid,
he said slowly: "You 're a deep man, Apache, but
you won't get me to play into your hands."

So saying he stepped over to me and for the first
time addressed me.  "As for you, my lad, I have n't
asked you any questions, because it's better that the
like of you don't get mixed up at all in these kind of
affairs, not even on the right side."  He laid his
hand on my shoulder in a fatherly fashion, "I 've had
my eye on you, as I have my eye on everybody, and
I know you 're an honest enough lad and doing your
best to get a start here.  I ain't even blaming you
for being in the middle of this, but you take the advice
of a man that has been sheriff in a dozen different
parts of the West, and when you see signs of trouble
just you go away and leave it.  Trouble with a gun
seldom springs up between a good man and a bad,
but most always between two bad men."

"Is that my character you are soliloquising on?"
said Apache Kid.  The sheriff turned on him and
his face hardened again.  "For Heaven's sake,
Apache," he said, "if you and Canlan both know
where the Lost Cabin is, why can't you have the grit
to start off?  If he follows you, well, you can fix him.
It'll save me a job later on."

"Well, for the sake of the argument," said Apache,
"but remember I 'm not saying I know, suppose
he followed up and shot me out of a bush some night?"

"I'd be mighty sorry," said the sheriff, "for I think
between the pair of you he 's a worse man for the
health of the country."

A boyish look came over Apache Kid's face that
made me think him younger than I had at first
considered him.  He looked pleased at the sheriff's words
and bowed in a way that betokened a knowledge of
usages other than those of Baker City.

"Thank you, Sheriff," he said.  "I 'll see what can
be done."

Off went the sheriff smartly then, without another
word, and Apache Kid turned to me.

"I 've got to thank you for preventing——" he
began, and then the Chinaman appeared beside us.
"Well, Chink?"

"Maybe that littee jobee woth half a dollah, eh?"

"Did Donoghue give you nothing for bringing the
message?"

"Oh, no," and a bland smile.  "Mishadonah think
you give me half a dollah."

"Well, it was certainly worth half a dollar; but
remember, if I find out that Donoghue gave you
anything,——"

"Oh yes," said the Chinaman, with a slight look of
perturbation, "Mishadonah he gave me half-dollah."

Apache Kid laughed.  "Well," he said, "you
don't hold up your bluff very long.  However, here
you are, here's half a dollar to you all the same—for
your truthfulness."

I experienced then a feeling of great disgust.
Here was this Chinaman lying and wheedling for
half a dollar; here just a few minutes gone I had seen
murder attempted—and for what?  All occasioned
again by that lust for gold.  And here beside me was
a man with a certain likableness about him (so that,
as I had observed, even the sheriff, who suspected
him, had a warm side to him) lying and humbugging
and deceiving.  I thought to myself that doubtless
his only objection to Larry Donoghue's attempt at
murder was because of the prominence of it in this
place and the difficulties that would have ensued in
proving Larry guiltless had the attempt been
consummated.  "This man," said I to myself, "for all that
likableness in his manner, the kindly sparkle of his
eyes, and the smile on his lips, is no better than the
hang-dog fellow he sought to shield—worse, indeed,
for he has the bearing of one who has had a training
of another order."  And then I saw Mrs. Laughlin's
red head and freckled face and lean, lissome form in
the doorway.  She was beckoning me to her, and
when I made haste to see what she wanted with me
she looked on me with much tenderness and said:
"You want to remember what the sheriff said to you,
my lad.  Take my advice and leave that fellow out
there alone for to-night.  He's a reckless lad and from
the way he is talking to you he seems to have taken
a fancy to you.  But you leave him alone.  He 's a
deep lad, is Apache Kid, and for all his taking way
he leads a life I 'm sure neither his mother would like
to see him in, nor your mother (if you have one)
would like to see you taking up.  There's some says
he's little better than the fellow he gets his name from.
I 'm sorry for you lads when I see you getting off the
trail."

So what with the words of the sheriff and this
well-meant talk and my own disgust at all these doings, I
made up my mind to keep clear of these three men
and not permit my curiosity regarding the Lost Cabin
Mine to lead me into their company again.  But
when I went up to my room, before going to bed, I
counted my remaining money and found that I had
but seven dollars to my name.  I thought to myself
then that the Lost Cabin Mine would be a mighty
convenient thing to find.  And in my dreams that
night I wandered up hill and down dale seeking for
the Lost Cabin and engaging in hand-to-hand
conflicts with all three of these men, Canlan, Donoghue,
and the Apache Kid.  It was on awakening from one
of these conflicts that I lay thinking over all that I
had heard of that mysterious Cabin and all that I had
seen of the three principally connected with it.
Revolving these thoughts in my mind, it occurred to me
that it was an unaccountable thing, if all three knew
the situation of the mine, that the two who were
"partners" should not simply start out for it and risk being
followed up and shadowed by Canlan.  They were
always two to one and could take watch and watch by
night lest Canlan should follow and attempt to slay
them from the bushes; for that, it would appear, was
the chief danger in the matter.

Canlan's dread of starting alone I could
understand.  Then suddenly I sat upright in bed with the
sudden belief that the truth of the matter was that
Canlan, and Canlan only, knew of the mine's situation.
"But that again can't be," said I, "for undoubtedly
Donoghue meant murder to-night and that would
be to kill the goose with the golden eggs."  I was no
nearer a solution of the mystery but I could not
dismiss the matter from my mind.  "I believe," said I
to myself, "that instead of having nothing to do with
this Lost Cabin Mine I will yet find out the truth of
it from these men.  Who knows but what I, even I,
may be the one for whom the mine with all its
treasure waits?"





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.. _`I Take My Life in My Hands`:

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   CHAPTER IV


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   *I Take My Life in My Hands*

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After breakfast on the day following
the incident of the verandah I was
journeying down town to post two
letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still
uppermost in my mind, when I came,
at the turning into Baker Street, face to face with the
man Donoghue.  It was clear that he saw me,—he
could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,—and
I wondered if now he would have a word to say
to me regarding the part I played on the preceding
evening.  Sure enough, he stopped; but there was
only friendliness on his face and the heaviness of
it and the sulkiness were hardly visible when he
smiled.

He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity,
and said that he had to thank me for preventing
what he called "an accident last night."

I smiled at the word, for he spoke it so easily, as
though the whole thing were a mere bagatelle to
him.  "It was right stupid of me," he said.  "But
Laughlin keeps such bad liquor!  Canlan, too, had
had too much of it, or he would never have tried
to irritate me with his remark."  I was trying to
recollect the exact words of that remark which
Donoghue classified as "irritating" when he
interrupted my thoughts with: "The Apache Kid and
me has quit the Laughlin House."

"Yes, I did n't see you at breakfast there," said I.

"Was Canlan there?" he asked eagerly.

"Not while I was breakfasting, at any rate," I
replied.

He nursed his chin in his hand at that and stood
pondering something.  Then: "Quite so, quite so,"
he commented as though to himself.  Then to me:
"By the way, would you be so kind as to come
down this evening to Blaine's?  The Apache Kid
asked me to try and see you and ask you if you
would be good enough to come down."

"Blaine's?" I asked.  "Where is Blaine's?"

"Blaine, Blaine, Lincoln Avenue; near the corner
of Twenty-second Street."

It amazed me to hear of a Twenty-second Street in
this city that boasted only one long street (Baker
Street) and six streets running off it.  But of course,
a street is a street in a new city even though it can
boast only of a house at either corner and has nothing
between these corner houses but tree-stumps, or sand,
or sage-bushes, and little boards thrust into the ground
announcing: "This is a sure-thing lot.  Its day will
come very soon.  See about it when it can be bought
cheap from ——, Real Estate Agent, office open day
and night."

But Donoghue, seeing that I did not know the
streets of the city by name, directed me:

"You go right along Baker Street,—you know it,
of course, the main street of this progressive
burgh?—straight ahead west; turn down third on the right;
look up at the store front there and you read
'H.B. Blaine.  Makes you think o' Home and Mother.'  It's
a coffee-joint, you see.  There 's a coffee urn in
the window and two plates, one with crackers on it
and t' other with doughnuts.  You walk right in and
ask for the Apache Kid—straight goods—no josh."  He
stopped to give emphasis to the rest and after
that pause he said in a meaning tone:
"And—you—will—hear—o' something to your advantage."

He nodded sedately and, without giving me time to
say anything in reply, moved off.  You may be sure
I pondered this invitation as I went along roaring
Baker Street to the post-office.  And I was indeed in
two minds about it, uncertain whether to call in at
Blaine's or not.  Both the sheriff and Mrs. Laughlin
had cautioned me against these men, and I had,
besides, seen enough of them to know myself that they
were not just all that could be desired.  The word the
sheriff had used regarding Apache Kid's nature,
"deep," came into my mind, along with reflections
on all his prevarications of the previous day.  It
occurred to me that it would be quite in keeping with
him to pretend gratefulness to me, at the moment, for
my interference, and to post up Donoghue to do the
same, with the intention in his mind all the while of
"getting me in a quiet corner," as the phrase is.  I
think I may be excused this judgment considering all
the duplicity I had already seen him practise.  A
story that I had heard somewhere of a trap-door in a
floor which opened and precipitated whoever stood
upon it down into a hole among rats came into my
head.  Perhaps H. B. Blaine had such a trap-door in
his floor.  One could believe anything of half the
men one saw here, with their blood-shot eyes, straggling
hair, and cruel mouths.  Still, I had felt real
friendliness, no counterfeit, in both Apache Kid last
night and Donoghue to-day.

A wave of disgust at my cowardice and suspicion
came over me to aid me toward the decision that
my curiosity was already crying for and so, when the
day wore near an end, I set forth—for Blaine's, the
"coffee-joint."

When I got the length of Baker Street I was to see
another sight such as only the West could show.  The
phonographs, as usual, it being now evening, were all
grumbling forth their rival songs at the stalls and
open windows.  The wonted din was in the air when
suddenly an eddy began in the crowd on the opposite
sidewalk.  It was in front of one of the "toughest"
saloons in town, and out of that eddy darted a man,
hatless, and broke away pell-mell along the street.
Next moment the saloon door swung again, and after
him there went running another fellow, with a
tomahawk in his hand, his hair flying behind him as he ran,
his legs straddled wide to prevent him tripping up on
his great spurs.  Where the third party in this scene
sprang from I cannot tell.  I only know that he
suddenly appeared on the street, habited in a blue
serge suit, with a Stars-and-Stripes kerchief round his
slouch hat in place of a band, and a silver star on his
breast.  It was my friend the portly, fatherly, stern
sheriff.

"Stop, you!" he cried.

But he with the tomahawk paid no heed, and out
shot the sheriff's leg and tripped the man up.  The
tomahawk flew from his hand and buried itself almost
to the end of the handle in the dust of the road.

"Stop, you!" cried the sheriff again to the other
fellow, who was still posting on.  But the fugitive
gave only a quick glance over his shoulder and
accelerated his speed.  It looked as though he would
escape, when down flew the sheriff's hand to his belt,
then up above his head.  He thrust out his chin
vindictively, down came his revolver hand in a
half-circle and—it was just as though he pointed at the
flying man with his weapon—"flash!"  The man
took one step more, but not a second.  His leg was
shot, and he fell.  A waggon had stopped on the
roadway, the teamster looking on, and him the sheriff
immediately pressed into service.  The man of the
tomahawk rose, and, at a word from the man of
law-and-order, climbed into the waggon; he of the shot
leg was assisted to follow; the sheriff mounted beside
them, and with a brief word to the teamster away
went the waggon in a cloud of dust, and whirled round
the corner to the court-house.  And then the crowd
in the street moved on as usual, the talk buzzed, the
cigar smoke crept overhead.

"Would n't that jar you?" said a voice in my ear,
and turning I found Donoghue by my side.  "Just
toddling down to Blaine's?"

"Yes," I said, and fell in step with him.

Certainly this little incident I had witnessed on the
way reassured me to the extent of making me think
that if I was to be shot in the "coffee-joint," there
was a lively sheriff in the town, and unless my demise
was kept unconscionably quiet he would be by the
way of making inquiries.

With no trepidation at all, then, on reading the
sign "H. B. Blaine.  Makes you think of Home and
Mother," I followed Donoghue into the sweet-scented
"joint" with the gleaming coffee urn in the window.

He nodded to the gentleman who stood behind
the doughnut-heaped counter—H. B. Blaine, I
presumed—who jerked his head towards the rear of the
establishment.

"Step right in, Mr. Donoghue," he said.  "Apache
Kid is settin' there."





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.. _`I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense`:

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   CHAPTER V


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   *I Agree to "Keep the Peace" in a New Sense*

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It was at once evident that I was not to
be murdered in H. B. Blaine's place,
and also evident that I had been invited
to meet Apache Kid to hear some
matter that was not for all to hear; for
immediately on our entering the little rear room he
flung aside a paper he had been reading and leaped
to his feet to meet us.  He put a hand on Donoghue's
shoulder and the other he extended to me.

"We'll not talk here," he said.  "Walls have
ears:" and so we all turned about and marched out
again.

"Going out for a strowl?" asked Blaine.

"Yes," said Apache.  "Fine night for a strowl."  And
we found ourselves on the street down which we
turned and walked in silence.

Suddenly Apache Kid slowed down and swore to himself.

"I should n't have said that!" he remarked angrily.

"Said what?" Donoghue interrogated.

"O! mocked Blaine like that—said we were going
for a strowl."

"What do you mean?" asked Donoghue, whose
ear did not seem very acute.

Apache looked at him with a relieved expression.

"Well, that's hopeful," he said.  "Perhaps Blaine
would n't catch it either.  Still, still, I should n't have
mocked him.  You noticed, I bet?" he said to me.

"Strowl?" I inquired.

He sighed.

"There 's no sense in trying to make fun of anything
in a man's clothes or talk or manner.  Besides,
it's excessively vulgar, excessively vulgar."

"Here 's an interesting 'bad man,'" I mused; but
there was no more said till we won clear of the town,
quite beyond the last sidewalks that stretched and
criss-crossed among the rocks and sand, marking out
the prospective streets.  There, on a little rising
place of sand and rocks, we sat down.

It was a desolate spot.  A gentle wind was blowing
among the dunes and the sand was all moving, trickling
down here and piling up there.  Being near
sunset the cicadi had disappeared and the evening light
falling wan on the occasional tufts of sage-brush gave
them a peculiar air of desolation.  Donoghue pulled
out a clasp-knife and sat progging in the sand with it,
and then Apache Kid jerked up his head and smiled
on me, a smile entirely friendly.  And suddenly as he
looked at me his face became grave.

"Have you had supper yet?" he asked.

"No," I said.  "It's early yet."

He looked at me keenly and then: "You 'll excuse
me remarking on your appearance, but you look
extraordinarily tired."

"Oh," said I, lightly, "I have not been feeling just
up to the scratch and—well, I thought I 'd try the
fasting cure."

He hummed to himself and dived a hand into his
trousers pocket and held out a five-dollar bill under
my nose.

"There," he said, "go and eat and don't lie any
more.  I 've been there myself—when I was new to
the country and could n't get into its ways."

There was something of such intense warm-heartedness
behind the peremptory tones (while
Donoghue turned his face aside, running the sand
between his fingers and looking foolishly at it) that
to tell you the truth, I found the tears in my eyes
before I was aware.  But this sign of weakness Apache
Kid made pretence not to observe.

"We 'll wait here for you till you get fed," said he,
examining the back of his hand.

"No, no," I answered hastily, "I had rather hear
what you have to say just now."  Thank him for his
kindness I could not, for I felt that thanks would
but embarrass him.  "To tell you the truth, the
mere knowledge that I need not go to bed hungry is
sufficient."

"Well," said he, looking up when my voice rang
firm.  "The fact is, I am going to offer you a job;
but it is a job you might not care to take unless you
were hard pressed; so you will please consider that
a loan, not a first instalment, and the fact of settling
it must not influence."

This was very fairly spoken and I felt that I should
say something handsome, but he gave me no
opportunity, continuing at once: "Donoghue here and I
are wanting a partner on an expedition that we are
going on.  We 're very old friends, we two, but for
quite a little while back we had both been meditating
going on this expedition separately.  Fact is, we are
such very old friends and know each other's weaknesses
so well that, though we both had the idea of
the expedition in our heads, we did n't care about
going together."

All this he spoke as much to Donoghue as to me,
with a bantering air; and one thing at least I learned
from this—the reason why these two had not done
as Laughlin thought the natural thing for them to do,
namely, to go out together, heedless of Canlan.  For
I had no doubt whatever that the expedition was to
the Lost Cabin Mine.  That was as clear as the sun.
Further observation of their natures, if further
observation I was to have, might explain their long
reluctance to "go partners" on the venture, a reluctance
now evidently overcome.

"Get to your job," growled Donoghue, "and quit palaver."

It was evident that Apache Kid was determined
not to permit himself to be irritated, for he only
smiled on Donoghue's snarl and turned to me: "My
friend Donoghue and I," said he, "it is necessary to
explain, are such very old friends that we can
cordially hate each other."

"At times," interjected Donoghue.

"Yes; upon occasion," said Apache Kid.  "To
you, new to this country, such a state of things
between friends may be scarcely comprehensible,
but——" and Apache Kid stopped.

"It's them mountains that does it," said Donoghue,
with a heavy frown.

"Them mountains, as Donoghue says; that's it.
It's queer how the mountains, when you get among
them, seem to creep in all round you and lock you up.
It does n't take long among them with a man to know
whether you and he belong to the same order and
breed.  There are men who can never sleep under
the same blanket; yes, never sleep on the same
side of the fire; never, after two days in the hills,
ride side by side, but must get space between them."

His eyes were looking past me on things invisible
to me, looking in imagination, I suppose, on his own
past from which he spoke.

"And if you don't like your partner, you know it
then," Donoghue said.  "You go riding along and if
he speaks to you, you want him to shut it.  And if he
don't speak, you ask him what in thunder he's
broodin' about.  And you look for him to fire up at
you then, and if he don't, you feel worse than ever and
go along with just a little hell burning against him in
here," and he tapped his chest.  "You could turn on
him and eat him; yes siree, kill him with your teeth
in his neck."

"This is called the return to Nature," said Apache
Kid, calmly.

"Return to hell!" cried Donoghue, and Apache
Kid inclined his head in acquiescence.  He seemed
content to let Donoghue now do the talking.

"Apache and me has come to an agreement, as
he says, to go out on the trail, and though we 've
chummed together a heap——"

"In the manner of wolves," said Apache, with a
half sneer.

"Yes," said Donoghue, "a good bit like that, too.
Well, but on this trail we can't go alone.  It's too
all-fired far and too all-fired lonely."

His gaze wandered to the mountains behind the
town and Apache took up the discourse.

"You see the idea?  We want a companion to
help us to keep the peace.  Foolish—eh?  Well, I
don't blame you if you don't quite understand.
You 're new here.  You 've never been in the
mountains, day in day out, with a man whose soul an
altogether different god or devil made; with a man that
you fervently hope, if there's any waking up after the
last kick here, you won't find in your happy
hunting-ground beyond.  You won't have to come in between
and hold us apart, you know.  The mere presence of
a third party is enough."

He looked on me keenly a space and added:

"Somehow I think that you will do more than keep
off the bickering spirit.  I think you 'll establish
amicable relations."

It was curious to observe how the illiterate
Donoghue took his partner's speech so much for granted.

"What's amicable?" he said.

"Friendly," said Apache Kid.

"Amicable, friendly," said Donoghue, thoughtfully.
"Good word, amicable."

"The trip would be worth a couple of hundred
dollars to you," said Apache, with his eyes on mine.
"And if we happened to be out over two months, at
the rate of a hundred a month for the time beyond."

"Well, that's straight enough talk, I guess," said
Donoghue.  "Is the deal on?"

My financial condition itself was such as to
preclude any doubt.  Had I been told plainly that it
was to the Lost Cabin Mine we were going and been
offered a share in it I would, remembering Apache
Kid and Donoghue of the verandah, as I may put it,
in distinction from Apache Kid and Donoghue of
to-night—well, I would have feared that some heated
sudden turn of mind of one or the other or both of
these men might prevent me coming into my own.
Donoghue especially had a fearsome face to see.
But there was no such suggestion.  I was offered
two hundred dollars and, now that the night fell and
the silence deepened and the long range of hills
gloomed on us, I thought I could understand that the
presence of a third man might be well worth two
hundred dollars to two men of very alien natures
among the silence and the loneliness that would
throw them together closely whether they would or not.

"The deal is on," I said.

We shook hands solemnly then and Donoghue
looked toward Apache Kid as though all the
programme was not yet completed.  Apache Kid
nodded and produced a roll of bills.  The light was
waning and he held them close to him as he withdrew
one.

"That'll make us square again," he said, handing
me the roll.  "I 've kept off a five; so now we 're
not obliged to each other for anything."

And then, as though to seal the compact and bear
in upon me a thought of the expedition we were going
upon, the sun disappeared behind the western hills
and from somewhere out there, in the shadows and
deeper shadows of the strange piled landscape, came
a long, faint sound, half bay, half moan.  It was the
dusk cry of the mountain coyotes; and either the
echo of it or another cry came down from the hills
beyond the city, only the hum of which we heard
there.  And when that melancholy cry, or echo, had
ended, a cold wind shuddered across the land; all that
loneliness, that by day seemed to lure one ever with
its sunlit peaks and its blue, meditative hollows,
seemed now a place of terrors and strange occurrences;
but the lure was still there, only a different
lure,—a lure of terror and darkness instead of
romance and sunlight.





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.. _`Farewell to Baker City`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI


.. class:: center medium bold

   *Farewell to Baker City*

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We all came to our feet then, Apache
Kid carefully flicking the sand from
his clothing.

"Now," he said, "that settles us.
We 're quits."  And we all walked
slowly and silently back in company toward the city.
When we came to Blaine's "coffee-joint" Apache
Kid stopped, and told me he would see me later in
the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about
the starting out on our venture.  Donoghue wanted
him to go on with him, but Apache Kid said he
must see Blaine again before leaving the city.

"I desire to leave a good impression of myself
behind me," he said with a laugh.  "I should like
Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when that
occurs, and as things stand I don't think he 'd care,
to use the language of the country, a continental
cuss."

So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered
Blaine's.

At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped.

"I 'll be seeing you two days from now," he said.

"Do we not start for two days then?" I asked.

"O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make
all the arrangements about pulling out.  So-long, just
now."

So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from
poverty on the very day that I had the first taste of
it, I felt very much contented and cheered, and it was
with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out,
after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road
as far as the foothill woods and back, breathing deep
of the thin air of night and rejoicing in the starlight.

When I returned to the hotel there was a considerable
company upon the rear verandah, as I could see
from quite a distance—dim, shadowy forms sprawled
in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open
door behind shining out on the blue night, and over
them was the lamp that always hung there in the
evenings, where the parrot's cage hung by day.

When I came on to the verandah I picked out
Apache Kid at once.

A man who evidently did not know him was saying:

"What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging
away down your neck that way?"

There were one or two laughs of other men, who
thought they were about to see a man quietly baited.
But Apache Kid was not the man to stand much
baiting, even of a mild stamp.

I think few of the men there, however, understood
the nature that prompted him when he turned slowly
in his chair and said:

"Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons."

"Oh!  What's them?"

"Well, the first reason is personal—I like to wear it."

There was a grin still on the face of the questioner.
He found nothing particularly crushing in this reply,
but Apache went on softly: "Then again, I wear it
so as to aid me in the study of the character of the
men I meet."

"O!  How do you work that miracle?"

"Well, when I meet a man who does n't seem to
see anything strange in my wearing of the kerchief I
know he has travelled a bit and seen the like
elsewhere in our democratic America.  Other men look
at it and I can see they think it odd, but they say
nothing.  Well, that is a sign to me that they have
not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this
way, but I know that they are gentlemen all the same."

There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in
his voice and I saw the faces of the men on the
outside of the crowd turn to observe the speaker.  I
thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling
looked a trifle perturbed, but Apache was not looking
at him.  He lay back in his chair, gazing before
him with a calm face.  "Then again," he said leisurely,
as though he had the whole night to himself, "if I
meet a man who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know
that he is the sort of man about whom people say
here,—in the language of the country,—'Don't
worry about him; he 's a hog from Ontario and
never been out of the bush before!'"

There was a strained silence after these words.
Some of the more self-reliant men broke it with a
laugh.  The most were silent.

"I'm a hog—eh?  You call me a hog?" cried
the man, after looking on the faces of those who sat
around.  I think he would have swallowed Apache
Kid's speech without a word of reply had it not been
spoken before so large an audience.

"I did not say so," said Apache Kid, "but if I
were you, I would n't make things worse by getting
nasty.  I tried to josh a man myself this afternoon,
and do you know what I did?  I called in on him
to-night to see whether he had savveyed that I had
been trying to josh him.  I found out that he had
savveyed, and do you know what I did?  I apologised
to him——"

"D' ye think I 'm going to apologise for askin' you
that question?"

"You interrupt me," said Apache Kid.  "I apologised
to him, I was going to say, like a man.  As to
whether I think you are going to apologise or not—no."

He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head
to toe and back again.

"No," he repeated decidedly.  "I should be very
much surprised if you did."

"By Moses!" cried the man.  "You take the
thing very seriously.  I only asked you——" and
his voice grumbled off into incoherence.

"Yes," said Apache Kid.  "I have a name for
being very serious.  Perhaps I did answer your
question at too great length, however."

He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and
broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he
looked at him, that every one else followed suit;
and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and
went indoors.

I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over to me.

"Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at
noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?" he asked
quietly.

"Certainly," said I.  "We don't start from here,
then?"

"No.  That's to say, we don't leave the haunts of
men here.  It is better not, for our purpose.  Have
you seen Canlan to-night?"

I told him no, but that I had been out for my
evening constitutional and not near the city.

"He does n't seem to be at this hotel to-night.  I
must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if
he's in town.  If I see him anywhere around town, I
may not come back here to-night.  If I don't see
him, I 'll look in here later in the hope of rubbing
against him.  So if you don't see me again to-night,
you 'll understand.  To-morrow at noon, the Kettle
River Gap stage."

But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an appearance
all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere
my friend had "rubbed against" Canlan.

I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had,
somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker
City, after all, despitefully though it had used me.

"You should stay on a bit yet," said Mrs. Laughlin,
when I told her I was going.  "You can't expect just
to fall into a good job right away on striking a new
town."

"I should never have come here," I explained,
"had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman
who was once in the city.  The fact is, my people at
home did not like the thought of me going out on
speck, and the only man in the country I knew was
in Baker City.  But he had moved on before I
arrived."

"And where do you think of going now?" she asked.

I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered
truthfully:

"Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country.
Mining never took my fancy.  I believe there
are some ranches on the Kettle River."

"Oh, a terrible life!" she cried out.  "They 're a
tough lot, them Kettle River boys.  They 're mostly
all fellows that have been cattle-punching and
horse-wrangling all their lives.  They come from other
parts where the country is getting filled up with
grangers and sheepmen.  I reckon it's because they
feel kind o' angry at their job in life being kind o'
took from them by the granger and the sheepmen
that they 're so tough.  Oh! they 're a tough lot; and
they 've got to be, to hold their own.  Why, only the
other day there a flock o' sheep came along on the
range across the Kettle.  There was three shepherds
with them, and a couple of Colonel Ney's boys out
and held them up.  The sheep-herders shot one, and
the other went home for the other boys, all running
blood from another shot, and back they went, and
laid out them three shepherds—just laid them out,
my boy (d'ye hear?)—and ran the whole flock o'
sheep over into a cañon one atop the other.  Ney
and the rest only wants men that can look after their
rights that way——"

How long she might have continued, kindly enough,
to seek to dissuade me, I do not know.  But I was
forced to interrupt her and remind her I should lose
the stage.

"Yes," she said, "I might just have kept my mouth
shut and saved my breath.  You lads is all the same.
But mind what I say," she cried after me, "you
should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job.
You 're just going away to 'get it in the neck.'  Maybe
you 'll come back here again, sick and sorry.
But seein' you 're going, God bless you, my lad!"
and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist,
and a soft, tender light on her lean, freckled face.

"So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you," said
her better half.  "If you strike into Baker City
again—don't forget the Laughlin House."

I was already in the street, half turning to hear
their parting words, and with a final wave I
departed, and (between you and me) there was a lump
in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House
was not such a bad sort of place at all to tarry in.

In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache
Kid advancing toward me, but he frowned to me
and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to
remove his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger
on his lip, and as he passed me, looking on the
ground and walking slowly, he said: "You go
aboard the stage yourself and go on."

There was no time to say more in passing, and I
wondered what might be the meaning of this.  But
when I came to where the stage-coach stood, there
was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were
watching it preparing for the road.  He saw me
when I climbed aboard, and, stepping forward, held
out his hand.  "Hullo, kid," he said, "pulling
out?"

"Yes," said I.

"Goin' to pastures green?"

I nodded.

"Well, I want to thank you.  I bin keepin' my eyes
open for you since that night.  I want to thank you
for that service you done me.  Any time you want
a——" but I did not catch his last words.  The
driver had mounted the box, gathered up the
"ribbons," sprung back the brake, and with a sudden
leap forward we were off in a whirl of dust.  I
nodded my head vigorously to Canlan, glad enough
to see that he was only anxious to be friendly and
to thank me for the service I had rendered him
instead of embarrassing me with questions as to my
destination.

Away we went along Baker Street and shot out
of the town, and there, just at the turning of the
road, was Apache Kid by the roadside, and he
stood aside to let the horses pass.  The driver
looked over his shoulder to make sure that he got
on safely, but there was no need to stop the horses,
for with a quick snatch Apache Kid leapt aboard
and sat down, hot, and breathing a little short,
beside me.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Man with the Red Head`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *The Man with the Red Head*

.. vspace:: 2

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Of two incidents that befell on the
journey to Camp Kettle, I must tell
you; of the first because it showed
me Apache Kid's bravery and calm;
and that the first of these two noteworthy
incidents befell at the "Rest Hotel" where
we had "twenty minutes for supper" while the
monster head-lamps were lit for the night journey;
for between Baker City and Camp Kettle there was
one "all-night division," as it was called.

Apache Kid, after getting into the stage, sat silent for
a much longer time than it took him to regain his wind.
The high speed of travel with which we started was
not kept up all the way, needless to say, such bursts
being spectacular affairs for departures and arrivals.
But with our six horses we nevertheless made good
travel.

Occasional trivialities of talk were exchanged
between the travellers—there were three others besides
ourselves—and Apache Kid gave no indication by his
manner that he and I were in any way specially
connected.  It was amusing indeed how he acted the
part of one making friendly advances to me as though
to a mere fellow-voyager, including me in his
comments on the road, the weather, the coyotes that
stood watching us passing with bared teeth and ugly
grin.  Later, when one of the others fell asleep and the
remaining two struck up a conversation, he remarked:

"Well, that was a hot run I had.  Whenever I
turned the far corner of Baker Street I took to my
heels, doubled back behind the block, and sprinted
the whole length of the town.  I had to tell another
lie, however, for I saw Canlan in Baker Street, just
when I was thinking of getting aboard the stage.
The driver was in having a drink before starting and,
so as to prevent him raising questions about my
blanket-roll lying in the stage and me not being
there, I told him I had forgotten something at this
end of the town and that I would run along and get
the business done, and he could pick me up in
passing.  Lucky he did n't come out then or he would
have wondered at the direction I took.  You had n't
turned up, you see, and I knew I must let you know
that it was all right."

He paused and added: "But from to-day, no more
lying.  I don't want when I come into this kingdom
of mine to feel that I've got it at the expense of
a hundred cowardly prevarications."

He sat considering a little while.

"If Canlan should by any chance get wind of our
departure and follow up——" he began, and then
closed his teeth sharply.

"What then?" I asked.

"He 'd be a dead man," said he, "and a good
riddance to the world."

"I 'd think murder worse than lying," said I.

"Tut, tut!" said he.  "You look at this from a
prejudiced standpoint.  Donoghue and I are going
out to a certain goal.  We 've arranged to win
something for ourselves.  Well, we 're not going to win
it with humbugging and lying.  Where speech would
spoil—we 'll be silent; otherwise we 're going to
walk up like men and claim what's coming to us,
to use the phrase of the country.  Heavens!  When
I think of what I 've seen, and been, and done, and
then think of all this crawling way of going about
anything—it makes me tired, to use the——" and
he muttered the rest as though by force of habit but
knowing it quite unnecessary to say.

There was nothing startling on our journey till the
incident befell which I promised to tell you.  It was
when we came to the Rest House, a two-storey frame
house, with a planking built up in front of it two
storeys higher, with windows painted thereon in black
on a white background, making it look, from the
road, like a four-storey building.

When we dismounted there one of the men on the
coach said to the proprietor, who had come out to
the door: "What's the colour of your hash slinger?
Still got that Chink?"

"I 've still got the Chinaman waiter, sir," replied
the proprietor, in a loud, determined voice, "and if
you don't like to have him serve you—well you
can——"

"I intend to," said the man, a big, red-faced,
perspiring fellow with bloodshot eyes.  "I intend to.
I 'll do the other thing, as you were about to say;"
and he remained seated in the coach, turning his
broad back on the owner of the Rest Hotel.

"I won't eat here, either," said Apache Kid to me,
"not so much from desiring in Rome to do as the
Romans do, as because I likewise object to the Chink,
as he is called.  You see, he works for what not even
a white woman of the most saving kind could live
upon.  But there is such a peculiarly fine cocktail to
be had in this place that I cannot deny myself it.
Come," and we passed wide around the heels of four
restive cow ponies that were hitched at the door,
with lariats on their saddle-pommels and Winchester
rifles in the side-buckets.

"Some cowboys in here," said Apache Kid, "up
from Ney's place likely, after strayed stock," and he
led the way to the bar, and seemed rather aggrieved
for a moment that I drew the line at cocktails.

When we entered the bar-room I noticed a man
who turned to look at us remain gazing, not looking
away as did the others.  Instead, he bored Apache
Kid with a pair of very keen grey eyes.

Apache evidently was known to the barman, who
chatted to him easily while concocting the drink of
which I had heard such a good account, and both
seemed oblivious to the other occupants of the room.
A flutter of air made me look round to the door again.
Apache Kid had said no word of Donoghue, but I
remembered Donoghue's remark as to seeing me later,
in a day or two, and half expected him to appear here.
But the door was not opening to a newcomer.
Instead, the man who had cast so keen a look on my
friend was going out, and as he went he glanced
backwards toward Apache Kid again.

I stepped up to Apache Kid and said: "I don't
like the manner of that man who went out just now.
I'm sure he means mischief of some kind.  He gave
you a mighty queer look."

"What was he like?" Apache asked, and I
described him, but apparently without waking any
memory or recognition in Apache's mind.

"Who was that who went out?" he asked, turning
to the barman.

"Did n't observe, sir," was the reply.

"O!  Thought I knew his——" Apache Kid began,
and then said suddenly, as though annoyed at himself:
"No, I 'm damned if I did—did n't think anything
of the kind.  Did n't even see him."

The barman smiled, and as Apache Kid moved
along the counter away from us to scrutinise an
announcement posted on the wall, said quietly: "He
don't look as if he hed bin drinkin' too much.
Strange how it affects different men; some in the
face, some in the legs.  Some keep quite fresh
looking, but when they talk they just talk no manner of
sense at all."

I could have explained what was "wrong" with
Apache Kid, but it was not necessary.  Instead, I
stepped back and took my seat with what the
barman called, with a slight sneer, my "soft drink."

Apache Kid turned about and leant upon the
counter.  He sipped his cocktail with evident
relish, and suddenly the door flew open.  Those in
the room were astonished, for the newcomer had
in his grasp one of those heavy revolvers,—a
Colt,—and he was three paces into the room and
had his weapon levelled on Apache Kid before we
had recovered from our surprise.

"Well!" he cried, "I have you now!" and behind
him in the doorway, the door being slightly ajar, I
caught a glimpse of the man who had gone out so
surreptitiously a few moments before.

Apache Kid's eyes were bright, but there seemed
no fear on his face; I could see none.

"You have me now," he said quietly.

The man behind the gun, a tall fellow with
close-cropped red hair, lowered his revolver hand.

"I 've waited a while for this," he said.

"Yes," said Apache Kid.  "To me it is
incomprehensible that a man's memory should serve so
long; but you have the drop on me."  Here came
a smile on his lips, and I had a suspicion that it
was a forced smile; but to smile at all in such a pass
I thought wonderful.  "You have the drop on me,
Jake,—in the language of the country."

The man Jake lowered his hand wholly then.

"You can come away with that old gag of yourn
about the language o' the country, and you right up
against it like this?  No, Apache Kid, I can't—say!"
he broke off, "are you heeled?"

And I thought to myself: "In the language of the
country that means, 'are you armed?'"

"I am not," said Apache, lightly.

The red-headed man—he looked like a cattleman,
for he wore skin leggings over his trousers and spurs
to his high-heeled boots—sent his revolver down
with a jerk into the holster at his hip.

"I can't do it," he said.  "You 're too gritty a
man for me to put out that way."

There was a quick jingle of his spurs, and he was
gone.

A long sigh filled the room.

"A gritty man, right enough," said one man near
by.  "A pair of gritty men, I 'm thinking."

Apache Kid drained his glass, and I heard him say
to the barman:

"Well, he 's no coward.  A coward would have
shot whenever he stepped in at the door, and given
me no chance.  And even if he had n't done that,"
he continued, arguing the thing aloud, in a way I
had already recognised as natural to him, as though
he must scrutinise and diagnose everything, "even
if he had made up his mind to let me off, he would
have backed out behind his gun for fear of me.  No,
he 's not a coward."

"But you told him you were n't heeled," said the
barman.

"Oh!  But I might have been lying," said Apache
Kid, and frowned.

"He was n't lying, I bet," said the man near me.
"A cool man like that there don't lie.  It's beneath
him to lie."

But Apache Kid did not seem to relish the gaze
of the room, and turned his back on it and on me,
leaning his elbows on the bar again and engaging in
talk with the barman, who stood more erect now, I
thought, and held his head higher, with the air of a
man receiving some high honour.

And just then, "All aboard!" we heard the
stage-driver intone at the door.

When we came forth again there were only two
horses before the hotel.

"The red-headed man and his friend are gone,"
thought I, as I climbed to my place, and away we
lumbered through the night, the great headlights
throwing their radiance forward on the road in
overlapping cones that sped before us, the
darkness chasing us up behind.





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.. _`What Befell at the Half-Way House`:

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   CHAPTER VIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *What Befell at the Half-Way House*

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Of the second incident that befell on the
journey to Camp Kettle I must tell
you because it had a far-reaching effect
and a good deal more to do with our
expedition than could possibly have
been foretold at the time.

Of the incident at the Rest House, which I have
just narrated, Apache Kid said nothing, and as
curiosity is not one of my failings (many others
though I have), to question I never dreamt; and
besides, in the West, even the inquisitive learn to
listen without inquiring, and he evidently had no
intention of explaining.  But when, at last, after a
very long silence during which our three
fellow-travellers looked at him in the dusk of the coach
(whose only light was that reflected from the lamp-lit
road) with interest, and admiration, I believe, he said
in a low voice which I alone could hear, owing to the
creaking and screaming of the battered vehicle: "I
think you and I had better be strangers; only
fellow-travellers thrown together by chance, not
fellow-plotters journeying together with design."

"I understand," said I, and this resolution we
accordingly carried out.

After a night and a day's journey, with only short
stops for watering and "snatch meals," we were
hungry and sleepily happy and tired when we came
to the "Half-Way-to-Kettle Hotel" standing up
white-painted and sun-blistered in the midst of the
sand and sage-brush; and I, for my part, paid little
heed to the hangers-on who watched our arrival,
several of whom stretched hands simultaneously for
the honour of catching the reins which the driver
flung aside in his long-practised, aggressive
manner—a manner without which he had seemed something
less than a real stage-driver.

I noticed that Apache Kid had taken his belt and
revolver from his blanket-roll and now, indeed, was
"heeled" for all men to see, for it was a heavy Colt
he used.

Indoors were tables set, in a room at one side of
the entrance, with clean, white table-cloths and a
young woman waiting to attend our wants after we
had washed the dust of the way from our faces and
hands and brushed the grit from our clothes with a
horse brush which hung in the cool though narrow
hall-way.

Apache Kid sat at one table, I at another, two of
our fellow-voyagers at a third.  The remaining
traveller announced to the bearded proprietor who
stood at the door, in tones of something very like
pride, that he wanted no supper except half a pound
of cheese, a bottle of pickles, and a medium bottle of
whisky.

This request, to my surprise, was received without
the slightest show of astonishment; indeed, it seemed
to mark the speaker out for something of a great
man in the eyes of the proprietor who, with a "Very
good, sir—step into the bar-room, sir," ushered the
red-eyed man into the chamber to right, a dim-lit
place in which I caught the sheen of glasses with
their pale reflection in the dark-stained tables on
which they stood.

In the dining-room I found my eyes following the
movements of the young woman who attended there.
A broad-shouldered lass she was, and the first thing
about her that caught me, that made me look upon
her with something of contentment after our dusty
travel, was, I think, her clean freshness.  She wore a
white blouse, or, I believe, to name that article of
apparel rightly, with the name she would have used,
a "shirt-waist."  It fitted close at her wrists which I
noticed had a strong and gladsome curve.  The
dress she wore was of dark blue serge.  She was
what we men call "spick and span" and open-eyed
and honest, with her exuberant hair tidily brushed
back and lying in the nape of her neck softly, with a
golden glint among the dark lustre of it as she passed
the side window through which the golden evening
sunlight streamed.  I had been long enough in the
country to be not at all astonished with the bearing,
as of almost reverence, with which the men treated
her, tagging a "miss" to the end of their every
sentence.  The stage-driver, too, for all he was so
terrible and important a man, "missed" her and "if
you pleased" her to the verge of comicality.

I think she herself had a sense of humour, for I
caught a twinkle in her eye as she journeyed to and
fro.  That she did so without affectation spoke a deal
for her power over her pride.  A woman in such a
place, I should imagine, must constantly find it
advisable to remind herself that there are very few of
the gentler sex in the land and a vast number of men,
and tell herself that it is not her captivating ways
alone that are responsible for the extreme of respect
that is lavished upon her.  She chatted to all easily
and pleasantly, with a sparkle in her wide-set eyes.

"I think I remember of you on the way up to
Baker City," she said: "about two months ago,
wasn't it?"

And when I had informed her that it was even so
she asked me how I had fared there.  I told her I
thought I might have fared better had I been in
a ranching country.

"Can you ride?" she asked.

I told her no—at least, not in the sense of the
word here.  I could keep a seat on some horses, but
the horses I had seen here were such as made me
consider myself hardly a "rider" at all.

She thought it "great," she said, to get on
horseback and gallop "to the horizon and back," as she
put it.

"It makes you feel so free and glad all over."

I would soon learn, she said, but "the boys"
would have their fun with me to start.

All this was a broken talk, between her attending
on the tables; and as she kept up a conversation at
each table as she visited it I could not help considering
that her mind must be particularly alert.  Perhaps
it was these rides "to the horizon and back"
that kept her mind so agile and her form and face so
pure.  It was when she was bringing me my last
course, a dish of apricots, that a man with a rolling
gait, heavy brows, and red, pluffy hands, a big,
unwieldy man in a dark, dusty suit, came in and sat
down at my table casting his arm over the back of
the chair.

This fellow "my deared" her instead of following
the fashion of the rest, and surveyed me, with his
great head flung back and his bulgy eyes travelling
over me in an insolent fashion.  When she returned
with his first order he put up his hand and chucked
her under the chin, as it is called.

"Sir," said she, with a pucker in her brows, "I
have told you before that I did n't like that:" and
she turned away.

My vis-à-vis at that turned to his soup, first
glancing at me and winking, and then bending over his
plate he supped with great noise,—something more
than "audible" this,—and perennial suckings of his
moustache.

When the maid came again at his rather peremptory
rattle on the plate, "Angry?" he asks, and
then "Tuts! should n't be angry," and he made
as though to embrace her waist, but she stepped back.

He turned to me, and, wagging his head toward
her, remarked:

"She does n't cotton to me."

I make no reply, looking blankly in his face as
though I would say: "I don't want anything to do
with you"—just like that.

"Ho!" he said, and blew through his nose at me,
thrusting out his wet moustache.  "Are you deaf or
saucy?"

I looked at him then alert, and rapped out sharply:
"I had rather not speak to you at all, sir.  But as to
your remark, I am not astonished that the young lady
does not cotton to you."

With the tail of my eye, as the phrase is, I knew
that there was a turning of faces toward me then, and
my lady drew herself more erect.

"Ho!" cried the bully.  "Here's a fane how-de-do
about nothing!  You want to learn manners, young
man.  I reckon you have n't travelled much, else
you would know that gentlemen setting down
together at table are not supposed to be so mighty
high-toned as to want nothin' to do with each other."

I heard him to an end, and, laying down my spoon,
"With gentlemen—yes," I said, "there can be no
objection to talk, even though your remark is an
evasion of the matter at present.  But seeing you
have gone out of your way to blame my manners, I
will make bold to say I don't like yours."

The girl stepped forward a pace and, "Sir, sir," she
began to me and the bully was glaring on me and
crying out, "Gentlemen! 'between gentlemen' you
say, and what you insinuate with that?"

But I waved aside the girl and to him I began:

"I have been in this country some time, sir, and I
may tell you that I find you at the top of one list in
my mental notes.  Up to to-night I have never seen
a woman insulted in the West——" and then, as is a
way I have and I suppose shall have a tendency to
till the end of my days, though I ever strive to master
it (and indeed find the periods between the loss of
that mastery constantly lengthening), I suddenly
"flared up."

To say more in a calm voice was beyond me and I
cried out: "But I want no more talk from you, sir;
understand that."

"Ho!" he began.  "You——"

But I interrupted him with: "No more, sir;
understand!"

And then in a tone which I dare say savoured very
much as though I thought myself quite a little ruler
of men, I said: "I have told you twice now not to
say more to me.  I only tell you once more."

"Good Lord!" he cried.  "Do you think you can
scare me?"

"That's the third time," said I, mastering the
quaver of excitement in my voice, lest he should take
it for a quaver of fear.  "Next time I don't speak at
all."

"Maybe neither do I," said he, and he lifted the
water carafe as though to throw the contents on me,
but he never did so; for I leant quickly across the
table and with the flat of my hand slapped him
soundly on the cheek, as I might have slapped a side
of bacon, and, "That," said I, "is for insulting the
lady."

It was "clear decks for action" then, for he flung
back his chair and, spinning around the end of the
table, aimed a blow at me; but I had scarce time to
guard, so quick was he for all his size.  I took the
simplest guard of all—held my left arm out rigidly,
the fist clenched, and when he lunged forward to
deliver the blow I ducked my shoulder but kept my fist
still firm.

It was a fierce blow that he aimed, but it slipped
over my shoulder and then there was an unpleasant
sound—a soft, sloppy sound—for his nose and my
rigid fist had met.  Then the blood came, quite a
fountain.  But this only heated him and he dealt
another blow which I received with the "cross-guard,"
one of the best guards in the "straight on" system
of boxing, a system generally belittled, but very useful
to know.

I think he had never seen the guard in his life,
there was so astonished a look on his face; but
before he recovered I had him down with a jar on
the floor so that the floor and windows rattled,—and
his brains, too, I should imagine.

He sat up glaring but something dazed and shaken.
God forgive me that I have so feeble a control of my
passions once they are roused and such a horrible
spirit of exultation!  These have their punishment, of
course, for a man who exults over such a deed,
instead of leaving it to the onlookers to congratulate,
falls in their estimation.

However, to give over moralising, I cried out, as he
sat up there on the floor with the blood on his face
and chin and trickling on his thick neck: "Come
on!  Sit up!  If you lie malingering, I 'll kick you
to your feet!  I 'm only beginning on you."

I think the onlookers must have smiled to hear me,
for, though so far I had got the better, the match was
an absurd one.  But my foe was a man of a bad
spirit; without rising he flung his hand round to
his hip.

I had a quick glimpse of the girl clasping her
hands and heard the gasp of her breath and her
voice: "Stop that now—none of that!"

But another voice, very complacent and with a
mocking, boyish ring, broke in:

"Throw up your hands, you son of a dog!"  And
then I ceased to be the centre of interest and my
brain cleared, for Apache Kid was sitting at his table,
his chair pushed back a little way, his legs wide apart
as he leant forward, his left hand on the left knee, his
right forearm lying negligently on the right leg—and
loosely in his hand was a revolver pointed at
the gentleman on the floor.

The other two were looking on from under their
brows, the stage-driver sitting beaming on the scene.
The girl swung round on Apache with an infinite
relief discernible in her face and gesture.  The cook
who had come from the rear of the room, having
seen the business through the wicket window from
his pantry, I suppose, cried out: "Make him take
out his gun and hand it over, sir."

Apache did not turn at the voice, but, "You hear
that piece of advice?" said he.  "Well, I 'm not going
to take it.  You can keep your little toy in your
hip-pocket.  Do you know why?  Because you can do
no harm here with it.  Before you could get your
hand an inch to it my Colt's bullet would have let
all the wind sighing out of your contemptible
carcass."

Then he gave a laugh, a chuckling, quiet, hearty
laugh in his throat, hardly opening his lips and
added: "In the language of the country, sir, I would
advise you to shake a leg—to get up and get—hike—before
I plug you."

And up rose the man, a commercial traveller (as
the girl told me afterwards when trying to thank
me—for what I cannot say, as I told her at the time),
or a "drummer," as the name is, who had been there
since yesterday's Baker-bound stage arrived,
drinking at the bar and making himself disagreeable in
the dining-room.

He looked a sorry figure as he shuffled from the
chamber.

I turned to Apache Kid and began: "You saved
my life, A——" but his frown reminded me that we
were strangers;—"sir," I ended, "and I have to
thank you."

"That's all right, sir; that's all right, sir.  Don't
mention it," said Apache Kid, throwing his revolver
back into its holster.

That was the end of the drummer; we saw him no
more that night, and when we came down in the
morning we were told he had gone on to Baker City
with the stage which went west earlier by an hour
than the one toward the railway, the one we were
to continue in—part of its journey.

But when we came to settle our bill the proprietor
drew his hand under his long beard and put his head
on the side—reminding me of a portrait of Morris I
had seen—and remarked, looking from Apache to
me and back again: "Well, gentlemen, I 'd consider
it a kind of honour to be allowed to remember that
I did n't ask nothing for putting you up.  I should n't
like to remember about you, any time, and to think
to myself that I had charged you up.  I 'd be kind
of honoured if you 'd let me remember I did n't take
nothing from you."

We did not speak, but Apache's bow was something
to see, and with a hearty shake of the hand we
mounted the stage.

"Look up tew the window, my lad," said the driver,
gathering up his reins.  "Look up tew the window
and get what's comin' to you; a smile to warm the
cockles of your heart for the rest o' the trip."

And sure enough we had a smile and a wave of
a strong and graceful hand from the upper window
and raised our hats and bowed and were granted
another wave and another also from the proprietor—and
a wave from the cook at the gable of the
house.  And looking round again, as we rolled off,
there was the fresh white girl standing at the door
now.

She raised her hand to her lips and I felt a little
sorry in my heart.  I did not like to think she was
going to "blow a kiss:" it would be a cheapening
of herself methought.  Then I felt a little regretful,
for she did not blow a kiss, but kept her hand to her
mouth as long as she remained there.

We went on in silence and then I heard Apache
Kid murmur: "Did she mean it or did she not?"

"Mean what?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" said he, alert suddenly.
"Oh!  I was talking to myself:" and then he said in
a louder tone: "Excuse me, sir, for asking, but do
you not carry a gun?"

"No," said I, with a smile part at this revival of
his old caution and part at something else.

"Can you shoot?"

I shook my head.

"Well," said he, "this period of the history of the
West is a transition period.  The old order changeth,
giving place to new.  Fists are settling trouble that
was formerly settled with the gun.  But the trouble
of the transition period is that you can never be sure
whether it's to be a gun or the fists.  Men like that
drummer, too, carry a gun—but they carry it out of
sight and you don't know it's there for certain.  I
advocate the gun carried openly; and I think you
should begin right away learning its use.  I must
look up that remark of Carlyle's, first time I can,
about the backwoods being the place where manners
flourish.  I want to see from the context if he did n't
really mean it.  Most people think it was sarcasm,
but if it was, it should n't have been.  Manners do
flourish in all backwoods, until the police come in
and the gun goes out, and it's the presence of the
gun that keeps everybody mannerly.  The gun does it.
Now see—you hold a revolver like this," and he
exemplified as he spoke.  "The usual method of
grasping a revolver is with the forefinger pressing the
trigger, and even many experts follow this method; but,
with all due respect to the advocates of that method,
it is not the best.  The best way to hold a revolver is
with the second finger pressing the trigger, the
forefinger extending along the side of the barrel like this,
you see.  That is the great desideratum in
endeavouring to make a shot with a revolver—keeping
the thing steady.  It kicks under the muscular action
required to pull the trigger with the forefinger, and
unless one is thoroughly practised the bullet will fly
above the mark aimed at.  Remember, too, to grip
tight, or with these heavy guns you may get your
thumb knocked out.  Then you throw your hand up
and bring it down and just point at what you want to
kill—like that!"

"Biff!" went the revolver, and I saw the top leaves
on a sage-brush fly in the air.

The horses snorted and leapt forward and the
driver flung a look over his shoulder, a gleeful look,
and, gathering the reins again, cried out, "My gosh,
boys!  Keep it up, and we 'll make speed into Camp
Kettle.  Say, this is like old days!" he cried again,
when Apache Kid snapped a second time and we
went rocking onward.

So we "kept it up," Apache indicating objects for
me to aim at, watching my manner of aiming, and
coaching me as we went.  It seemed to be infectious,
for the traveller who had before kept to himself
whipped out a "gun" from some part of his clothing
and potted away at the one side while we potted at the
other.  The other two, the one who had suppered on
cheese, pickles, and whisky, and breakfasted on the
same, like enough, and the man with whom he had
struck up an acquaintanceship, wheeled about and
potted backwards; and at that the driver grew
absolutely hilarious, got out his whip and cracked it loud
as the revolver shots, crying out now and again:
"Say, this is the old times back again!" and so we
volleyed along the uneven road till dusk fell on the
mountains to north and the bronze yellow plain to
south and sunset crimsoned the western sky.  And
lights were just beginning to be lit when, in a flutter
of dust and banging of the leathern side-blinds and
screaming of the gritty wheels, we came rocking down
the hillside into Camp Kettle.

But at sight of that Apache Kid turned to me, and
with the look of a man suddenly recollecting, he said,
in a tone of one ashamed: "Well, well!  Here we
are advertising ourselves for all we 're worth, when
our plan should have been one of silence and
self-effacement."

"Well," said I, "we can creep quietly up to bed
when we reach the hotel here, and let no one see us,
if that is what you are anxious about."

"You 'll have no more bed now, Francis," he said
quietly.  "No more bed under a roof, no more hotel
now until——" and here for the first time he
acknowledged in actual, direct speech the goal of our
journey, "until we lie down to sleep with our guns
in our hands and our boots on——" he put his
mouth to my ear and whispered, "in the Lost Cabin."





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.. _`First Blood`:

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   CHAPTER IX


.. class:: center medium bold

   *First Blood*

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It would hardly astonish me, and
certainly not offend me, to know that
you found a difficulty in believing
possible such a sight as Camp Kettle
presented on our arrival.  It made
me shudder to see it, and the picture is one that I
never remember without melancholy.

"They seem to be celebrating here," said he of
the red eyes as a hideous din of shrieking and
curses came up to us.

And "celebrating" they were, that day being, as
Apache Kid now recollected, the anniversary of the
first discovery of mineral in that place.  Of such a
kind was this celebration that the stage-driver had
to dismount and drag no fewer than three drunken
men from the road, which irritated him considerably,
spoiling as it did his final dash up to the hotel door.
But it served our turn better; for here, before
entering Camp Kettle, we alighted.

Camp Kettle is built in the very midst of the
woods, the old veterans of the forest standing
between the houses which stretch on either side of
the waggon road, looking across the road on each
other from between the firs, so that a traveller
coming to the place by road is fairly upon it before he
is well aware.  But on that day—or night—there
were strips of bunting hanging across the waggon
road, not from the houses, for they were all mere
log huts, but from the trees on either side; and
the forest rang with shouting and drunken laughter.
Just where we alighted were several great, hewn
stones by the roadside, with marks of much
trampling around them.

"There 's been a rock-drilling contest here," said
Apache Kid, pointing to the holes in the centre of
these rocks, as we struck into the bush and came
into Kettle from behind.

Here and there, backward from the front huts,
were others dotted about in cleared spaces, and all
were lit up, and doors standing open and men
coming and going, lurching among the wandering
tree-roots and falling over stumps still left there.  And
the whole bush round about you might have thought
the scene of a recent battle, what with the drunken
men lying here and there in all manner of attitudes,
with twisted bodies and sprawled legs.

Some few fellows in their coming and going spoke
to us, crying on us to "come and have a drink,"
but it was only necessary for us to move on
heedlessly so as to evade them—so dazed and puzzled
were they all and seemed to lose sight of us at
once, wheeling about and crying out to the twilit
woods.  At some of the cabins horses stood hitched,
snorting and quivering ever and again, their ears
falling back and pricking forward in terror.

"For once," said Apache Kid to me, "I have to
be grateful for the presence of the despised Dago
and the Chinee.  The Dago may be a little fuddled,
but not too much to attend to our wants in the way
of horses, and he is not likely to talk afterwards.
The Chinee will be perfectly calm among all this,
and he, for a certainty, will not speak.  Here's the
Chinee joint.  Come along."

He thrust open the door of a long, low house and
we entered into a babel of talk, that ceased on the
instant, and closed the door behind us.

We had a glimpse of a back room with a group
of Chinamen who looked up on us with eyes a trifle
agitated, but, I suppose on seeing that we were not
the worse of liquor, they bent again over their tables,
and we heard the rattle of dominoes again and their
quick, voluble, pattering talk.

A very staid, calm-faced Chinaman, his high
forehead lit up by a lamp which hung over a desk by
which he stood, turned to us, and, looking on us
through large horn spectacles, bowed with great
dignity.

"Good evening," said Apache Kid.

"Good evening," said he.

"We want three mats of rice," said Apache Kid,
and this placid gentleman called out a word or two
to one of his assistants, and the rice was hauled down
from the shelf.  Then we bought three small bags of
flour and two sides of bacon, and all this was tied up
for us and set by the door to await our return; and
off we went out of that place with the smell of strange
Eastern spices in our nostrils.

"Not so long ago," said Apache Kid, "these fellows
would not have been tolerated here at all.  Then
they were allowed an entrance and tolerated; but
they only sold rice to begin with, and nothing more,
except, perhaps, cranberries, to the hotel, which they
gathered on the foothills.  Now, as you see, they run
a regular store.  But on such nights as this it
behooves them to keep indoors lest the white populace
regret having allowed them within their gates.  But
John Chinaman is very wise.  He keeps out of sight
when it is advisable.  Here's the livery stable."

The stout Italian who stood at the door of the
stable, toying with a cigarette, frowned on us through
the darkness, and seemed a trifle astonished, I thought,
at our request for horses.  But he bade us follow him,
and by the aid of two swinging lamps Apache Kid
selected three horses, two for riding and one pack-horse.

"But you ain't pull out to-night, heh?" said the
Italian in his broken English.

"Yes," said Apache.

"You going down to Placer Camp or up to mountains?"

Apache Kid was drawing the cinch tight on the
pony I was to ride (the Italian was saddling the
other), and he merely turned and shot the questioner
such a look as made me feel—well, that I should not
like to be the Italian.

I thought then that, for all his slim build, this
partner of mine, so quiet, so deliberate, must have seen
and done strange things in his day, and been in
peculiar corners to learn a glance like that.  If ever
a look on a man's face could cow another, it was such
a look as Apache Kid flung to the Italian then.

Back to the Chinese store we went, leading our
steeds, and there roped on our pack.

"Do you sell rifles?" asked Apache Kid.

"Yes, sir, vely good line," and so Apache added a
Winchester, which was thrust atop of the load, and
two of the small boxes of cartridges.

This was just finished when a voice broke in:
"Goin' prospectin'?"

We wheeled about to see a foolish-faced man, with
shifty eyes and slavering mouth, standing by, with
firm enough legs, to be sure, but his body swaying
left and right from the hips as though it were set
there on a swivel.

"Yes," said Apache.

"Going prospectin' without a pick or a hammer or
a shu-huvel," said the man, and hiccoughed and
dribbled again at the mouth, and then he sat down on
a tree-stump and broke out in a horrible drunken
weeping, the most distressful kind of intoxicated fool
I ever saw, and moaned to himself: "Goin'
prospectin' without a—with on'y a gun at the belt and
a Winchester," and he put his hand to his forehead
and, bending forward, wept copiously.  I looked on
the Chinaman who stood by, placid and expressionless,
and I was ashamed of my race.

"For the love of God," said Apache, "let us get
out of this pitiful hell—  Good-bye, John," to the
Chinaman, who raised his lean hand and waved in
farewell in a gesture of the utmost suavity and respect,
and then we struck south (the Chinaman entering his
store), and left that pitiable creature slobbering upon
the tree-stump, left the din and outcrying and
hideousness behind us, my very stomach turning at the
sounds, and Apache, too, I think, affected unpleasantly.
We went directly to the south upon the track
that led to the Placer Camp on Kettle River.

On either side of us the forest thinned out there,
but the place was full of a wavering light, for the
tree-stumps to left and right of the track were all
smouldering with little, flickering blue flames, and
sending up a white smoke, for this is the manner of
clearing the forest after the trees are felled.

Through this place of flickering lights and
waving shadows we still progressed, leading our horses.
Here Apache Kid looked round sharply, and at the
moment I heard a sound as of a twig snapping, but
from what quarter the sound came I could not tell.
We were both then looking back, half expecting to
see some one issue forth behind us into the light of
that space where the tree-stumps spluttered and flared
and smoked.

"Perhaps it was just one of these stumps crackling,"
said I.

"It did n't sound just like that; however, I suppose
that was all," Apache Kid replied.  "Well this is our
route now."  And we struck west through the timber,
back in the direction that Baker City lay, keeping in a
line parallel to the waggon road.  And ever and again
as we went Apache emitted a low, long whistle and
hearkened and whistled again, and hearkened and
seemed annoyed at the silence alone replying.

Then, coming to the end of the place of smouldering
stumps, we struck back as though to come out
on the waggon road before its entering into Camp
Kettle.  "Where in thunder is Donoghue?" snapped
Apache Kid, and suddenly the horse I was leading
swung back with a flinging up of its head.  Apache
Kid was leading the other two and they also began a
great dancing and snorting.

"We have you covered!" cried a harsh voice.
"No tricks now!  Just you keep holt of them reins.
If you let 'em drop, your name is Dennis!  That 'll
be something to occupy your hands."

I think the voice quieted the horses, if it perturbed
us, for they became tractable on the instant and
ceased their trembling and waltzing.  And there,
risen out of a bush before us, stood two men, one with
a Winchester at the ready and the other with his left
hand raised, the open palm facing us, and a revolver
looking at me over that, his "gun hand" being
steadied on the left wrist.

I had seen Apache Kid in a somewhat similar
predicament before, but his coolness again amazed me.
And, if I may be permitted to say so, I astonished
myself likewise, for after the first leap of the heart
I stood quite easy, holding my horse—more like
an onlooker than a participant in this unchancy
occurrence.

"I think you have made a mistake, gentlemen,"
said Apache Kid.

"Oh, no mistake at all," said he with the Winchester.
"I 've just come out to make you an offer,
Apache Kid."

"You have my name," said Apache Kid, "but I
have n't the pleasure of yours."

"Why," said I, "I 've seen that man at the
Laughlin House;" and at the same moment Apache Kid
recognised the other in a sudden flickering up of one
of the nighest stumps.

"Why, it's my old inquisitive friend—the hog,"
said he, looking on him.  "Where did you learn that
theatrical style of holding up a gun to a man?
Won't you introduce your friend?"

"That's all right," said the other.  "I want you to
listen to me.  Here's what we are offering you.  You
can either come right along with us to Camp Kettle
and draw out a sketch plan of where the Lost Cabin
Mine lies, or else——" he raised his Winchester.

Apache Kid whistled softly.

"How would it suit you," said he, after what
seemed a pause for considering the situation into
which we had fallen, "if I drew up the sketch after
you plugged me with the Winchester?"

"O!" cried the man.  "The loss of a fortune's on
the one hand.  The loss o' your life's on the other.
We give you the choice."

"It seems to me," said Apache Kid, "that your
hand is the weaker in this game; for on your side is
the loss of a fortune or the taking of a life."

"I 'd call that the stronger hand, I guess," said the
man.

"Well, all a matter of the point of view," murmured
Apache Kid, with an appearance of great ease.  "But
presuming that I am aware of the location of that
place, what assurance could I have that once you had
the sketch in your hands you would n't slip my
wind—in the language of the country?"

He with the revolver, I noticed, glanced a moment
at his partner at that, but quickly turned his attention
to us again.  "Besides, I might draw up a fake map
and send you off on a wild goose chase," said Apache
Kid, as though with a sudden inspiration.

"We've thought of that," said he with the Winchester,
"and you 'd just wait with a friend of ours
while we went to make sure o' the genewinness o'
your plan."

"Oh!  That's what I'd do?" said Apache Kid,
and stood cheeping with his lips a little space and
staring before him.  Then turning to me, "I 'm up
against it now," he said, "in the language of the
country.  The terms are all being made for me and
at this rate——" he swung round again to these
two—"you really mean that you are so bent on this that
if I did n't speak up, did n't give you the information
you wanted, you'd—eh—kill me—kill the goose
with the golden eggs?"

I marked a change in the tone of Apache's voice,
and looking at him noticed that there was a glitter in
his eye and his breath was coming through his nostrils
in fierce gusts, and under his breath he muttered:
"The damned fools!  I could keep them blithering
here till morning!"

"We might find other means to get the right of it
out of you," said the man with the Winchester.  "I 've
seen a bit of the Indians from whom you take your
name, and I reckon some of their tricks would bring
you to reason."

"What!" cried Apache Kid.  "You'd threaten
that, would you?  You'd insult me—coming out
with a hog like that to hold me up, too," and he
pointed at the man with the revolver.

"Come!  Come!" cried he of the Winchester,
"easy wi' that hand.  If you don't come to a
decision before I count three, you 're a dead man.
I 'll run chances on finding the Lost Cabin Mine
myself.  Come now, what are you going to do?
One——"

"Excuse me interrupting," said Apache Kid, "but
are you aware that the gentleman you have brought
with you there is an incompetent?"

"Haow?" said the Winchester man.  "What you mean?"

"That!" said Apache Kid, and, leaping back and
wheeling his horse between the Winchester and
himself, he had plucked forth his revolver and—  But
another crack—the crack of a rifle—rang out in the
forest.  I am not certain which was first, but there,
before my eyes, the two men, who had a moment
earlier stood exulting over us, sank to the earth, he
with the revolver falling second, so that as he sagged
down I heard the breath of life, one might have
thought, belch out of him.  It was really the gasp, I
suppose, when the bullet struck him, but it was the
most helpless sound I ever heard in my life—something
like the quack of a duck.  Sorry am I that ever
I heard that sound, for it, I believe, more than the
occurrence of that night itself, seemed to sadden me,
give me a drearier outlook on life.  I wonder if I
express myself clearly?  I wonder if you understand
what I felt in my heart at that sound?  Had he died
with a scream, I think I should have been less haunted
by his end.

If our horses shied at the smell of men whom they
could not see, they were evidently well enough
accustomed to the snap of firearms, for beyond a quick
snort they paid no heed.  As for me, I found then
that I had been a deal more upset by this meeting
than I had permitted myself to believe; and my
nerves must have been terribly strung, for no sooner
had they fallen than I shuddered throughout my
body, so that I must have looked like one suffering
from St. Vitus dance.

Apache Kid looked at me with a queer, pained
expression on his face, scrutinising me keenly and
quickly and then looking away.  And into the wavering
light of the burning stumps came Donoghue, with
his rifle lying in the crook of his arm, right up to us
and began speaking.  No, I cannot call it speaking.
There was no word intelligible.  His eyes were the
eyes of a sober man, but when he spoke to us not a
word could we distinguish, and he seemed aware of
that himself, spluttering painfully and putting his
hand to his mouth now and again, as with a sort of
anger at himself and his condition.  Then suddenly,
as though remembering something, away he went
through the timber the way he had come.

"Fancy being killed by that!" said Apache Kid,
wetting his lips with his tongue, and a sick look on
his face.

"What's wrong with him?" said I.

"Drunk," said he, and never a word more.  But he
followed Donoghue, to where stood a horse, the reins
hitched to a tree.

"That's a tough looking mount he's got," said
Apache Kid, and then, like an afterthought: "Try to
forget about those two fellows lying there," he added
to me.

I looked at him in something of an emotion very
nigh horror.

"Have they to lie there till—till they are found?"

"Yes," said he, "by the wolves to-night—if the
light of the stumps doesn't keep them off.  Failing
that, to-morrow—by the buzzards."

I looked round then, scarcely aware of the movement,
and there, between the trees, I saw the clearing
with the smouldering, twinkling stumps.

The leader of these two lay with his back and his
heels and the broad soles of his feet toward me; but
the other, "the hog from Ontario," lay looking after us,
with his dead eyes and his face lighting and shadowing,
lighting up and shadowing pitifully in that ghastly glow.

I turned round no more.  I breathed in relief
when we came clear of the forest into the open, sandy
ground; but when I saw the stars thick in the sky,
Orion, Cassiopeia, and Ursa Major, the tears welled
in my eyes; they seemed so far from the terrors of
that place.

"I 'll wait till you mount," said Apache Kid,
holding my horse's head while I gathered the reins.

When I raised my foot to the stirrup the beast
swerved; but at the third try I got in my foot, and
with a spring gained the high saddle.

Donoghue's mount was walking sedately enough,
but all the lean body of it had an evil look.  Apache
stood to watch his partner mount to the saddle.
Donoghue flung the reins over the horse's neck and
came to its left.  He seemed to remember its
nature, despite his condition then, for he ran his hand
over the saddle and gave a tug to the cloth to see
that it was firm.  Then with a quick jerk, before
the horse was well aware, he had yanked the cinch
up another hole or two.  At this, taken by surprise,
the beast put its ears back and hung its head and
its tail between its legs.  Donoghue pulled his hat
down on his head, caught the check-rein with his
left and clapped his right hand to the high, round
pommel.  There was a moment's pause; he cast a
quick glance to the horse's head; thrust his foot into
the huge stirrup, and with a grunt and a mighty
swing was into the saddle.  And then the beast
gathered itself together and with an angry squeal
leapt from the ground.  Half a dozen times it went
up and down, as you have perhaps seen a cat or a
ferret do—with stiff legs and humped back.  But
Donoghue seemed part of the heavy, creaking saddle,
and after these lurchings and another half-dozen
wheelings the brute calmed.  Apache Kid swung
himself up to his horse and we struck on to the stage
road in the light of the stars.

And just then there came a clinking of horse's
hoofs to our ears and there, on the road coming up
from Camp Kettle, and bound toward Baker City,
was an old, grey-bearded man leading a pack-horse
and spluttering and coughing as he trudged ahead in
the dust.

"It's a good night, gentlemen," he said, stopping
and eyeing us—Donoghue across the road, in the
lead, and already a few paces up the hillside, Apache
Kid with the led horse, I blocking his passage way.

"Yes; it's a fair night," said Apache Kid, civilly
enough, but I thought him vexed at this encounter.

"It's a cough I take at times," said the old man,
wheezing again.  "I 'm getting up in years.  Yes,
you 're better to camp out in the hills instead of going
into Camp Kettle to-night.  I 've seen some camps
in my day—I 'm gettin' an old man.  No; I could n't
stop in that place to-night."

His pack-horse stood meekly behind him, laden
up with blankets, pans, picks, and the inevitable
Winchester.

"Yes, siree, you 're better in the hills, a fine starry
night o' summer, instead of down there.  It's a
cough I have," he wheezed.  "I 'm gettin' an old
man.  Any startling news to relate?"

"Nothing startling," said Apache Kid.

"What you think o' the rush to Spokane way?
Anything in it, think you?" said the old man in his
slow, weary voice.

"O, I think——" began Apache Kid, but the old
man seemed to forget he had put a question.

"What you think o' this part o' the country?" he
asked, and then abruptly, without evidently desiring
an answer: "Well, well, I 'll give you good night.
I 'll keep goin' on, till I get a good camp place—maybe
all night I don't like Camp Kettle to-night,"
and grumbling something about being an old man
now, he plodded on, his pack-horse waking up at the
jerk on the rein and following behind.

"Aye," sighed Apache Kid to me, "no wonder
they say 'as crazy as a prospector.'  It's the hills
that do it.  The hills and the loneliness and all that,"
he said with a wave of his hand in the starshine.
Then suddenly he spurred forward his horse upon
Donoghue and in a low, vehement voice: "Stop that,
Donoghue!" he said.  "What on earth are you
wanting to do?"

For Donoghue was glaring after the weary old
prospector and dragging his Winchester from the
sling at his saddle.  He managed to splutter out the
word "blab" as he pointed after the man and then
pulled again at the Winchester which he found
difficult to get free.  But Apache Kid smote Donoghue's
horse upon the flank and pressed him forward and so
we left the road and began breasting the hill with the
stars, brilliant and seeming larger to me than ever
they seemed seen through the atmosphere of the old
country, shining down on us out of a cloudless sky.

Perhaps it had been better had Donoghue got his
rifle free, callous though it may seem to say so.  For
other lives might have been spared and these mountains,
into the foothills of which we now plunged, have
not been assoiled with the blood of many had that
one solitary old prospector ceased his weary seekings
and his journeyings there, as Donoghue intended.





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.. _`In the Enemy's Camp`:

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   CHAPTER X


.. class:: center medium bold

   *In the Enemy's Camp*

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In a little fold of the hills we made our
camp, somewhere about two in the
morning, I should think.

Donoghue rolled off his horse at a
word from Apache Kid, and stood
yawning and grunting, but Apache Kid had his partner's
blankets undone in a twinkling and bade him lie
down and go to sleep.  Then he hobbled the horses
and, sitting down on his own blanket-roll, which he
had not undone:

"Could you eat anything?" said he.

"Eat!" I ejaculated.

"Well, sleep, then?" he said.

"Aye, I could sleep," said I.  "I should like to
sleep never to awaken."

"As bad as that?" said he.

"Look here," said I.  "I 've just been thinking
that I——" and I stopped.

Something was creeping stealthily along the ridge
of the cup in which we sat, and the horses were all
snorting, drowning the sound of Donoghue's deep
breathing.

"It's only a coyote," said Apache Kid, looking
up in the direction of my gaze.  "You look tired,
my boy," he added in a kindlier voice.  "Well, if
these fellows are going to sit round us, I suppose
I 'd better make a fire; but I did n't want to.  We 'll
make a small one.  You know what the Indians say:
'Indian make small fire and lie close; white man
make big fire and lie heap way off.  White man dam
fool!'  And there is some sense in it.  We don't want
to light a beacon to-night, anyway."

So saying, he rose and cried "Shoo!" to the
skulking brutes that went round and round our
hollow, showing lean and long against the sky.

I watched him going dim and shadowy along the
hill-front, where contorted bushes waved their arms
now and then in the night wind.  He took a small
axe with him, from the pouch of his saddle, and I
heard the clear "ping" of it now and then after he
himself was one with the bushes.  And there I sat
with my weary thoughts beside the snoring man and
the horses huddling close behind me, as though for
my company, and the prowl, prowl of the coyotes
round and round me.  Then suddenly these latter
scattered again and Apache Kid returned, like a
walking tree beside the pale sky, and made up a
fire and besought me to lie down, which I had no
sooner done than I fell asleep, for I was very
weary.

Now and then I woke and heard far-off cries,—of
wildcats, I suppose,—and saw the stars twinkling in
the heavens and the little parcel of fire flickering at
my feet; but the glow of Apache Kid's cigarette
reassured me each time, and though once I thought
of asking him if he himself did not want to sleep, so
heavy with sleep was I that I sank again into oblivion
ere the thought was fairly formed.

So it was morning at last, when I came again
broad awake, and Apache Kid was sitting over the
fire with the frying-pan in hand.  Indeed, the first
thing I saw on waking was the flip he gave to the
pan that sent the pancake—or flapjack, as it is
called—twirling in the air.  And as he caught it
neatly on the undone side and put the pan again
on the blaze (that the morning sunlight made a
feeble yellow) I gathered that he was catechising
Donoghue, who sat opposite him staring at him very
hard across the fire.

"No," Larry was saying, "I got a horse all right,
and gave out at the stable that I was going to the
Placer Camp, and struck south right enough and
went into the bit where we were to meet and sat
there waiting you, and not a soul came nigh hand
all the derned time."

"How do you know, when you acknowledge you
were as drunk as drunk?"

"How do I know?" said Donoghue.  "Why,
drunk or sober, I never lose anything more than
my speech."

"True," said Apache.  "But you 're a disgusting
sight when you are trying to talk and——"

"Well, well; let that drop," said Donoghue.  "I
was sober enough to let the wind out of that fellow
that held up you two."

"Thanks to you," said Apache Kid.  "Which
reminds me that there may be others on the track
of us; though how these fellows followed so quick
I——"

"O, pshaw!" said Donoghue.  "You must have
come away careless from Baker City.  I saw the
stage comin' in from where I was layin', and I saw
them two fellows comin' up half an hour after."

"O!" said Apache Kid, paying no heed to the
charge of a careless departure.  "And anybody else
suspicious-looking?"

Donoghue shook his head.  But the meal was now
ready, and I do not know when I enjoyed a meal as
I did that flapjack and the bacon and the big canful
of tea made with water from a creek half a mile along
the hill, as Apache Kid told me, so that I knew he
had been busy before I awoke.  I felt a little easier
at the heart now than on the night before, and less
inclined to renounce my agreement and return.
But suddenly, as we were saddling up again, the
thought of those dead men came into my head;
and though of a certainty they had been evil men,
yet the thought that these two with me had taken
human lives gave me a "grew," as the Scots say.

I turned about and looked at my companions.

"Would you be annoyed if I suggested turning
back?" I asked, coming right to the point.

It was Donoghue who answered.

"Guess we would n't be annoyed; but you would n't
get leave, you dirty turncoat."

But Apache turned wrathfully on him.

"Turncoat?" he cried.  "Do you think he wants
to go down and give us away?  If you do, you 're
off the scent entirely.  It 's the thought of those dead
men that has sickened him of coming."

"O, pshaw!" cried Donoghue, grinning.  "Sorry
I spoke, Francis.  There 's my fist; shake.  Never
mind the dead men."

We "shook," but I have to say that I did not
relish the feel of that hand, somehow.  He was a man,
this, who lived in a different world from mine.

"Why, sure you can go back, if you like," said
he.  And then suddenly he caught himself up and
said: "No, no, for the love of God don't do that!
Apache Kid and me don't do with being alone in the
mountains."

On one point at least this man felt deeply, it would
appear.

"Well," said Apache Kid to me.  "That's a better
tone of Donoghue's.  To beseech a favour is always
better than to threaten or to attempt coercion and I
must add my voice to his and ask you to come on
with us.  Though personally," he added, "had I once
made a compact with anyone, I would carry it through
to the bitter end."

"I should never have suggested this," said I,
feeling reproved.  "I will not mention it again."

This was the end of my uncertainty, and we rode
on through the June day till we came to the north
part of the Kettle River, gurgling and bubbling and
moving in itself with sucking, oily whirlpools, and
travelled beside it a little way and then left it at the
bend where it seethed black and turbid with a sound
like a herd bellowing.

The creek we came to at noon was kindlier, with a
song in place of a cry; swift flowing it was, so that it
nearly took our horses from their feet as we crossed
it, or the nigher half of it, rather (for we camped on
an islet in the midst of it and the second crossing was
shallower and easy), but, though swift as the Kettle, it
made one lightsome instead of despondent to see.
The sun shone down into its tessellated bed, all the
pebbles gleaming.  The rippling surface sparkled and
near the islet was dappled over with the thin shadows
of the birches that stood there balancing and
swaying.  And scarcely had we begun our meal when we
heard a clatter midst the pebbles and a splashing in
the water, and there came an old Indian woman on a
tall horse, with a white star on its forehead, and pots
and kettles hanging on either side of it.  It came up
with dripping belly out of the creek and went
slapping past us in the sand and the old dame's slit
of a mouth widened and her eyes brightened on
us under the glorious kerchief she wore about her head.

"How do," said my companion, and she nodded to
us, passed on, and the babe slung on her back stared
at us with wide eyes.

For an hour after that they came in twos and
threes, men and women, the young folk laughing and
chatting among themselves, giving the lie again to all
tales of an Indian never smiling.  It was a great sight
to me and I can never forget that islet in the Kettle
River.  Not one of the people stopped to talk.  The
men and the old women gave us "How do" and drew
themselves up erect in their saddles.  The younger
women smiled, showing white teeth to us in a quick
flash and then looking away.

Apache Kid was radiant.  "They're a fine people,
these," said he.

"Yes," said Donoghue, "when you 've got a gun
and keep them at a distance."

"Nonsense," cried Apache Kid.  "I 've lived among
them and I know."

"Yes, lived among 'em to buy 'em whisky, I guess,
so as they could get round about the law."

"No," said Apache Kid, "never bought them a
single bottle all the time I was with them."

I could see that Donoghue believed his partner, but
I could see too that he could not comprehend this
story of living with the Indians for no obvious reason.
He looked at Apache Kid as men look on one
they cannot understand, but spoke no further word.

After we left that camp, as we struck away across
the valley toward the far-off range, we saw these folk
still on the other mountainside and caught the
occasional flash of the sunlight on a disk, maybe, or on a
mirror, or the polished heel of a rifle swinging by the
saddle; and then we lost sight of them among the
farther woods.

That picturesque sight did a deal to lighten my
heart.  Apache Kid, too, was mightily refreshed the
rest of the afternoon, and spun many an Indian yarn
which Donoghue heard without any suggestion of
disbelief.  But it was no picnic excursion we were
out upon.  We had come into the hollow of the hills.
We were indeed at the end of the foothills, and across
the valley before us the mountains rose sheer, as
though shutting us into this vale.  To right, the
east, was a wooded hill, parallel with which we now
rode; and to left cliffs climbed upwards with shelving
places here and there on their front, very rugged and
savage.

Donoghue nodded in the direction of a knoll ahead
of us, and said: "Shall we camp at the old spot?
It's gettin' nigh sundown; anyway, I guess we've
done our forty to fifty mile already."

"Yes," said Apache Kid.  "It's a good spot."

"You've been here before?" I inquired.

My two companions looked in each other's eyes
with a meaning glance.

"Yes, we 've been here before," said Donoghue,
and I had the idea that there was something behind
this.  So there was; but I was not to hear it—then.

Suddenly we all three turned about at the one
instant for a far-off "Yah-ah-ah-ah!" came to us.

There, behind us, we saw two riders, and they
were posting along in our track at great speed.

We reined up and watched them, Apache Kid
drawing his Winchester across his saddle pommel,
and Donoghue following suit, I, for my part,
slackening my revolver in the holster.

Nearer they came, bending forward their heads to
the wind of their passage and the dust drifting behind
them in two spiral clouds.  Then I saw that one was
a white man with a great, fluttering beard; the other
an Indian, or half-breed.  And just at the moment
that I recognised the bearded man Apache Kid cried
out: "Why!  It's the proprietor of the
Half-Way-to-Kettle House."

"What in hell do he want up here?" said
Donoghue.  "Lead?"

They came down on us in the approved western
fashion, with a swirl and a rush, stopping short with
a jerk and the horses' sides going like bellows.

"Good day, gentlemen," said the man of the beard.
"Are you gentlemen aware that there's no less than
seven gentlemen followin' you up, thirstin' for your
money or your life-blood or something?"

"Well, sir," said Apache Kid, "it does not surprise
me to hear of it."

"So," said the shaggy-bearded, whose name, by
the way, was J. D. Pinkerton, for all who passed by
to read above his hostel—"Half-Way-Rest Hotel—Prop.:
J. D. Pinkerton," so ran the legend there.

"So," he repeated again, and again and took the
tangle from his beard.  "Well, I reckon from what I
saw of two of you gentlemen already that you don't
jest need to be spoon-fed and put in your little cot at
by-by time, but—well, you see my daughter—she
has a way o' scarin' me when she puts it on.  And
she says: 'Dad,' she says, 'if you don't go and warn
them, their blood will be on your head should
anything happen to them.'  Now, I don't want no blood
on my head, gentlemen.  And then she says: 'Well,
if you don't go, I 'll jest have to go myself with
Charlie—this is Charlie—Charlie, gentlemen—a smart boy,
a good boy, great hand at tracking stolen stock and
the like employ.  An old prospector had seen you,
and by good luck he stopped us, and by better luck
I was polite for once and listened to his chin-chin,
and so we heard where you had got off the waggon
road.  After that it was all child's play to Charlie
here."

"We owe you our thanks, sir," said Apache, and
then the moodiness went from his face, and he said in
a cheerful tone: "But they may never find out what
way we 've gone.  You see it was a mere chance,
your meeting that prospector and being told of the
point at which we left the road."

"That's so," said Mr. Pinkerton: "but still there's
chances, you know."

"Oh, yes," said Apache Kid, and again: "We owe
you our thanks," said he.

"Not you, not you!" said Mr. Pinkerton.

"But what sort of outfit is this that you have come
to post us up about?"

"Why, just as dirty a set of greazers as ever stole
stock, and they must sit there talkin' away about you
in the dining-room after they had told my daughter
they was through with their dinner; and my cook
heard 'em from his pantry—told my lass—she told
me—I'm tellin' you—there you have the whole
thing,—how they 're to dog you up and wait till you
get to your Lost Cabin.  And now we 're here.  But
I want to let you know—for I 'm a proud man and
would n't like any suspicions, though they might be
nat'ral enough for you to harbour—want just to let
you know that as for what you 're after—this yere
Lost Cabin,—I don't give that for it," and he snapped
his fingers.  "I 've got all a rational man wants.  But
we 'll chip in with you, if you think of waiting on a
bit to see if you 're followed."

"Sir," said Apache Kid, "I have to thank you
again.  I have to thank you, and your daughter
through you, and your cook; but I must beg of you
to get back."

"Pshaw!" cried Pinkerton.  "What's that for?"

"Well—this may be a bloody business, sir, if we
are followed, and it would be the saddest thing
imaginable——" he broke off and asked abruptly:

"Pardon the question, sir, but is Mrs. Pinkerton alive?"

"My good wife is in her resting grave in Old
Kentucky," said Pinkerton in a new voice.

"That settles it, sir," said Apache Kid.  "It would
be a sad thing to think of that fine girl down at the
Half-Way House as an orphan."

Pinkerton frowned.

"When you put it that way," said he, "you take
all the fight out of J.D."

"Then I must even beg you to be gone, sir, before
there is any chance of pursuit by these men," said
Apache Kid.  "If we come back alive, we may all
call and thank you again, and Miss Pinkerton too.  I
beg of you to go and take care of meeting them on
the way."

"Well, boys, luck to you all, then," and round he
wheeled and away with a swirl of leather while the
half-breed laid the quirt, that swung at his wrist, to
his lean pony's flanks and, with a nod to us, shot after
Mr. Pinkerton.

We watched them till they had almost crested the
rise and there suddenly they stopped, wheeled, and
next moment had dismounted.

"What's wrong?" said Donoghue.  "Something wrong there."

"It looks as if the chance Pinkerton spoke of was
against us after all," said Apache Kid, quietly.

We were not left long in doubt, for a puff of
smoke rose near the backbone of the rise and a flash
of a rifle and then seven mounted men swept down
on these two.

We saw the half-breed tug at his horse's head; saw
the brute sink down to its knees, saw the half-breed
fling himself on his belly behind it, and then his rifle
flashed.

The seven riders spread out as they charged down
on the two and at the flash of the rifle we saw one of
them fall from the saddle and his horse rear and
wheel, then spin round and dash madly across the
valley, dragging the fallen rider by a stirrup for quite
a way, with a hideous bumping and rebounding.

But it was on the two dismounted men on the
hill-front that my attention was concentrated, and round
them the remaining six of their assailants were now
circling.

"Come on!" cried Apache Kid.

He dropped the reins of our pack-horse to the
ground and remarked: "She 'll not go far with the
rein like that and the pack on her."

Next moment we three were tituping along the
valley in the direction of the two held-up men.

Apache Kid was a little ahead of me, Donoghue a
length behind, but Donoghue's mount would not
suffer us to go in that order long.  With a snort it
bore Donoghue abreast of me and I clapped my
heels to the flanks of my beast.  Next moment we
were all in line, with the wind whistling in our ears.
The six men who seemed to be parleying with
Pinkerton and the half-breed, suddenly catching
sight of us in our charge, I suppose, wheeled about
and went at a wild gallop, with dirt flying from their
horses' hoofs, slanting across the hill.

And then I had an exhibition of Donoghue's madness.

He cried out an oath, the most terrible I ever
heard, and, "Come on, boys," he shouted to us.

"Yes, let's settle it to-day," came Apache's voice.

"Right now!" cried Donoghue, and away we
went after the fugitives.

I saw the reason for this action at once; for to put
an end to these men now would be the only sure way
to make certain of an undisputed tenancy of the Lost
Cabin.  Indeed, their very flight in itself was enough
to suggest not so much that they were afraid of us
(for Pinkerton had given them the name of fearless
scoundrels) as that they did not want an encounter
yet—that their time had not yet come.  But for
Pinkerton, they might have followed up quietly the
whole way to our goal.  Thanks to him, we knew of
them following.  This, though not their time to fight,
was our time.

Suddenly I saw Donoghue, who was ahead, rear
his horse clean back on to its haunches and next
moment he was down on a knee beside it, and, just as
I came level with him, his rifle spoke and in a voice
scarcely human he cried, "Got 'im!  Got 'im!  The
son of a dog!"

And sure enough, there was a riderless horse
among the six and a man all asprawl in the sunshine
before us.

But at that the flying men wheeled together and
all five of them were on their feet before Apache
Kid and I could draw rein.  I heard a rifle snap
again behind me, whether Apache Kid's or
Donoghue's I did not know, and then, thought I, "If I
stop here, I 'm done for; I 've got to keep going."

The same thought must have been in Apache Kid's
mind for I heard the quick patter of his pony as it
came level with me.  He passed me and he and I—I
now a length behind him—came level with the
five men clustered there behind their horses and the
horse of the fallen man, Apache crying to me:

"Try a flying shot at them."

He fired at that, and a yell rose in the group and
I saw one man fall and then I up with my revolver
and let fly at one of the fellows who was looking at
me along his gun-barrel.

And just at that moment it struck me, in the midst
of all the fluttering excitement, that they let Apache
Kid go by without a shot.  But right on my shot my
horse went down—his foot in a badger hole—and
though afterwards I found that I had slain the horse
that the fellow who was aiming at me was using as a
bastion, I knew nothing of that then—for I smashed
forward on my head.

The last thing I heard was the snort of pain that
my horse gave, and the first thing, when I awakened,
that I was aware of was that I was lying on my back
looking up at the glaring sky, a great throbbing
going on in my head.

My hands were tied together behind my back and
my ankles also trussed up in a similar manner.

I was in the wrong camp.  I had fallen somehow
into the hands of our enemies.





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.. _`How It Was Dark in the Sunlight`:

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   CHAPTER XI


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   *How It Was Dark in the Sunlight*

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You will hear persons speak of one
who has been in a trance or swoon as
"returning to consciousness."  I
remember once of hearing someone
objecting to the phrase, saying that
a person was either conscious or unconscious, and to
speak of one returning to consciousness as though
there was a middle state, he argued, was erroneous;
but I discovered for myself, that day, the full
meaning of the phrase; for first it was a sound that I
heard, a sound as of rustling wings, and this presently
changed and became the sound of whispering as of
a whole chamber full of furtive, stealthy persons
talking under the breath.  Then I was aware of the
sunlight in my face and at the same moment the number
of voices dwindled and the power of them increased.
I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a mighty
uncomfortable and strained position upon a slab of
rock, so hot with the sun that my hands, which were
behind my back and under me as I lay, were
absolutely scorched.  I made to withdraw them and then
found they were fast tied together.

As for the voices I heard, they were only two in
number, I think.

"He's all right; I see his eyes flickerin'," said one,
and there, bending over me, was a face as full of evil
as ever I desired to see.

I have seen a cast of an eye that almost seemed to
give a certain quaint charm to a face; but the cast
in these eyes that scrutinised me now was of the
most diabolic.

My head was beating and thumping like a shipyard
with all its riveters, and the pain between my
eyes was well-nigh unbearable.

With puckering eyebrows I scrutinised my captor,
and as I did so he cried out: "Here you are now,
Farrell."

"Right!" came a voice from behind, and the man
called Farrell shuffled down on us, a big-boned,
heavy-browed man with a three days' stubble on his face
which was of a blue colour around the upper lip and
on the jaws—and over his right cheek-bone there
was an ugly scar of a dirty white showing there
amidst the sun-tan.

I thought at first it was a whip he carried in his
hand, but suddenly what I took for the thong of the
whip wriggled as of its own accord, and addressing
himself to it, he said: "None o' your wrigglin',
Mr. Rattler, or I 'll give you one flick that 'll crack your
backbone."

Then I saw that what he carried was a stick, with
a short string at the end of it and in the end of that
string was a noose, taut around a rattlesnake's tail,
just above the knob of the rattle.

"See what I've bin fishin' for you?" he said, and
laughed in an ugly way.

He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the
shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that
I saw where we were—on a rock-strewn ledge of
some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had
seen on our left from the valley.  But owing to the
rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see
the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and
white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top.  And
lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on
which we were, I then saw two other men, with their
rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down
intently on the valley.

I had no thought then as to how we came there,
where my friends were, nor for any other matter save
my own present peril.  For before I was well aware,
and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too
dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon
my face in the sand, and then, "Give me a hand here,
you two," said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose,
and, one of them clutching me by the back of the
neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt
a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs.

"That's him!" said one, and then my neck was freed.

The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing
else than a great, flat slab of rock.  I thought, though
it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the
heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my
bones.  Certainly to move below the waist was quite
out of the question.

All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away
fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched
in my mouth like a piece of dry wood.  But when these
four laughed brutally among themselves and began a
series of remarks such as: "See and don't give it an
inch too short," or, "See that the string's taut or we 'll
not get what we want," I came more to my senses and
wondered what was to befall me.  Then, for the first
time, I was addressed directly by Farrell.

"Well, kid," he said, "you 're in a tight corner—you
hear me?

"I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so
dry was my throat.

"Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right
off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies.  And
that's business right off, with no delay."

"I can never do that," said I, "for I don't know
myself."

There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and
then: "All right," snapped the voice.  "Fact is, we
have n't much inclination to loiter here.  You 've
taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it
is—shove it in," he broke off.

But the last words were not for me.

One of the others stepped before me, his foot
grazing my head, and I heard him say, "There?"

"No," said another.  "That's over close—yes,
there.  That's the spot."

And then they all stepped back from me, and I,
lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man
had been about; for directly before me was the point
of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake
noosed by the tail to it.

No sooner had the man who fixed it in leaped back
(and he did so very smartly, while the others laughed
at him and caused him to rip out a hideous oath)
than the reptile coiled fiercely up the stick; but the
hand was gone from the end of it, and down it
slithered again.

Then it saw me with its beady eyes, rattled fiercely,
again coiled, and—I closed my eyes and drew in my
head to the shoulders and wriggled as far to the side
as I could.

But something smote me on the chin.  I felt my
heart in my throat, and thought I to myself, "I am a
dead man now"; but before I opened my eyes again
I heard another rattle, opened my eyes in quick
horror, saw the second leap of the snake toward me,
and shrivelled backward again.

"Close shave!" cried one of my tormentors; but
this time, after the tap on my chin I felt something
moist trickle down upon the point of it, and I
thought me that I was close enough to get the poison
that it spat, but not close enough to allow of its fangs
reaching me.

"But if this stuff should reach my eye it might be
fatal," thought I, heedless now of headache or
weariness, or anything but the terrible present.  My mouth,
too, I kept tight closed, as you may guess.

"Will you tell us now, kid?" cried Farrell.  "Will
you spit it out now?"

Thought I to myself: "I must die now for certain.
I trust that even if I knew, I would not reveal this
that they ask.  But assuredly, to reveal it or to
keep it secret is not mine to choose.  I must even die."

It came into my head that soon the thin string
would, at one of these leaps, cut clean through the
snake's tail, and then—  Then it leapt again.

"I do not know!" cried I.  "I cannot tell you!"

"Then you can just lie there!" snapped one of
the four, and went back to his place of outlook on the
ledge.  And the other, who had been watching the
valley, came and stood by my shoulder, irritating
the snake, by his presence, to fresh efforts.

"You 're a fool," he said.  "Your partners have
deserted you.  They 're off.  There ain't hide nor hair
to be seen of them.  If they 'd leave you in a lurch
like this, you 're a fool not to let us know the location.
We 'll follow 'em up again and take vengeance on 'em
for you—see?"

And just then, as though to refute his remarks as
to the heedlessness of my partners, I heard a faint
snap of a rifle, and the man with the squint, who
had taken his turn on guard at the place this fellow
had vacated, turned round and said he: "Boys, O
boys, I 'm hit!"

Something in the tone of his voice made me
glance at him sharply, but with half an eye for the
snake, as you may be sure, and my ears alert for
its warning rattle.  I was never more alert in my
life than then, and, strange though it may seem,
the predominating thought in my mind was, "How
sad, how very sad to leave this world, never to see
the rich, rich blue of that sky again!"

But, as I say, the tone of the man's voice
breaking in on my thoughts and terrors was peculiar,
and, with my head still as low in my shoulders as
I could manage to hold it, I laid my cheek to the
hot sand and looked at him.  He had turned to the
man who had been standing by me, but at sound
of the shot had dropped to his knees.

"Does it look bad?" said he, drawing his finger
across his forehead, where was a tiny mark, and
then holding out his hand and looking on it for
traces of blood, raising up his face for inspection
by the man beside me at the same time, and a
question in his eyes, very much as you have seen
a child, "Is my face clean, mother?"  Yes, and
with a very childish voice, too.

"It don't look bad," was the reply—and neither
it did.

But when he turned away again to the other
sentry who lay further off, repeating his question
to him in that simple voice, I saw the back of his
head.  And his brains were dribbling out behind
upon his neck.  A terrible weakness filled my heart.
I heard him say, with no oath, as one might have
expected, but in a soft voice: "Dear me!" and
again, "Dear me!  How very dark it is getting!"

Which was an awful word to hear with the sun
blazing right in his eyes out of the burnished,
palpitating sky.  And then he put it as a question
and still with the note of astonishment: "Dear me,
isn't that strange?  Is n't it getting very——" and
he sank forward on his face; but what followed I
do not know.  In the terror of my own position
I kept all my faculties alert; but at the sight of
that man's back and the bloody wound, and at the
childish voice of him, the world seemed to wheel.
A sickness came on me and I fainted away.





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.. _`I Am Held as a Hostage`:

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   CHAPTER XII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *I Am Held as a Hostage*

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   :image: images/img-cap-12.jpg
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It must have been more of a
momentary squeamishness, that, rather than
a fainting fit, I think; for I heard
myself moan twice, was conscious of
the moaning.  There seemed something
pressing on my heart and forcing me to gasp
for breath and relieve the tension on it.  A sweat
broke on me then, and after that I felt myself, as it
were, swinging through space, and with another gasp
and a great gulp of air the world spun back again
and there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow,
and the rattlesnake coiling afresh.

"Why!  What's this move now?" I heard one
of my captors cry.  "What's he doin' with his rifle
carried and waggling his hand in the air that ways?"

"Don't you know what that is?  That's the peace
sign—flat of the hand held up, palm open and
pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fro
movement."

"Peace sign be durned!  If I was sure we could
get the information out of this here kid laying
behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skull and let
out his brains—front of his face or back of his
neck like Cockeye there—all the same to me."

"Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that."

"Think the kid here won't speak, then?"

"No; I don't think he'll speak.  I've just been
figurin' that neither Apache Kid nor Larry might
tell him.  He's liable to be givin' you straight
goods and no lie when he says he don't know the
location."

"Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that
time they charged down.  We could ha' got him,
instead, that way.  Reckon we need n't have been
so scared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without
gettin' the news.  But say!  This won't do.  I don't
like the looks of this thing.  They all are getting
a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole
three of 'em."

"Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the
rattler.  "That's one short.  I wonder who has been
killed or disabled."

"Say!  Shout to him to stop.  Tell him if he
wants to pow-wow with us to come up alone."

"Yes, and leave his rifle down.  You do the talkin'
now, Farrell."

"Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well,
what do you want?"

"I want to come up and talk this out with you,"
hailed a voice that I recognised for Apache Kid's.

"He can't come up here," said Farrell.  "We
don't want 'em to know that we 're only a threesome
now, same as 'em."

"I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with
the voice of a man who has been visited by a sudden
inspiration.

"Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then
turning to the speaker he said sharply: "Spit it out
then, Pete; what's your notion?"

"Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him
on the front here and hold your gat to his head while
we hear what they 've got to palaver."

"Hum!" mused Farrell.  "Kind o' hostage notion?
Heh?  Well, there's something in that," and he stood
upright fearlessly and held his hand aloft, the palm
facing away to those in the valley.

"You can come up the length o' that there white
rock," he cried, and then to his companions: "See!
Lend a hand here."

The snake had coiled again.  I cannot guess how
often it had sprung at me; I do not know.  All that
I know is that at every fresh rattle I crouched my
head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one
word "God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what
manner of lives we have led, at the last moment
give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if not with
our lips.  And every leap of the snake I was
prepared to find the one that was to make an end of my
acquaintance with the sunlight and with the sweet
airs that blow about the world.

But that torment was over now, for with one swift
drop of his rifle-butt Farrell cut the head clean from
the hideous long body, and then lent the other two
men a hand to roll the great stone from off my
aching limbs.

"Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and
spurned me with his boot.

After the terror of the snake there seemed little
now that I need heed.

"It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his
words.  "I 'm like a block of stone from my waist
down."

"I guess that's right.  He must be feeling that
way," said one of the others, with a touch of
commiseration in his voice.

That was the first sign of any heart that I had
discovered in the ruffians.

"Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered
Farrell.  "Well, lend a hand and haul him here to
the front of this ledge."

Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot
needles were being run into my stiff, trailing legs, for
they caught me up by my arms and drew me like a
sack to the front of the cliff.

And then I saw the whole plateau below us.
Apache Kid was half-way up the rise, among the
long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; further
down, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head
visible, was Larry Donoghue.  The third man that
had been spoken of I could not see and searched the
hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright
beside me and waved his hand I saw the half-breed,
Charlie, who had come after us with Mr. Pinkerton,
rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it, looking
up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on
his head.

Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed
upon to return out of our dispute, lest his life might
be the forfeit for his interest in our behalf.  But just
as that explanation for his non-appearance had
satisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something
moving slowly—a pack of horses it seemed, and so clear
was the air of that late afternoon that I recognised
the form of the mounted man who guarded them,
could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated
survey, descry his great beard like a bib upon his
breast.

"Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow
about?  You see who we got here?"

"I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the
white stone.  "How are you, Francis?"

"He 's all right," said Farrell.  "But he 's a kind
o' prisoner o' war just now."

"Oh!" said Apache Kid.  "Well, I suppose if
we want to get him back we 'll have to buy him back?"

"That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically.

"Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going
on,—my friends and I,—and, as we have your horses now
as well as our own, we thought we might perhaps be
able to trade you them back for the lad."

And here, as you will be wondering how the horses
had changed hands, I must tell you what I had
afterwards explained to me.

It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse,
at the time it put its foot in the badger hole (Apache
Kid having gone past wildly, bringing down one man
and one horse with his two running shots), than the
four men, seeing my predicament, swung to their
horses' backs, opened out, and two of them passing,
one on either side of me, swung from their saddles
and yanked me up by my arms.

Then full tilt they charged down the centre of
the plain, intending evidently to make the rising
knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley's centre.  And
with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtless
thought they had the key to the Lost Cabin.  But
Apache Kid wheeled his horse below, and Donoghue
mounted again above, and from the hill-crest the
half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after
us, converging on each other as they came.

But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the
burden of my extra weight, and they wheeled sharp
to left and put their horses directly to the cliff-front.
These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they
were over-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and
right on the slope it was evident that not only the
half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kid following,
were coming within effect range.  It was Farrell
who proposed their move then, considering that with
me in their hands half the battle was won if only they
had something in the way of a fort from which to
stave off attack.  So they flung off there, and, letting
their horses go, up they came, dragging me along.
But at the foot of the hill the others stopped, seeing
how they had all the odds against them then and
were so fully exposed.  For it had not yet occurred
to them, as indeed was very natural it should not,
that the last thing these men wanted to do was to
fire upon them.

The intention of this little company of cut-throats
had been to follow up softly in the rear, as near as
possible without being seen by us, until we came to
our journey's end.  What they had planned for us
then it is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint.
Little did they think that between them and us was
Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of their possible
pursuit.  But when they saw him riding out of that
plain, with the half-breed, the whole reason for his
presence there was guessed by them, especially when
they saw us halted within sight, the whole three of
us turned round as though already watching for their
approach.  It was, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their
plans that made them so short-tempered and snappish
with one another.

But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that
I was useless to them in so far as the giving of
information went.  And so I was now to be used as a
hostage,—a sort of living breastwork before them,—as
though they were to say: "See! if you fire, you
kill your partner!"

Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion.

"Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the
trumps; but you don't.  And for why?  Why,
because we do."  And he spat in the sand and put a
hand on either hip.  "We don't need our horses,
my mates and me.  We ain't in any hurry, and can
set here as long as you like,—aye, or go away when
we like, for that matter.  What we want is that Lost
Cabin Mine, and if you don't tell us where it is,
why, then we'll let the wind out of your partner here."

"And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue,
rearing up beside his bush.

"Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking,
too?  Well, you don't come in at all.  There you
are!  That's something for you to consider!"

Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter.

"Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us.  You can
do what you like with him."

Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of
astonishment, and then again to Farrell he said:

"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you
and your two mates can consider it."

"Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell.

"Na!  Na!" cried Donoghue.  "When I look
along a rifle I never err."

"Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell.  "Well,
what's your offer?"

"This is our offer," said Apache Kid.  "You can
come along with us.  We are three, and so are you,
and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."

Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a
question at them.

"I guess you 'd better take that," said the man
Dan, "for I reckon even if we did suggest killing
this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of 'em."

"And anyhow," said the other, him they called
Pete, speaking low, but yet I caught the drift of his
words, "we can easy enough fix them all when we
get there."

"Come on!" said Apache Kid.  "How does our
offer strike you?  Are you aware that every hour we
delay there may be others getting closer to the Lost
Cabin Mine?"

"Take the offer, man.  Take the offer," said Pete
and Dan.

"All right," cried Farrell.  "But mind, we're
bad men, and this will have to be run on the square."

Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked
at him, I saw an evil glitter in his eye.  "Oh, yes!"
he ejaculated, "we 're all bad men here."

My three captors made no delay; but as for their
fallen friend, they paid no heed to him.  Only Farrell
took the cartridges from his belt and ran his hands
through the pockets, which contained a knife, a
specimen of ore, two five-dollar bills, and a
fifty-cent piece.

For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting
to my legs, and still more in descending the face of
the precipice.  I noticed, too, that Farrell kept
close by my side, as though he thought still that
it was as well to have me between Apache Kid
and himself.

Just as we came down the rise, there was
Mr. Pinkerton leading the horses along toward us.

"Say!" cried Farrell.  "What about him?"  And
he pointed to Pinkerton.

"O!" said Apache Kid.  "He wants nothing to
do with this expedition whatever."

Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new
thought.  "And he goes down to the camps and
blabs the whole thing, eh?"

"I believe he won't say a word about it,—neither
he nor the half-breed here."

Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went
down in silence a little way.  Then suddenly he
said: "I think you 've got some game on.  Say! do
you swear you are on the square with us?"

Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my
word of honour," said he; and so we came ploughing
through the loose soil and sand into the sun-dried
grass, and thence on to the level below, where
Mr. Pinkerton, now aided by his half-breed follower who
had gone on down-hill and mounted his horse, was
bunching the horses together.  And over all was the
sky with the daylight fading in it.





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.. _`In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way`:

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   CHAPTER XIII


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   *In Which Apache Kid Behaves in His Wonted Way*

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What with the pains upon my
forehead, caused by the blow I had come
by when my unfortunate horse put
his foot in that unchancy burrow and
sent me flying; what with that pain
and the ache of my legs, and something else that was
not a pain, but worse than a pain, I had scarcely the
heart, I fear, to give Mr. Pinkerton as kindly a smile
of welcome as he had in store for me on seeing me
again alive.

That other thing I speak of as worse than a pain
was a horrible nervousness with which my hour of
torture with the snake had endowed me.  Yes, it can
only have lasted about an hour, I think, that hideous
experience, though then it seemed an eternity.  But
so had it affected me that when we gathered together
on the plateau I paid little heed to the council of my
companions,—had lost interest in their affairs.
Instead, I kept jerking my head into my shoulders, and
caught myself even gasping suddenly and dodging a
snake that leaped at me in the air,—a snake that,
even as I sought to evade, I knew was not there at
all,—a mere creature of my harassed and frayed
nerves.  Mere fancy I knew it to be, but still I
must needs dodge it and blurt out a gasp of terror
again and again.

It was while I was still busied on this absurd
performance,—still standing in the talking group and
heedless of the talking,—that I saw Apache Kid
knitting his brows at me, and supposed it was in
contempt; and that caused me to pull myself
together and square myself, as a soldier may do under
the eye of an officer.  When I did so, I remember
that I seemed to go to the other extreme; in my
attempt to master this nervousness, I caught myself
grinning.

It was then that Mr. Pinkerton, who was holding
back a little way, looking on, but not party to our
doings, remarked to me, as he caught my eye again:

"I took a long shot at that horse of yours, sir, and
put it out of its agony when it got its leg broke; but
things have been levelling up since then, and I think
men and horses are just on a par again—one horse,
one man."

I laughed hilariously at this saying, as though it
were something hugely amusing.  But between you
and me, I do not think that Mr. Pinkerton spoke it
from his own kind heart but spoke thus more as
some sensitive men wear a cloak of pride or shyness
or a false bombast to protect them from other men
less finely tuned.  It was, I believe, only to show
a hard front before these new partners of ours, as
villainous a trio as you ever clapped eyes on, that
he spoke in this light way of the doings of death;
because at my laugh I saw him frown as though he
regretted that I could enjoy his bitter jest so fully.

In a dazed way I saw the party mounting; but so
great difficulty had I in gaining the saddle of a
horse—whose horse I do not know; I think it was the
mount of the man called Cockeye—that Donoghue
came to my side and held the stirrup and gave me
a "leg up" and, "Are you scared, or what?" he said
in my ear, low and angry and with something of
contempt.  "You 've made a hash of to-day for us as it
is, with goin' and gettin' that accident.  Are you
scared o' them fellers?"

"Scared!" said I.  "Man!  I 've been tortured."

"Been what?" said he, and he got on to that
vicious mount of his with such a viciousness himself,
in his pull of the rein and lunge of his spurs, that
I saw Mr. Pinkerton give him a look as who should
say: "He's a devil of a man, that."

But Donoghue crowded his beast to my side and
asked me what I meant by my remark of being
tortured, and I told him the whole matter of it as we
rode across the plateau, all lit now with the thin last
glow of day.

He listened with his head to one side and his loose
jaw tightening and thrusting out.

"I take back what I said to you," said he.  "I
take it back right now; and as for hindering our
journey—why that could n't be helped.  Better that
we met these fellows right here, face to face, instead
of goin' on unknowing and getting shot by 'em round
the fire to-morrow night or plugged through the
windows of the Lost Cabin three nights hence."

This might have given me an idea of how far we
had still to go—or rather should I say, in a country
such as this, of vast distance, of how nigh we already
were to our journey's end, had I been much heeding
that evening.

He held out his hand to me across his saddle (I
was riding on his left), and as we shook hands I saw
the man Pete look at us with a doubtful eye.

And for a surety there was every reason why these
fellows should be suspicious of us and be wary and
watchful of our movements.

That they were three unscrupulous scoundrels—"The
toughest greazers that ever stole stock," as
Mr. Pinkerton had phrased it when speaking of them and
their cronies (using the word "greazer" in its loose,
slang sense, not necessarily implying thereby that
they were actually Mexicans, which is the meaning
of the name)—that they were capable of any
treachery and cruelty themselves, there was no doubt.
And as they were, so they would be very prone to
judge others and were, doubtless, already thinking
to themselves that we three had after all—for the
present at least—the best of the bargain; for had
they set upon us and done away with us, where would
have been their chance of coming to the Lost Cabin?
As far away as ever; the Lost Cabin would still have
been a needle in a haystack.

On the other hand, I guessed them already arguing,
we would be glad and even eager to kill them,
though they desired to keep us alive—for a time.

I suppose they took our handshake—Larry's and
mine—for a sign of some understanding between us
and scented in it a treacherous design upon them,
for they kept upon our flanks hereafter, at sight of
which Donoghue laughed his ugly laugh and shook
his horse forward a step, sneering at them over his
shoulder.

O!  We were a fine company to go into camp
together, as we did within half an hour, before the
last grasshoppers had ceased their chirring, on the
side of the knoll where was a spring of water, a
little pool overhung by a rock with strange
amphibious insects darting away from its centre to the
sheltering banks as we dipped our cans for water
to make the flapjacks.

To any chance observers, happening into our
camp at twilight, we would have seemed nothing
more dire than a round-up camp of cow-boys, I fancy,
for after the meal, when pipes and cigarettes were lit
and belts let out a hole or two and boots slackened,
there was an air of out-door peace around the fire.

Yet I need not tell you that the peace was on the
surface—fanciful, unreal.  As for me, the snake was
leaping in my eyes out of the fire, when Apache Kid,
as calm as you please, struck up a song.

Heads jerked up and eyes glanced on him at the
first stave.  It seemed as though everything that any
man there could do or say was to be studied for an
underlying and furtive motive.

It was "The Spanish Cavalier" he sang, with a
very fine feeling, too, softly and richly.  There is a
deal of the sentimentalist about me, and the air, apart
from the words, was ringing in my heart like a regret.

"The bright, sunny day," he sang, "it soon fades
away," and after he ceased the plain had fallen silent.
The chirring of insects had gone and left the valley
empty of sound.  During all the journey I never
heard so much as the twitter of any bird (except one
of which you shall hear later), so I think that the
gripping silence at the end of day must have been due
only to the stopping of the insect life.  By day one
was not aware of any sound; but at the close of day,
when the air chilled, the silence was suddenly manifest.

Sure enough, the bright, sunny day was fading and
in the silence, when the voice of the singer ceased, I
must needs be away back in the homeland, counting
the hours in my mind, reckoning them up and
judging of what might probably be afoot in the
homeland then—and there is something laughable in the
thought now, but I counted the difference in time the
wrong way about and sat sentimentalising to myself
that my mother perhaps was just gone out to walk in
the Botanic Gardens, and picturing my little sister
prattling by her side with her short white stockings
slipping down on her brown legs, and looking back,
dragging from my mother's hand, to watch the
blue-coated policeman at the corner twirling his whistle
around his finger.  Had I not been so wearied and
worn, I would not have made this error in the
reckoning.  As likely as not my mother was then waking
out of her first sleep, and thinking, as women do, of
my material and spiritual welfare, all at the one time;
perhaps wondering if my socks were properly darned
and putting up a loving prayer for my welfare.

Then the singing ceased, and the cry that I now
knew well, the dusk cry of the coyotes, rose in a
howl, with three or four yelps in the middle of it and
the doleful melancholy baying at the close.

I looked round the group at the fire again.

"Well," said Apache Kid, the first to speak, "who's
to night-herd the horses?"

The man Dan rose up at that.  It was he who
alone of all my tormentors on the cliff had spoken a
word with anything of kindness in it.

"I 'll take the first guard, if you like," said he.

Farrell looked across at Apache Kid.

"One of your side, then," said he, "can take the
next guard—share and share—time about, I guess; eh?"

Apache Kid threw the end of his cigarette into the
fire and, drawing out his pouch, rolled another and
moistened it before he replied.

"Why do you talk about sides at all?" he asked.
"I thought we were a joint stock company now?"

"Well, well," snapped Farrell, "I mean one of you
three—you or one of your partners."

"Quite so; I know what you mean.  I understand
your meaning perfectly."

There was a pause and then said he, taking a brand
from the fire and lighting his cigarette, so that I saw
his full, healthy eye shine bright: "If you are going
to talk about sides in this expedition—then so be
it.  But I don't think our side, as you call it, will
bother with any night-herding; indeed, I think we
need hardly trouble about saddling up or unpacking
or cooking or anything—if you make it a matter
of sides."  And he blew a feather of smoke.  "I
think my side will live like gentlemen between now
and the arrival at the Lost Cabin Mine."

Every eye was fixed anxiously on him.

"You see," he explained, "the fact is, you need us
and we don't need you.  It's a case of supply and
demand and—seeing you talk of sides," he said, with
what must have been, to Farrell, an aggravating
insistence, "our side at present is wanted.  It's almost a
sort of example of the workings of capital and labour.
No!" he ended, with a satisfied grunt, "I don't think
there's any need for me to tend horses at all, thanks.
I 'm quite comfy by the fire."

There was a shrewd, calculating look on Farrell's
face as he looked Apache Kid cunningly in the eye a
space.  I could wager that he was making himself
certain from this speech that Apache Kid was the
principal in our expedition.  I think he really
believed that I could say nothing of the Lost Cabin,
even had I desired to, and from the way he looked
then to Donoghue and looked back again to Apache
Kid it struck me forcibly that he was wondering if it
were possible that Larry Donoghue was not "in the
know" to the full, but merely of the company in a
similar way with myself.

Then he rolled an eye back again to Apache Kid,
and I remembered the sheriff of Baker City then, for
Farrell's words were the very words I had heard the
sheriff use: "You 're a deep man," he said.

"And I 'm quite comfy, too," broke in Donoghue.
"Thanks," he added.  "And as for this young
man beside me, I think he wants a rest to-night.  A
man that's had a snake wriggling at his nose for half
of an afternoon is liable to want a little sleep and
forgetting."

Everybody cocked an ear, so to speak, on this
speech; but no one of those who did not understand
asked an explanation.

Farrell looked with meaning at Mr. Pinkerton,
who sat out of the affair, but neither he nor the
half-breed spoke a syllable, Pinkerton pulling on his
corn-cob pipe, and the half-breed rubbing the silver
buckle of his belt with the palm of his hand, and
studying the reflection of fire-light in it.

"No, no," suddenly remarked Apache Kid, "you
could n't ask Mr. Pinkerton to do that, nor Charlie
either.  We can't be so inhospitable as to ask our
guests of this evening to night-tend our horses."

"What the hell are you getting on about?" said
Farrell, and then, as though thinking better, and
considering that a milder tone was more fitting, he said:
"I never asked them to."

"No, no; you did not ask them to," said Apache,
in a mock-conciliatory tone, and then, with a smile on
his lips, he said gently: "But you were thinking
that, and I—know—every—thought—that passes
through your mind, Mr. Farrell."

You should have seen the man Pete at these
soft-spoken words.

I must give you an idea of what this fellow looked
like.  To begin with, I think I may safely say he
looked like a villain, but more of the wolf order of
the villain than the panther; he had what you would
call an ignorant face,—a heavy brow, high
cheek-bones, very glassy and constantly wandering eyes,
far too many teeth for his mouth, and they very large
and animal like.  And if ever I saw superstitious fear
on a man's face, it was on the face of that cut-throat.

He looked at Apache Kid, who sat with his hat
tilted back and his open, cheery, and devil-may-care
face radiant to the leaping firelight,—looked at him
so that the firelight made on his face shadows,
instead of lighting it; for he held his chin low and the
mouth open.  His hat was off and only his forehead
was lit up.  The rest was what I say—loose shadows.
Then he looked at Farrell, as though to see if Farrell
were not at all fearful, and, "Say!" he said, "I 'll take
'herd' to-night."

Farrell turned on him with a leer and laughed.

"I guess you 'd better go first then," said he,
"before midnight comes, and let Dan go second, after a
three hours' tend.  You 're the sort of man that is all
very good robbing a train, but when you get in
among the mountains with the boodle you get scared.
And what for?  For nothing!  That's the worst of
you Cat'licks."

So Farrell pronounced the word, and the man flung
up his head at that with an angry and defiant air, so
that one only saw there the bravo now, and not the
ignorant and superstitious savage.  He was on the
point of speech, but Apache Kid said:

"Sir, sir! it is very rude, to say the least of it, to
malign any gentleman's religion.  I presume from
your remark that you are of the Protestant
persuasion, but my own personal opinion is that you are
both equally certain of winning into hell.  If our
Roman Catholic friend is kind enough to offer to
relieve us of the monotony of night-herding duty, we
can only thank him."

So Pete rose and tightened his belt, and went his
ways; and that in no less than time, for the horses
were already restive, as though the loneliness of the
place had taken possession of them.  Of all beasts I
know, I think horses the most influenced by their
environment.

"Well, if this don't beat cock-fightin'!" I heard
Mr. Pinkerton's voice behind me, where he lay now,
leaning on an elbow; and then he said a word or two
to the half-breed, who rose and departed out of the
circle of the fire-shine.

In a little space he returned, leading his own mount
and Pinkerton's by the lariats which were around
their necks, and as he made fast these lariats to a
stone Farrell looked at Mr. Pinkerton across the
glow, and asked him, suspicious as ever, "What's
that for?"

"Oh!  Just so as not to be indebted to you,"
replied Pinkerton, and coming closer to the fire he rolled
his one grey blanket round him and, knocking out
the ashes of his pipe, lay down to rest, the half-breed
following suit.  But after they had lain down, and when
I, a little later, at a word from Donoghue, suggesting I
should "turn in," unpacked my blankets, which I had
found among the pile of our mixed belongings, I saw
the half-breed's eyes still open and with no sign of
sleep in them.  "So," said I to myself, "Pinkerton
and the half-breed, I expect, have arranged to share
watch and watch, without having the appearance of
doing so."

And indeed one could scarcely wonder at any
such protective arrangement in such a camp as this.
Donoghue and Apache Kid, indeed, were the only two
there who could close their eyes in sleep that night
with anything like a reasonable belief that the chances
of their awakening to life again were greater than
their chances of never breathing again the
sage-scented air of morning.





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   CHAPTER XIV


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   *Apache Kid Prophesies*

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You may wonder how it was possible for
me to lie down, to roll myself round
in my blankets, to fall asleep in such
a camp, in such company as that.  I,
indeed, wondered at myself as I did so,
wondered how I came by the heedlessness, for I
cannot call it courage, that allowed me to compose myself
to slumber.  Anything might have happened in the
dark hours, murder and sudden death; but I was
excessively fatigued; my body ached; my nerves too
were unstrung by the torture of the cliff.  Sleep I
must and sleep I did, on the instant that I stretched
myself and laid down my head.  Perhaps the sigh
with which I dismissed from my mind the anxieties
that might have kept me wakeful was more of a
prayer than a sigh.

Across the fire of smaller branches that had cooked
our supper, in the preparing of which each took part,
a great log was laid, so that no replenishing would be
necessary.

It was the sound of Donoghue's voice that woke me
to blue night, starshine, and the red glow of the log.
His position was unaltered.  I could have believed
that he had not moved a muscle since my lying down,
and the stars told me I had slept some time.  He
reclined with his legs crossed, his feet stretched to the
glow, his hands in his coat pockets, and his unloosened
blanket-roll serving for a cushion to the small of his
back.

"There ain't no call for me to turn in," he was
saying.  "I don't have to turn in to please you."

I snuggled the blankets under my chin and looked
to see who he was addressing.

All the others of the company were lying down, but
it was evidently Farrell who had made the prior
remark, for he now worried with his shoulders in his
blankets to cast them from him, and rising on an
elbow, said: "O, no!  You don't have to.  But it
looks to me mighty like as if you was scared of
us—that you don't lay down and sleep.  We 're square
enough with you."

Donoghue looked at him in that insolent fashion
of opening the eyes wide, and then almost shutting
them, and sneered:

"Well, well, what are you always opening your
eyes up a little ways and peepin' at one for?  One
would think you was scared o' me; and that feller
there, that Dan, or what you call him, he keeps
waking up and giving a squint around, too.  You 're
square with us?  We 're square with you, ain't we?"

Farrell flung the blankets back from him and cried
out: "Do you know what I'm goin' to tell you?
I would n't trust you, not an inch.  I got my gun
here ready, if you try any nonsense."

The gleam of an unholy satisfaction was on Donoghue's
face then, and he cried out: "Well, sir, if I find
a man trust me, I 'm square with him; but if he don't
trust me, I don't play fair with him.  That's right, I
guess, ain't it?"

This, to my mind, was a very faulty morality, but it
seemed not so to Farrell.

"Yes," he agreed.  "I reckon that's generally
understood," and then he showed quite a turn for
argument on his own plane of thought.

"But you don't trust me, neither," said he, "and if
I was payin' you back the way you talk about, I 'd up
and plug you through the head."

Argument was not in Donoghue's line but he cried out:

"And where would I be while you were tryin' it on?"

Farrell did not answer, and in the pause Donoghue
did indeed continue the argument, unwittingly, to its
logical conclusion:

"No, no, my boy," he said, "you would n't plug
me here.  You would n't plug me till we got you
what you wanted.  O!  I know your kind well.  You
thought you held the trumps when you corralled the
lad there," and he jerked his head in my direction,
"But you did n't."

"It seems to me like as we did," said Farrell, with
a vindictive leer, "else why are we here now?"

"Here now?" snapped Donoghue.  "Why, you're
here because my partner is so durned soft, times.
He would n't—go—on—and leave the lad," he
drawled contemptuously.  "What good was the boy
to you, anyhow?" he asked.  "Looks as if you knew
you were trying it on with a soft, queer fellow.  I 'd
ha' let you eat the boy if you wanted and jest taken
a note o' your ugly blue mug in my mind and said
to myself: 'Larry, my boy, when you see that feller
ag'in after you 've got through with this Lost Cabin
Mine—you shoot him on sight!'"

"And what if the mug was to follow you up?"
said Farrell.

All this while there was no movement round the
fire, only that I saw Apache Kid's hand drawing
down the blankets from his face.  Pinkerton and the
half-breed were a little beyond Donoghue and lying
somewhat back so that I did not know whether or
not they were awakened by this talk.  And just then
Dan sat up suddenly, glared out upon the plain to
the four points of the compass, and screamed out:

"The hosses!  Where's the hosses?"

We were all bolt upright then, like jumping-jacks,
and leaning on our palms and twisting about staring
out strained into the moon-pallid plain.

Dan leapt to his feet.

"The hosses is gone!" he cried, and he rushed
across to the two horses that were tied with the
lariats.

"Lend me a hoss," he cried.  "We must go out
and see where Pete has got to with them horses."

"I lend you dis—you sumracadog!" said the
half-breed in his guttural voice and he flung up his
polished revolver in Dan's face.

It was Apache Kid who restored some semblance
of order to the camp.

"All right, Dan," he said.  "Don't worry.  It's
too late now."

We all turned to him in wonder.

"Pete thought it advisable to take the whole bunch
away.  He agreed that it was advisable to make
what little capital he could out of his expedition into
this part of the country.  On the whole, I think he
was sensible.  Yes—sensible is the word," he said,
thoughtfully wagging his head to the fire and then
looking up and beaming on us all.

"What you mean?" cried Farrell.

"Just what I say," said Apache Kid.  "He simply
walked the whole bunch quietly away five minutes
after he bunched them together out there."

"You saw him doin' that!  You saw his game and
said nothing!" cried Farrell.

"Even so!" replied Apache Kid.

Farrell glared before him speechless.

"What in creation made him do that?" said Dan,
going back like a man dazed to his former place.

"You mean *who* in creation made him do that?"
Apache Kid said lightly: "and I have to
acknowledge that it was I."

"You!" thundered Farrell.  "I did n't see you
say a word to him.  You bought him off some ways,
did you?  How did you do it?"

"O!" said Apache Kid.  "I simply gave him a
hint of the terrors in store for him if he remained
here.  You heard me; and he was a man who could
understand a hint such as I gave.  I took him first,
as being easiest.  But I have no doubt that you two
also will think better of your intention and depart—before
it is too late.  He went first.  You, Mr. Farrell,
I think, will have the honour of going last."

"I don't know what you mean," said Farrell, like a
man scenting something beyond him.

"No," said Apache Kid.  "I understand that.
You will require some other method used upon you.
I don't know if it was, as you suggested, the gentleman's
religion that was to blame for it, but he suffered
from the fear of man.  That was why he went away.
Now you, Farrell, I don't think you fear man, God——"

"No!  Nor devil!" cried Farrell.

"Nor no more do I!" said Dan, turning on
Apache Kid.  "Nor no more do I.  And if the
loss o' the hosses don't cut any figure to you, it
don't no more to us, for we 're goin' through with
you right to the end."

But I thought that a something about his underlip,
as I saw it in the shadows of the fire, belied his
strong statement.  Apache Kid was of my opinion,
for he looked keenly in Dan's face and remarked:
"A very good bluff, Daniel."

"Don't you Daniel me!" cried the man.  "You 're
gettin' too derned fresh and frisky and gettin' to
fancy yourself."

"That's right.  A bluff should be sustained," said
Apache Kid, insolently, and then dropping the
conversation, as though it were of absolutely no
moment, he rolled himself again in his blanket.  And
this he had no sooner done—unconcerned,
untroubled, heedless of any possible villainy of these
two men—than Pinkerton's voice spoke behind me:

"He 's a good man spoiled, is that Apache Kid.
I could ha' been doin' with a son like that."

"I think you 're kind o' a soft mark, right enough,"
sneered Farrell to the now recumbent form of Apache
Kid.  "I think you 're too soft to scare me."

Apache Kid was up in a moment.

"Soft!" he cried, "soft!"

And on his face was the look that he gave the
Italian livery-stable keeper at Camp Kettle, only, as
the saying is, *more* so.

I heard Donoghue gasp, you would have thought
more in fear than in exultation: "Say!  When he
gets this ways you want to be back out of his way."

"Look at me!" said Apache, standing up.  "You
see I 've got on no belt; my gun's lying there with
the belt.  I 've got no knife—nothing.  Will you
stand up, sir, and let me show you if I 'm soft,
seeing that I have given you my word—not to kill
you?"  You should have heard the way these last
words came from him.  "Will you stand up and
let me just hammer you within an inch of your end?"

Farrell did not quail; I will do him that justice.
But he sat considering, and then he jerked his head
and jerked it again doggedly, and, "No," he said,
"no, I reckon not."

The fire of anger had leapt quick enough to life
in Apache Kid, and it seemed to ebb as suddenly.

"All right," he said.  "All right.  Perhaps it is
better so.  It would dirty my hands to touch you.
And indeed," he was moving back to his place
now, "lead is too clean for you as well."

He turned as he reached where his blankets lay.

"Farrell," he said, "it is at the end of a rope that
you will die."





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.. _`In Which the Tables Are turned—at Some Cost`:

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   CHAPTER XV


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   *In Which the Tables Are turned—at Some Cost*

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After that peace came, and I dozed again.

It was a shot, followed by a scream,
that awoke me; and those kind gods
who guard us in our sleep and in our
waking caused me even at that moment not to obey
the sudden impulse to leap up.  Instead, I flung my
hand to my revolver and lay flat—and in doing so
saved my life.

Beside me, with the first quick opening of my
eyes, I saw Donoghue kick in his blankets, like a
cat in a sack, and then lie still, and the second
shot rang in my ears, fired by the man Dan from
across the fire and aimed at me.  But truly, it was
fated that Dan should go first of these two who
remained with us of his side, as Farrell had called it,
and it was I who was fated to do the deed.  Let
me put it in that way, I beg of you.  Let me say
"fated" in this instance, if in no other, for it is a
terrible thing to slay a man.  And then I saw what
had befallen, after my shot had gone home and
Dan lay on his face where he had fallen—dead,
with the light of morning, of a new day, just
quivering up the eastern sky, and making the thing more
ghastly.

Farrell and he must have quietly whispered over
their plan where they lay—to make a sudden joint
attack upon us.  Dan's part had evidently been to
put an end to Larry and to me, while Farrell
attended to Apache Kid; for there was Farrell now
with a revolver in each hand, and both were held
to Apache Kid's head.

At hearing my shot, for a moment Farrell glanced
round, and, seeing that Dan had failed in his attempt,
he cried out: "If you move, I kill Apache Kid here,
right off.  Mind now!  I kill him—and let the Lost
Cabin Mine slide.  We 'll see who 's boss o' this
round up!"

And then it suddenly struck me as strange that
they had not reckoned on the other two who were
with us,—Mr. Pinkerton and the half-breed.  Even
as I was then considering their daring, there came a
moan from beside me.  I flung round at the sound,
and there lay Pinkerton with his hand to his breast.
Yes; I understood now.  That sound that woke me
was not of one shot; it was two,—Dan's first shot
at Larry, and Farrell's at Mr. Pinkerton.  But what
of the half-breed?  I bent to Mr. Pinkerton and,
with my hand under his neck, said: "O, Mr. Pinkerton!
Mr. Pinkerton!  O, Mr. Pinkerton!  can I do
anything for you?"

He looked upon me with his kind eyes, full of the
last haze now, and gasped: "My girl!  My girl!
You will——" and he leant heavy in my arms.

"I will see to her," said I.  "O, sir! this you
have got for us.  It is through us that this has
happened.  I will see that she never wants."

These or some words such as these I spoke,—for
I never could rightly recall the exact speech in
looking back on that sad affair.

"You—you are all right, my son," he said, "but
if Apache Kid gets out o' this—he 's—he's more
fit like for——"

I saw his hand fumble again on his breast, and
thought it was in an attempt to open his shirt; but
then I caught the agony in his eye, such as you may
have seen on a dumb man trying to make himself
understood and failing in the attempt.  Something
of that look, but more woeful, more piteous to see,
was on his face.  He was trying to hold his hand to
me; when I took it, he smiled and said:

"You or Apache—Meg."  And that was the last
of this kindly and likeable man who had done so
much for us.

But what of the half-breed?  Was he, too, slain?
Not so; but he was of a more cunning race than I
am sprung of.  When I laid back Mr. Pinkerton's
head and again looked around, the half-breed was
gone from the place where he had lain.

There, on his belly almost, he was creeping upon
Farrell from the rear.  To me it seemed the maddest
and most forlorn undertaking.

There was Farrell with the two revolvers held to
Apache Kid's head, talking softly, too quietly for me
to hear, and Apache Kid replying in a low tone
without any attempt at rising.  And Farrell cried out:
"Nobody try to fire on me!  At a shot I fire too!
My fingers is jest ready.  I 'm a desperate man."

I crouched low, my breath held in dread, my
heart pounding in my side, at long intervals, so
that I thought it must needs burst.  I did not
even dare look again at that crawling savage, lest
Farrell might perhaps cast another such quick glance
as he had already bestowed on me and, seeing the
direction of my gaze, realise his danger.

The result of such a discovery I dared not imagine.
There was enough horror already, without addition.
It was just then that Donoghue gave a queer little
wheezing moan and his eyes opened; but even as I
turned to him, "crash!" went a shot and I spun
round, a cry on my lips; and there lay Apache Kid,
as I had seen him before Donoghue's voice called
me away from observing him.  But now he had
clutched Farrell's right wrist in what must have
been a mighty sudden movement, and was pushing
it from him.  He had leapt sidewise a little
way, but without attempting to rise.

There, thrusting away, in a firm grasp, the hand
that held the smoking weapon, he still looked up in
Farrell's eye, the other revolver before him so that
he must have looked fairly into it.

"You durn fool!" said Farrell.  "You think I
did n't mean what I said?  Well, let me tell you that
I run no more chances.  Oh! you need n't grasp
this arm so fierce.  I don't have to use it.  But,
Apache Kid, I 'm goin' to kill you now.  I reckon
that that there Lost Cabin ain't for any of us,—not
for you, for sure.  Are you ready?"

"Quite ready," I heard Apache Kid say, his voice
as loud as Farrell's now, but more exultant still.  It
horrified me to hear his voice so callous as he looked
on death.  I wondered if now I should not risk a shot
as a last hope to save him.

"There, then!" cried Farrell.

But there followed only the metallic tap of the
hammer,—no report, only that steely click; and
before one could well know what had happened,
Apache Kid was the man on top, shoving Farrell's
head down in the sand, but still clutching Farrell's
right wrist and turning aside that hand that held the
weapon which, on his first sudden movement, had
sent its bullet into the sand beside Apache.

"You goat!" cried Apache Kid.  "When you
intend to use two guns, see that they both are
loaded, or else don't hold the one that you 've
fired the last from right in front of——"  He broke
off and flung up his head, like a wolf baying, and
laughed.

He was a weird sight then, his face blackened
from the shot he had evaded.  But by this time,
I need hardly tell you, I was by his side, helping to
hold down the writhing Farrell—and the half-breed
brought us the lariat from his horse and we trussed
Farrell up, hands and feet, and then stood up.  And
as we turned from him there was Donoghue sitting
up with a foolish look on his face and the blood
trickling on his brow; and, pointing a hand at us, he
cried out, "Come here, some o' you sons o' guns,
and tie up my head a bit so as I kin git up and see
his hangin' afore I die."

Farrell writhed afresh in his bonds as he heard
Donoghue's cry, and in a voice in which there seemed
nothing human, he roared, "What! is that feller
Donoghue not killed?"

"No, sir!" Donoghue replied, his head falling and
his chin on his breast, but eyes looking up, with the
blood running into them from under his ragged
eyebrows: "No, sir,—after you!" he cried, and he let
out that hideous oath that I had heard him use once
before, but cannot permit myself to write or any man
to read.





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.. _`Sounds in the Forest`:

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   CHAPTER XVI


.. class:: center medium bold

   *Sounds in the Forest*

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We hanged Farrell in the morning, for
he had broken the compact and he
was a murderer.  And we laid
Pinkerton to his rest in the midst of
the plain, with a cairn of stones to
mark the spot.

Let that suffice.  As for these two things you may
readily understand I have no heart to write.  And
indeed, it would be a depraved taste that would desire
to read of them in detail.  I know you are not of
those who will blame me for this reticence.

When I told Apache Kid of Mr. Pinkerton's last
words he was greatly moved, as I could see, though
he kept a calm front, and he told the half-breed, who
left us then, to convey to Miss Pinkerton our united
sympathy with a promise that we would visit her
immediately on our return from our expedition.

Then we set out again, a melancholy company, as
you will understand, Apache Kid and I carrying all
the provisions that he thought fit to take along with
us; for Donoghue was too light-headed to be
burdened with any load, and lurched along beside us as
we made toward the hills that closed in the plain
to north, lurched along with the red handkerchief
around his head and singing snatches of song now
and again.  The bullet had ploughed a furrow along
the side of his head, and though the bleeding had
stopped he was evidently mentally affected by the
wound.

It was drawing near nightfall again when we came
to the end of this seeming cul-de-sac of a valley, and
the hills on either side drew closer to us.

Before us now as we mounted, breathing heavily,
up the incline we saw the woods, all the trees
standing motionless, and already we could look well into
the hazy blue deep of that place.

"I have been here before," said Apache, "but not
much farther.  We thought we might have to push
clear through this place and try what luck there was
in getting a shelter beyond.  They pushed us very
close that time," he said meditatively.  But so
absently did he speak this that, though I could not
make any guess as to who it was that was "pushing"
him "close" and who was with him on that perilous
occasion, I forbore to question.

You have seen men in that mood yourself, I am
sure, speaking more to the air than to you.

He turned about at the entering into the wood and
we looked down on the plain stretching below us.  A
long while he gazed with eyelids puckered, scanning
the shelving and stretching expanse.

"Two parties have followed us," he said in a
whisper almost.  "God grant there be no more, else when
we get the wealth that lies in store for us we shall
hardly be able to enjoy it for thinking of all it has
cost us.  It has been the death of one good man
already," he added.  "Ah, well!  There is no sign
of any mortal there.  We must push on through this
wilderness before us."

He stopped again and considered, Donoghue rocking
impotent and dazed beside us.

"I wonder where Canlan is to-night," he said, and
then we plunged into the woods.

If the silence of the plain had been intense, we
were now to know a silence more august.  I think it
was our environment then that made Apache Kid
speak in that whisper.  There was something in this
deep wood before us that hushed our voices.  I think
it was the utter lack of even the faintest twitter of any
bird, where it seemed fitting that birds should be, that
influenced us then almost unconsciously.  Our very
tread fell echoless in the dust of ages there, the
fallen needles and cones of many and many an
undisturbed year.  It was with a thrill that I found that
we had suddenly come upon what looked like a path
of some kind.  Apache Kid was walking first,
Donoghue following, the knotted ends of the handkerchief
sticking out comically at the back of his head under
his hat.

"You see, we're on to a trail now," said Apache
Kid, as he trudged along.  "You never strike a trail
just at the entrance into a place like this.  Travellers
who have passed here at various times, you see, come
into the wood at all sorts of angles, where the trees
are thin.  But after one gets into the wood a bit and
the trees get thicker, in feeling about for a passage
you find where someone has been before you and you
take the same way.  A week, or a month, or a year
later someone else comes along and he follows you.
This trail here, for all that you can see the print of a
horse's hoof here and there on it, may not have been
passed over this year by any living soul.  There
may not have been anyone here since I was here last
myself, three years ago—yes, that print there may
be the print of my own horse's hoof, for I remember
how the rain drenched that day, charging through
the pass here and dripping from the pines and
trickling through all the woods."

"It is a pass, then?" said I.

"Oh, yes," he explained.  "It is what is called, in
the language of the country, a buck's trail.  That
does not mean, as I used to think, an Indian trail.
It is the slang word for a priest.  You find these
bucks' trails all over the country.  They were made
by the priests who came up from old Mexico to
evangelise and convert the red heathen of the land.
I think these old priests must have been regular
wander-fever men to do it.  Think of it, man, cutting
a way through these woods.  Aha!  See, there's a
blaze on a tree there.  You can scarcely make it
out, though; it's been rained upon and snowed upon
and blown upon so long, year in, year out.  Turn
about, now that we are past it, and you see the blaze
on this side.  Perhaps the old buck made that
himself, standing back from the tree and swinging his
axe and saying to himself: 'If this leads me nowhere,
I shall at least be able to find my way back plain
enough.'  Well!  It's near here somewhere that I
stopped that time, three years ago.  Do you make
out the sound of any water trickling?"

We stood listening; but there was no sound save
that of our breathing, and then suddenly a "tap, tap,
tap" broke out loud in the forest, so that it startled
me at the moment, though next moment I knew it
was the sound of a busy woodpecker.

We moved on a little farther, and then Apache
Kid cried out in joy:

"Aha!  Here we are!  See the clear bit down
there where the trees thin out?"

We pushed our way forward to where, through the
growing dusk of the woods, there glowed between the
boles a soft green, seeming very bright after the dark,
rusty green of these motionless trees.

"There is n't much elbow room round about us
here to keep off the wildcats," said Apache Kid,
looking round into the forest as we stepped forth
into this oasis and found there a tiny spring with a
teacupful of water in its hollow.  The little trickle
that went from it seemed just to spread out and lose
itself almost immediately in the earth; but it served
our purpose, and here we camped.

Donoghue had been like a dazed man since morning,
but now, after the strong tea, he was greatly
refreshed and had his wits collected sufficiently to
suggest that we should keep watch that night, lest
another party were following us up.  He also washed
the wound in his forehead, and, finding it bleeding
afresh after that, pricked what he called the "pimples"
from a fir-tree, and with the sap exuding therefrom
staunched the bleeding again, and I suppose used
one of the best possible healers in so doing.

That there were wildcats in the woods there was no
doubt.  They screamed half the night, with a sound
like weeping infants, very dolorous to hear.  Apache
Kid took the first watch, Donoghue the second, and
I the third.  I was to waken them at sunrise, and
after Donoghue shook me up and I sat by the glowing
fire, I remember the start with which I saw, after
a space, as I sat musing of many things, as one will
muse in such surroundings, two gleaming eyes looking
into mine out of the woods—just the eyes, upright
ovals with a green light, turning suddenly into
horizontal ovals and changing colour to red as I became
aware of them.

We were generally careful to make our fire of such
wood as would flame, or glow, without shedding out
sparks that might burn our blankets; but some such
fuel had been put on the fire that night, and it suddenly
crackled up then and sent forth a shower of sparks.
And at that the eyes disappeared.  I flicked the
sparks off my sleeping comrades and then sat musing
again, looking up on the stars and alternately into the
darkness of the woods and into the glow of the fire,
and suddenly I saw all along the forest a red line of
light spring to life, and my attention was riveted
thereon.

I saw it climb the stems of trees far through the
wood and run up to the branches.  A forest fire,
thought I to myself, and wondered if our danger was
great in that place.  I snuffed the air.  There was
certainly the odour of burning wood, but that might
have been from our camp-fire alone, and there was
also the rich, unforgettable odour of the balsam.

But so greatly did the line of fire increase and glow
that I stretched forth my hand and touched
Donoghue upon the shoulder.  He started up, and,
following the pointing of my finger, glared a moment
through the spaces of the forest.  Then he dropped
back again.

"It is the dawn," he said, and drew the blankets
over his head.  "Wake me in another hour."

But I sat broad awake, my heart glowing with a
kind of voiceless worship, watching that marvellous
dawn.  It spread more slowly than I would have
imagined possible, taking tree by tree, running left
and right, and creeping forward like an advancing
army; and then suddenly the sky overhead was full
of a quivering, pale light, and in the dim blue pool of
the heavens the stars went out.  But no birds sang to
the new day, only I heard again the tap-tap of a
woodpecker echoing about through the woods.

So I filled the can with water, which was a slow
process at that very tiny spring, and mixed the flour
ready for the flapjacks and then woke my comrades.

I must not weary you, however, recounting hour
by hour as it came.  I have other things to tell you
of than these,—matters regarding hasty, hot-blooded
man in place of a chronicle of slow, benignant
nature.

On the journey of this day we came very soon to
what seemed to be the "height of land" in that part,
and descending on the other side came into a place
of swamp where the mosquitos assaulted us in clouds.
So terribly did they pester us that on the mid-day
camp, while Apache Kid made ready our tea (for
eatables we did with a cold flapjack apiece, having
made an extra supply at breakfast, so as to save time
at noon), I employed myself in switching him about
the head with a leafy branch in one hand, while with
the other I drove off another cloud of these pests
that made war upon me.

No sooner had we the tea ready than we put clods
and wet leaves upon the fire, raising a thick smoke,
a "smudge," as it is called, and sitting in the midst
of that protecting haze we partook of our meal,
coughing and spluttering, it is true; but the smoke in
the eyes and throat was a mere nothing to the
mosquito nuisance.

I think that for the time being the mosquitos
spurred us forward as much as did our fear of being
forestalled in out quest.  Mounting higher on our
left where a cold wind blew, instead of dipping down
into the next wooded valley, we found peace at last.
As we tramped along on this crest, where our view
was no longer cramped, where at last we could
see more than the next knoll before us or the
next abyss of woods, I noticed Apache constantly
scanning the country as though he were trying to
take his bearings.

Donoghue, who was now more like his rational, or
irrational self, soon seemed to waken up to his
surroundings, and fell to the same employ.

It was to the valley westward, now that we were
upon the ridge, that they directed their attention.
Donoghue, his loose jaw hanging, his teeth biting on
his lips, posted on ahead of us and suddenly he
stopped, stood revealed against the blue peak of the
mountain on whose ridge we now travelled, in an
attitude that bespoke some discovery.  He was on a
little eminence of the mountain's shoulder, a treeless
mound where boulders of granite stood about in
gigantic ruin, with other granite outposts dotted
down the hill into the midst of the trees, which stood
there small and regular, just as you see them in a
new plantation at home.  He shaded his eyes from
the light, looked finally satisfied, and then sat down
to await our coming.

Apache stepped forward more briskly; quick and
eager we trotted up the rise where Donoghue merely
pointed into the valley that had now for over an hour
been so eagerly scanned.  There, far off, in the green
forest bottom, the leaden grey glint of a lake showed
among the wearisome woods.

"Ah!  We'll have a smoke up," said Apache,
with an air of relief.  So we sat down on our blanket-rolls
in the sunlight.  There was a gleam in my
companions' eyes, a look of expectation on their faces, and
after that "smoke up" Apache spoke with a
determined voice, dropping his cigarette end and tramping
it with his heel.

"We camp at that lake to-night," said he.

"To-night?" said I, in astonishment, for it seemed
to me a monstrous length to go before nightfall; but
he merely nodded his head vehemently, and said
again: "To-night," and then after a pause: "We
lose time," said he, "there may be others:" and we
rose to our feet.

"We could n't camp up here, anyhow," said
Donoghue, looking round.

It was truly a weird sight there, for we could see
so many valleys now, hollows, gulches, clefts in the
chaos of the mountains; here, white masts of trees
all lightening-struck on a blasted knoll; there, a
rocky cut in the face of the landscape like a
monstrous scar; at another place a long, toothed ridge
that must have broken many a storm in its day.
Besides, already, though it was but afternoon, a keen,
icy-cold wind ran like a draught there and the voice of
the wind arose and died in our ears from somewhere
in that long, rocky backbone, with a sound like a
railway train going by; and so it would arise and cease
again, and then cry out elsewhere in a voice of
lamentation, low and mournful.

Apache Kid was looking round and round, his eyes
wide and bright.

"I should like to see this in Winter," said he,
"when leaves fall and cold winds come."

"There 's no mortal man ever saw this in Winter,"
said Donoghue, "and no man ever will."

I saw Apache Kid linger, and look on that terrible
and awesome landscape, with a half-frightened
fondness; and then he cast one more glance at the leaden
grey of the lake below and another at a peak on our
right and, his bearings thus in mind, led the way
downward into that dark and forbidding valley.

I shall never forget the journey down to that lake.

Winding here, winding there, using the axe
frequently as the thin trees I mentioned were passed,
and we entered the virgin forest below, close and
tangled, we worked slowly down-hill; and it was
with something of pleasure that we came at last
again onto what looked like a trail through the forest.
It was just like one of the field paths at home for
breadth; but a perfect wall of tangled bush and trees
netted together with a kind of tangled vine (the pea-vine,
I believe it is called), closed it in on either side.

We were on the track of the indomitable "buck"
again, I thought.  But it was not so.  His trail had
kept directly on upon the hill, Apache Kid told me.

"I thought you saw it from the knoll there," he
said, and then with a queer look on his face, "but you
can't go back now to look on it.  Man, do you know
that a hunger takes me often to go back and see just
such places as that on the summit there?  I take an
absolute dread that I must die without ever seeing
them again.  There are places I cannot allow myself
to think of lest that comes over me that forces—aye,
forces—me to go back again for one look
more.  I love a view like that more than ever any
man loved a woman."

Donoghue looked round to me and touched his
forehead and shook his head gently.

"Rathouse," he said: "crazy as ever they make 'em."

"But this is a trail we have come onto, sure
enough," I said.

My companions looked at it quietly and I noticed
how they both at once unslung their Winchesters
from their shoulders, for Donoghue had again taken
his share of our burdens.

"Not exactly a trail," said Apache Kid, "at least,
neither an Indian's trail nor a buck's trail this time.
What was that, Donoghue?"

A sharp crack, as of a branch broken near us,
came distinctly to our ears.

Donoghue did not answer directly but said instead:

"You walk first; let Francis here in the middle.
I 'll come last," and Donoghue dropped behind me.

Apache nodded and we started on our way.

Neither to left nor right could we see beyond a few
feet, so close did the underbrush still whelm the way.

The sound of our steps in the stillness was more
eerie than ever to my ears.  I felt that I should go
barefoot here by right, soundless, stealthy, watching
every foot of the way for a lurking death in the
bushes.

"Crack," sounded again a broken branch on our left.

"Well," said Apache, softly—I was treading almost
on his heels and Donoghue was close behind me—"twigs
don't snap of their own accord like that in
mid-summer."

We kept on, however, not hastening our steps at all,
but at the same even, steady pace, and suddenly again
in the stillness—"Crack!"

Again a branch or twig had snapped near by in the
thick woods through which we could not see.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Coming of Mike Canlan`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *The Coming of Mike Canlan*

.. vspace:: 2

.. dropcap:: T
   :image: images/img-cap-17.jpg
   :lines: 5

There was a cold shiver ran in my
spine at that second crack, for it was
eerie to know that some live thing,
man or beast, was following us up
through the bushes.

"It's a lion, sure thing," Donoghue said behind
me, "and it's goin' at this stalking of us darned
careless, too.  I wisht we could get to a clear place and
give him a chance to show himself."

"Lion?" asked I, astonished.

"Yes—panther, that is," said Apache Kid.

"In the phraseology of the country, that is," I
suggested.

Apache looked over his shoulder at me.

"You are pretty cool for a tenderfoot," he
remarked.  "This is a bad spot for us to be stalked
by a beast like that.  Let me come behind now,
Larry," he continued.  "We are getting to a clear
place, I think, and he may spring before we get out."

"Not you," said Larry.  "Just you go on ahaid
and let the lad keep in between."

Here the bushes thinned out considerably and
when we reached this opener part Donoghue bade
us walk straight on.

"Don't look back," said he.  "Let him think we
don't know he's followin'.  Give him a chance to
cross this here glade.  We'll stop just inside them
further trees and if he shows himself there, we 'll get
him then, sure thing.  What between men and beasts
we suttingly have been followed up some this trip,
and I 'm gettin' tired of it.  This here followin' up
has got to end."

But though we carried out Donoghue's suggestion,
crossing the open space, entering again on the path
where it continued down-hill in the forest again, and
halting there, the "lion" did not show himself.

It was here, while standing a little space, waiting
for the panther's appearance, if panther it was that
shadowed us, that Apache Kid pointed a finger at
the ground before us, where a tiny trickle of water,
in crossing the path, made it muddy and moist.

"See the deer marks?" he whispered.  "Neat,
aren't they?  This, you see, is a game trail from the
hills down to the lake——"

"No good," broke in Donoghue.  "He ain't
going to show himself."

So we passed on, and soon the way became more
precipitous; the underbrush cleared; the trees
thinned; and in a jog trot we at last went rattling
down the final incline and came right out with the
impetus of that run upon the open ground around
the lake, though of the lake itself, now that we were
at its level, we could discern little—only tiny grey
glimpses, so closely was it thronged about by rushes,
and they so tall.

A thousand frogs were singing, making quite a din
in our ears, so pent in was the sound in that cup-like
hollow.  But weary as we were, we rejoiced to have
come to our desired camp and soon were sitting fed
and contented round the fire.

Of all our camps so far this seemed to me the
most secure.  Consequently, it horrified me a little
when Apache Kid remarked, taking his cigarette
from his lips:

"Where do you think Canlan will be to-night?"

Donoghue considered the burning log:

"Oh!  Allowing for him getting on to us pulling
out, even the day after we left, and allowing for him
starting out right then, he can't be nigher here than a
day's journey, coming in to the country the way he
would do it—over the shoulder of Mount Baker and
in that ways."

"He 'll be over behind there, then," said Apache,
pointing; "right over that ridge, sitting by his
lonesome camp and perhaps half a dozen fellows dogging
him up too, eh?"

"Like enough," said Donoghue; "but he's
accustomed to bein' dogged up."

"Those who live in glass houses..." remarked
Apache Kid, with a laugh that had no real merriment
in the ring of it.

Donoghue raised his eyes to Apache's across the
fire and laughed back.  And they both seemed to
fall into a reverie after these words.  From their
remarks I gathered that they believed that Canlan
really knew the location of the mine.  He had been
simply waiting in Baker City, then, for fear of my two
partners.  So I sat silent and pondering.  Presently
Apache Kid snorted and seemed to fling the thoughts
aside that had been occupying him.  But anon he
fell brooding again, biting on his lip and closing an
eye to the glow.

It was after one such long, meditative gazing into
the glowing and leaping embers that he spoke to me,
and with such a ring in his voice as caused me to
look upon him with a new interest.  The tone of the
voice, it seemed to me, hinted at some deep thought.

"Where do you come from, Francis?" he asked.
"What is your nationality?"

"Why, I'm a Cosmopolitan," said I, half smiling,
as one is prone to do when a man asks him some
trivial matter with a voice as serious as though he
spoke of strange things.

"Yes; we all are," said Apache Kid, putting aside
my lightness.  "But is n't it Edinburgh you come from?"

"Yes," said I.

He mused again at my reply, plucking his
finger-knuckles, and then turned an eye to Donoghue,
who was already surveying him under his watchful
brows.

"Shall I tell him?" he asked.

"Tell him what?" said Donoghue, looking
uncomfortable, I thought, as though this mood of his
partner's was one he did not relish.

"Tell him what we are—how we live—all that?"

From Apache to me and back again Donoghue
glanced, and then: "Oh! tell, if you like," said he.
"There won't no harm come from telling him.  He's
safe.  He 's all right, is Francis."

Again there was a pause.

"Well," said Apache Kid, finally, ending his
reverie.  "The fact is that we—Donoghue and
I—except upon occasion, when we want to make some
sort of a character for ourselves, to show a visible
means of support,—the fact is, we are——"

"Spit it out," said Donoghue.  "Spit it out.  It
ain't everybody has the courage to be."

I considered what was coming.

"The fact is," said Apache Kid, "we are what they
call in this country road-agents—make our living by
holding up stage-coaches and——"

"By gum! we 've held up more nor stage-coaches,"
cried Donoghue, and began fumbling in an inner
pocket with eager fingers.

"And banks," said Apache Kid, gazing on me to
see the effect of this disclosure.

Donoghue stretched across to me, his loose face
gleaming with a kind of joy.

"Read that," he said.  "Read what that says;"
and he handed me a long newspaper cutting.

What I read on the cutting was:

.. class:: center white-space-pre-line

   "Daring Hold-Up of the Transcontinental.
   The Two-some Gang again at Work."

.. vspace:: 2

"That's us," said Donoghue, gloating.  "It reads
pretty good, but Apache here says there ain't no
sense in the headin' about the two-some gang—says
them journalist boys is no good.  Seems to me a
right slick notice—that's us, anyway."

Apache Kid seemed disturbed, annoyed.

"Well! what do you think?" he said, fixing me
with his eye.

"I 'm sorry," said I.

Donoghue threw back his head and laughed.

"It's not the right sort of way to live?" said
Apache Kid, questioningly.  "You know I can make
out a fine case in its defence."

"Yes," I replied.  "I have no doubt you could,
and that's just what makes me all the more sorry
to think of your doing this.  Still, I feel that you
having told me prevents me stating an opinion."

"If someone else had told——" he began.

"Then I might speak," said I.

"Should it not be the other way about?" he asked,
half smiling.

"Perhaps it should," said I.  "But if you honour
me by telling me, it is enough for me just to say I
am sorry.  Would you have me preach?"

He looked on me with great friendliness.

"I understand the sentiment," said he.  "But I
should like you to preach, if you wish."

"Well," said I, "I have no doubt you could, with
the brains you have and your turn for sophistry,
make out a very entertaining defence for such a
life.  'Murder as a fine art,' you know——"

"Murder?" asked Donoghue; but Apache Kid
silenced him with a gesture, and I continued:

"But neither you nor those who heard your defence
could treat it otherwise than as a piece of airy and
misplaced, misdirected wit, on a par with your
misplaced love of adventure."

He nodded at that part, and his face cleared a
little.

"That but makes me all the more sorry," said I,
"to know you are——" I paused.  "A parasite!"

I blurted out.

"Parasite!" he cried; and his hand flew down to
his holster, wavered, and fell soundless on his crossed
legs.

It was the first time he had looked on me in anger.

"What's parasite?" asked Donoghue.

"A louse," said Apache Kid.

"Hell!" drawled Donoghue, and glanced at me.
"You need lookin' after."

"There are parasites and parasites," said I.  "In
this case it is more like these deer-lice we came by
in the forest."

We had suffered from these, but I have not said
anything of them, for the subject is not pleasant.

"Well," drawled Donoghue.  "They are fighters,
anyway, they are.  You kind o' respect them."

Apache Kid smiled.

"Yes," he said, in a low voice, "it's the right word,
nevertheless."

Donoghue jeered.

"Waal!  Here's where I come in!  Here's the
beauty of not being ediccated to big words nor what
they mean, nor bein' able to follow a high-toned talk
except the way a man follows a poor-blazed trail."

Apache surveyed him with interest for a moment
and then again turning to me he heaved a little sigh
and said:

"I wonder if you would do something for me after
we get through with this expedition?  If I were to
give you a little wad of bills, enough for a year's
holiday at home, I wonder if you 'd go and take a squint
at the house where my folks lived when I left home;
find out if they are still there, and if not, trace them
up?  You 'd need to promise me not to let that
sentimental side of you run away with you.  You 'd need
to promise not to go and tell them I'm alive; for
I 'm sure they have given me up for dead years ago
and mourned the allotted space of time that men and
women mourn—and forgotten.  It would only be
opening fresh wounds to hear of me.  They have
grieved for my death; I would not have them mourn
for my life.  But I—well, I sometimes wonder.  You
understand what I mean——"

"Watch your eye!" roared Donoghue.  "Watch
your——" but a shot out of the forest sent him
flying along the ground, he having risen suddenly and
stretched for his rifle.

Instead of clutching it he went far beyond,
ploughing the earth with his outstretched hands;
and right on the first report came a second and
Apache cried: "O!"

He sagged down all in a heap, but I flung round
for my revolver—the one with which I had had
no practice.  I heard the quick, dull plod of running
feet and before I could get my finger on my weapon
a voice was bellowing out:

"Don't shoot, man; don't shoot!  It's Canlan;
Mike Canlan.  You ain't hostile to Mike Canlan."

I wheeled about, and there he was trailing his
smoking rifle in his left hand and extending his right
to me; Mike Canlan, little Mike Canlan with the
beady eyes, the parchment-like, pock-marked face,
and the boy's body.

Had my revolver been to hand, he had been a dead
man, I verily believe—he or I.  As it was, I leapt on
him crying:

"Murderer!  Murderer!"

Down came my fist on his head and at the jar his
rifle fell from his grasp.  The next stroke took him
on the lips, sending him backwards.  I pounded him
till my arms were weary, he lying there with his faded,
pock-marked face and his colourless eyes dancing
in pain and crying out: "Let up!  Let up, you fool!
We ain't hostile.  It's Canlan!" he cried, between
blows.  "Mike Canlan."

At last I did "let up" and stood back from him.

He sat up and wiped the blood from his mouth
and spat out a tooth.

"Ah, lad," he said.  "Here's a fine way to repay
me for savin' your life.  Think I could n't have laid
you out stark and stiff there aside them two?"

My gorge rose to hear him talk thus.

"Easy I could have done it," he went on, "but I
didn't.  And why?"

He sidled to me on his hams without attempting to
rise, and held up a finger to me.

"Why, lad, you saved my life once, so I spared
yours this blessed night.  That's me, that's Mike
Canlan.  And see here, lad, you and me now——"

"Silence!" I cried, drawing back from his touch,
as he crept nearer.

I had seen murder done, of the most horrible kind.
I had seen a big-hearted, sparkling-eyed man, not
yet in his prime, struck out of life in a moment.
What he was telling me of himself was nothing to
me now.  I only knew that I had come to like him
and that he was gone—slain by this little, insignificant
creature that you could not call a man.  And I
had seen another man, whom I did not altogether
hate, sent to as summary an end.  I held this man
who talked in the sing-song voice at my feet in
horror, in loathing.  I bent to feel the heart of
Apache Kid, for I thought I saw a movement in his
sun-browned neck, as of a vein throbbing and—

"O!  They're dead, dead and done with," cried
Canlan.  "If they was n't, I 'd shove another shot into
each of 'em just to make sure.  But they 're dead
men, for Canlan killed 'em.  If they was n't, I 'd
shove another shot into each of them!"

The words rang in my ears with warning.  I had
just been on the point of trying to raise Apache Kid;
a cry of joy was almost on my lips to think that life
was not extinct; but the words warned me and I
turned about.

"He's dead, ain't he?" said Canlan, and I lied to him.

"Yes," I replied.  "He is dead, and as for you——"

"As for me—nothing!" said Canlan, and he
looked along his gleaming barrel at where my heart
fluttered in my breast.

"You and me," said he, "has to come to terms
right now.  Oh!  I don't disrespec' you none for not
takin' kindly to this.  I like you all the better for it.
But think of what you 've fallen into all through me.
Here 's half shares in the Lost Cabin Mine for you
now instead of a paltry third—half shares, my lad.
How does that catch you?"

I was not going to tell him the terms I was here on,
but I said:

"Put down your rifle then, and let us talk it over."

"Come, now, that's better," said Canlan, cheerily;
but I noticed that a nerve in his left cheek kept
twitching oddly as he spoke, and his head gave
constant nervous jerks left and right, like a man shaking
flies away from him, and he sniffed constantly, and I
think was quite unaware that he did so.  But I did
not wonder at his nervousness after such a heinous
deed as he had performed that evening.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`The Lost Cabin is Found`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *The Lost Cabin is Found*

.. vspace:: 2

.. dropcap:: "C
   :image: images/img-cap-18.jpg
   :lines: 5

"Come, come," said Canlan, suddenly,
with an access of the facial twitching
and another sudden jerking of his
head.  "If them 's your blankets, pack
'em up and let's git out o' this, back
to my camp the other side of the lake."

I thought it as well to obey him, for if either of these
men yet lived and should by any ill fortune emit as
much as a moan, I knew that Canlan would make a
speedy end then.  If they lived, the best I could do
for them was to leave them.

And yet there was another thing that I might
do—snatch up one of the revolvers and straightway mete
out justice—no less—upon this murderer.

But he was on the alert and shoved his Winchester
against my neck as I stooped, tying my blanket-roll,
with my eyes surreptitiously measuring the distance
to the nearest weapon.

"See here," he said, "I can't be runnin' chances
with you.  I 've let you off already, but I can't be
givin' you chances to kill me now.  Funny thing it
would be for me to let you off for having saved my
life once, and then you turn round and plug me now.
Eh?  That would be a skin kind of a game to play
on a man.  If that's your gun layin' there with the
belt, you can buckle on the belt but keep your hands
off the gun, or I gets tired o' my kindness.  See?"

He snarled the last word at me, and over my
shoulder I saw the leer on his grey face as he spoke.
So I packed my blankets without more ado and
buckled on my belt, with the revolver in its holster
hanging from it, and at Canlan's suggestion took also
a bag of flour with me.

"I guess there ain't no call to see what them two
has in their pockets by way of dough,"[#] said he.
"We don't have no need for feelin' in dead men's
pockets now—you and me," and he winked and
laughed a dry, crackling, nervous laugh, and stooped
to lift a torch from our fire.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] Money.

.. vspace:: 2

With this raised in his hand he whirled about on
me and said: "Now remember, I trusts you," and led
off at a brisk pace from the trodden circle of the
camp-fire.  He had the tail of his eye on me, and I followed
at once.

We skirted the lake, keeping under the trees, the
torch sending the twisted shadows flying before us
and bringing them up behind; and just at the bend
of the lake I looked back at that camp, and it brought
to my mind the similar, or almost similar, scene I had
witnessed in the place of smouldering stumps behind
Camp Kettle.

We plodded round the north end of this little lake,
and then a horse whinnied in the gloom, and, "Here
we are," cried Canlan, and stooping, he thrust the
torch into the embers of the fire he had evidently
had there and trodden out suddenly.  He kicked it
together again, and soon the flames were leaping up
vigorously.  Then he turned and looked on me.

"Well," said he, "you and your friends must ha'
travelled pretty quick.  Clever lads!  Clever lads!
Did you know that you was goin' to try and spoil
Mike Canlan's game that day I gave you good-bye at
Baker City?"

"Not I," I replied.  "I did not know then that
you knew the secret."

"Ah well, I did!  Clever lad Apache thought himself,
I guess, slinkin' away down to Camp Kettle and
cuttin' in that ways.  Well, I ain't surprised he took
that way.  He knows it well.  If all stories is true,
he 's played hide and seek in that same valley more
nor once with gentlemen that had some desire for to
settle accounts with him."

He blinked on me, and then sniffed twice, and
suddenly pursed his lips and said:

"But that ain't here nor there.  Are you on to
take my offer o' half shares in this?"

The whole man was still loathsome to me, and I
cried out:

"No, no!  And would to Heaven I had never
heard of this horrible and accursed quest."

"Well," drawled Canlan, "I 'm gettin' some tired
o' havin' no sleep nights for sittin' listenin' for fellers
follerin' me up.  Not that they 'd kill me in my sleep.
I guess I 'm too precious like for that.  I 've been
keepin' myself up on tanglefoot all the way in, but
I did n't bring nigh enough for them mountains, and
it's give out.  It's give out this last day and a night,
and by jiminy, I 'm gettin' them again.  I feel 'em
comin' on.  It ain't good for a man like me wantin'
my tonic.  Say," and his face twitched again, "I 'm
jest holdin' myself together now by fair devil's
desperation; when I get to the end o' this journey I 'm
gettin' some scared my brain-pan will jest——" he
stopped abruptly and began on a fresh track:
"Well, it's natural, I guess, for you to feel bad
to-night, you bein' partners o' them fellers so recent.
But you'll be better come morning.  Say, if I lay
down and sleep you won't shoot me sleepin', eh?"

"I won't do that," said I.

"That's a bargain, then," he cried, and before I
could say another word he threw himself down beside
the fire.

He drew his hand over his brow and showed me it wet.

"That's for wantin' the liquor," he said.  "A man
what don't know the crave can't understand it.  I
know what I need though.  Sleep,—that's what I
need; and I 'm jest goin' to force myself to sleep."

I made no reply, but looked on him as he lay,
and perceived that his ghastly face was all clammy in
the fire-sheen as he reclined in this attempt to steady
his unstrung nerves.  For me, I sat on, scarcely
heeding the noises of the midnight forest.  I heard a
mud-turtle ever and again, with that peculiar sound as of
a pump being worked.  That was a sound new to
me then, but the other cries—of the wildcats and
wolves—I heeded little.

Once or twice I thought of taking a brand from the
fire to light me round to the camp across the lake,
that I might discover whether, indeed, both my friends
were dead.  But, as I turned over this thought of
return in my mind, Canlan brought down his arms again
from above his head where they had lain relaxed,
and, opening his eyes, rolled on his side and looked
up at me.

"Don't you do it," he said.

"Do what?" I inquired.

"What you was thinkin' of," he replied.

"And what was that?"

"You know," he said, thickly and grimly, "and I
know.  Two men alone in the mountains can't ever
hide their thoughts from each other.  Mind you that!"

"What was I thinking of doing, then?" I asked.

"That's all right," he said.  "You can't bluff me."

"Well, what then?" I cried, irritated.

He sat up.

"You was thinkin' of goin' right off, right now.
No, it wasn't to get in ahead of me at the Cabin
Mine.  I 'm beginnin' to guess that Apache Kid
did n't let you know so much as that.  But you was
just feelin' so sick and sorry like that you thought o'
gettin' up quiet and takin' my hoss there and——"

He was watching my face as he spoke, peering up
at me and sniffing.  With a kick he got the fire into
a blaze, but without taking his eyes from me.  Then,
"No, you was n't thinkin' that, either," he said, in a
voice as of disappointment that his power of
mind-reading seemed at fault.

"Derned if I dew know what you was thinkin'," he
acknowledged.  "Oh, you 're deeper than most," he
went on, "but I 'll get to know you yet.  Yes, siree;
I 'll see right through you yet."

He lay down after this vehement talk, as though
exhausted, wiping the sweat from his brow where it
gleamed in the little furrows of leathery skin.  He
was not a pretty man, I assure you.

A feeling as of pride came over me to think that
this evil man was willing to take my word that I
would not meddle him in his sleep, as I saw him
close his eyes once more,—this time really asleep,
I think.

But to attempt to return to Apache Kid's camp I
now was assured in my mind would be a folly.  At a
merest movement of mine Canlan might awaken, and
if he suspected that I entertained a hope of at least
one of my late companions being alive, he might
himself be shaken in his belief in the deadly accuracy of
his aim.

I pictured him waking to find me stealing away to
Apache's camp and stealthily following me up.  I
even pictured our arrival at the further shore—the
still glowing fire, both my companions sitting up
bleeding and dazed and trying to tend each other,
Canlan marching up to them while they were still in
that helpless predicament and blowing their brains
from his Winchester's mouth.  So I sat still where I
was and eventually dozed a little myself, till morning
came to the tree-tops and slipped down into the
valley and glowed down from the sky, and then
Canlan awoke fairly and stretched himself and yawned a
deal and moaned, "God, God, God!"—three times.

And I thought to myself that this reptile of a man
might well cry on God on waking that morning.

Neither he nor I, each for our own reasons, ate any
breakfast.  My belongings I allowed him to pack on
his horse with his own, so that I might not be
burdened with them, the chance of a tussle with Canlan
being still in my mind.  Then, after we had
extinguished the fire, a thought came to me.  It was when
I saw that he was going to strike directly uphill
through the forest that I scented an excuse to get
back to my comrades.  True, my hope that they
lived was now pretty nigh at ebb, for I argued to
myself that if life was in them, they would already
have managed to follow us.  Aye!  I believed that
either of them, supposing even that he could not
stand, would have *crawled* along our trail at the first
light of day, bent upon vengeance; for I had learnt
to know them both as desperate men—though to
one of them, despite what I knew of his life, I had
grown exceedingly attached.

"I 'll go back to our old camp," said I, "and bring
along an axe if you are going right up that way.  We
may need it to clear a way for the horse."

He wheeled about.

"Say!" he said.  "What are you so struck on
goin' back to your camp for.  Guess I 'll come with
you and see jest what you want."

He looked me so keenly in the eye that I said at
once, knowing that to object to his presence would
be the worst attitude possible: "Come, then," and
stepped out; but when he saw that I was not averse
to his company he cried out:

"No, no.  I have an axe here that will serve the
turn if we need to do any cutting.  But I reckon we
won't need to use an axe none.  It's up this here
dry watercourse we go, and there won't be much
clearin' wanted here."

It was now broad day, and as I turned to follow
Canlan again I gave up my old friends for dead.

The man's short, broad back and childish legs, and
the whole shape of him, seemed to combine to raise
my gorge.

"I would be liker a man," I thought, "if I struck
this reptile dead."  And the thought was scarce come
into my mind and must, I think, have been glittering
in my eyes, when he flashed around on me his
colourless face, and said he:

"Remember, I trust my life to you.  I take it that
you 've agreed to my offer of last night to go half
shares on this.  God knows you 'll have to look after
me by nightfall, this blessed day—unless there 's
maybe a tot o' drink in that cabin."

At the thought he absolutely screamed:

"A tot o' drink!  A tot o' drink!" and away he
went with a sign to me to follow, scrambling up the
watercourse before his horse, which followed with
plodding hoofs, head rising and falling doggedly, and
long tail swishing left and right.  I brought up the
rear.  And thus we climbed the greater part of the
forenoon, with occasional rests to regain our wind,
till at last we came out on the bald, shorn, last crest
of the mountain.

Canlan marched the pony side on to the hill to
breathe; and he himself, blowing the breath from him
in gusts and sniffing a deal, pointed to the long,
black hill-top stretching above us.

"A mountain o' mud," he said.  "That's it right
enough.  Some folks thinks that everything that
prospectors says they come across in the mountains
is jest their demented imaginatings like; but I
seen mountains o' mud before.  There 's a terror of
a one in the Crow's Nest Pass, away up the east
Kootenai; and there's one in Colorado down to the
Warm Springs country.  You can feel it quiver
under you when you walk on it—all same jelly.
See—you see that black crest there?  That's all mud.
This here, where we are, is good enough earth
though, all right, with rock into it.  It's here that we
turn now.  Let me see——"

He took some fresh bearings, looking to the line
of hills to the south-east.  I thought I could pick
out the notch at the summit, over there, through
which Apache Kid, Donoghue, and I had come; and
then he led off again—along the hill this time, his
head jerking terribly, and his whole body indeed, so
that now and again he leapt up in little hopping steps
like one afflicted with St. Vitus' dance.

Up a rib of the mountain, as it might be called, he
marched, I now walking level with him; for I must
confess I was excited.

And then I saw at last what I had journeyed so
painfully and paid so cruelly to see,—a little
"shack," or cabin, of untrimmed logs of the colour
of the earth in which it stood, there, just a stone's
cast from us, between the rib on which we stood
and the next rib that gave a sweeping contour to
the hill and then broke off short, so that the
mountain at that place went down in a sharp slope,
climbed upon lower down by insignificant, scrubby
trees.  But there—there was the cabin, sure enough.
There was our journey's end.

Canlan turned his ashen face to me, and his
yellow eyeballs glittered.

"It looks as we were first," he said, his voice
going up at the end into a wavering cry and his
lips twitching convulsively.





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.. _`Canlan Hears Voices`:

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   CHAPTER XIX


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   *Canlan Hears Voices*

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You should have seen the way in which
Canlan approached that solitary,
deserted cabin.  One might have
thought, to see him, that he fully
expected to find it occupied.

"Hullo, the shack," he cried, leading his horse
down from the rocky rib on which we had paused
to view the goal of our journey.  I noticed how
the horse disapproved of this descent; standing
with firm legs it clearly objected to Canlan's
leading.  The reins were over its head, and Canlan was
a little way down the rib hauling on them,
half-turned and cursing it vehemently.  It could not
have been the slope that troubled the animal, for
that was trifling; but there it stood, dumbly
rebellious, its neck stretched, but budge a foot it would
not.

At last it consented to descend, but very gingerly
feeling every step with doubtful forefeet, and craned
neck still straining against Canlan.  Even when he
succeeded in coaxing and commanding it to the
descent it seemed very doubtful about going out
on the hollow toward the shack, and reminded me,
in the way it walked there, of a hen as you may see
one coming out of a barn when the rain takes off.

"What in thunder's wrong with you?" cried
Canlan.  "Come along, will you?  Looks as if there
was somebody, sure thing, in the shack.  Hullo,
the shack!  Hullo, the cabin!" he hailed again.

"——the shack!  Hullo, the cabin!" cried out
the rib beyond, in an echo.

So Canlan advanced on the cabin, his rifle loose
on his arm, right up to the door on which he
knocked, and from the sound of the knocking I
declare I had an idea that the place was tenanted.

He knocked again.

"Sounds as if there was somebody in here," he
said, in a low, thick whisper, so that I thought he
was afraid.

He knocked again, rat-tat-tat, and sniffed twice,
and piped up in his wheezy voice: "Good day,
sir; here's two pilgrims come for shelter."

It was at his third rap, louder, more forcible on
the door, which was a very rough affair, being
three tree-stems cleft down the centre and bound
together with cross-pieces, as I surmised, on the
inside,—just at the last dull knock of his knuckles
that the door fell bodily inward, and a great flutter
of dust arose inside the dark cabin.

"Anyone there?" he asked, and then stepped boldly in.

"Nobody here," he said, bringing down his rifle
with a clatter.  "One has to be careful approaching
lonesome cabins far away from a settlement at
all times."

Then suddenly he turned a puzzled face on me.

"Queer that, eh?"

"What?"

"Why, that there door.  Propped up from the
inside.  If there was any kind of a smell here apart
from jest the or'nary smell of a log shanty, I 'd be
opining that that there number three o' this here
*push* that worked the mine——  Say!—" he broke
off, "where in thunder is the prospect itself?"

And out he went of the mirk of the cabin, in a
perfect twitter of nerves, and away across to the
spur of which I told you.

There I saw him from the door (by which the pack-horse
stood quiet now, the reins trailing) kick his foot
several times in the earth.  Then he turned to see if
I observed him, and flicking off his hat waved it round
his head and came posting back.

"There 's half a dozen logs flung across the shaft
they sunk," said he, "and they're covered over with
dirt, to hide it like.  Let's get in first and see what's
what inside."

There was no flooring to the cabin and at one end
was a charred place on the ground.  Canlan looked
up at the low roof there and, stretching up his hands,
groped a little and then removed a sort of hatch in
the roof.

"This here," said he, "hes bin made fast from the
inside too—jest like the door.  Look in them bunks.
Three bunks and nothin' but blankets.  And over
the floor the blankets is layin' too, hauled about."

The light from the hatch above was now streaming in.

"Them blankets is all chawed up," he said.

"Heavens!" I gasped.  "Were they driven to that?"

"What devils me," he said, not replying to my
remark but looking round the place with a kind of
anxiety visible on his forehead, "is this here fixin' up
from the inside.  There's blankets, picks, shovels,
all the outfit, and there's the windlass and tackle for
the shaft-head.  No," he said, recollecting my
remark, "them blankets was n't chawed up by them.
Rats has been in here—and thick.  See all the sign
o' them there?"

He pointed to the floor, but it was then that I
observed, in a corner, after the fashion of a
three-cornered cupboard, a rough shelving that had been
made there.  Every shelf, I saw, was heaped up
with something,—but what?  I stepped nearer and
scrutinised.

"Look at all the bones here," I said.

Canlan was at my side on the very words.

"That's him!" he said, in a gasp of relief.  "That's
him.  That's number three.  That's him that stuck
up the door and the smoke hole."

I turned on him, the unspoken question in my face,
I have no doubt.

All the fear had departed from his face now as he
snatched up a bone out of one of the shelves.

These bones, I should say, were all placed as neatly
and systematically as you could wish, built up in
stacks, and all clear and clean as though they had
been bleached.

"This here was his forearm," said Canlan, his
yellow eyeballs suddenly afire with a fearsome light;
and he rapped me over the knuckles with a human
elbow.

"Ain't it terrible?" he said.

"It is terrible," said I.

"Ah!" he cried.  "But I don't mean what you
mean; I mean ain't it terrible to think o' that?" and
he pointed to the cupboard, "to think o' comin' to
that—bein' picked clean like that—little bits o' you
runnin' about all over them almighty hills inside the
rats' bellies and your bones piled away to turn yellow
in a spidery cupboard."

I stepped back from his grinning face.

"But how do these bones come there?" I said.

"It's the rats," he replied, "them mountain rats
always pile away the bones o' everything they eat—make
a reg'lar cache o' them; what for I dunno; but
they do; that's all."

I stood then looking about the place, thinking of
the end of that "number three," all the horror of his
last hours in my mind; and as I was thus employed,
with absent mien, suddenly Canlan laid his hand on
my arm.

"What you lookin' that queer, strained ways for?"
he whispered, putting his face within an inch of mine,
so that I stepped back from the near presence of
him.  "That was a mighty queer look in your eyes
right now.  Say; do you know what you would
make?  You'd make an easy mark for me to
mesmerise.  You 'd make a fine medium, you would."

I looked at him more shrewdly now, thinking he
was assuredly losing his last hold on reason; but he
flung back a step from me.

"O!  You think me mad?" he cried, and verily he
looked mad then.  "Eh?  Not me.  You don't think
I can mesmerise you?  I've mesmerised heaps—men
too, let alone women," and he grinned in a very
disgusting fashion.  "Say!  If we could only see a
jack-rabbit from the door o' this shack, I 'd let you
see what I could do.  I 'd give you an example o' my
powers.  I can bring a jack-rabbit to me, supposin'
he's lopin' along a hillside and sees me.  I jest looks
at him and *wills* him to stop—and he stops.  And
then I wills him to come to me—and he comes.
Mind once I was tellin' the boys at the Molly Magee
about bein' able to do it and they put up the bets I
could n't—thought I was jest bluffin' 'em, and I
went right out o' the bunkhouse a little ways and
fetched a chipmunk clean off a rock where he was
settin' lookin' at us,—there were n't no jack-rabbits
there,—fetched him right into my hand.  And then a
queer, mad feelin' come over me—I can't just tell
you about it—I don't just exactly understand it
myself.  I closes my hand on that chipmunk and jest
crushed him dead atween my fingers.  And suthin'
seemed kind o' relieved here then, in the front o' my
head, right here.  The boys never forgot that.  They
kind o' lay away off from me after that—did n't like
it.  Yes, I could mesmerise you."

He waved his hands suddenly before my eyes.

"Feel any peculiar sensation at that?" he said.

"Yes," said I.

"What like?" he asked.

"I feel that I 'll not let you do it again," said I.

"Scared like?  Feel kind o' slippin' away?"

"No," I said quietly: "not scared one little bit.
But I object to your waving your hands within an
inch of my face.  Any man of grit would n't allow it."

"Well, well, say no more.  We 'd better be investigating
this yere shack.  God!  If there was only a
drink on the premises.  I tell you *they 're* comin' on
again, and when they come on I 'm fearsome—I am."

He looked round the place again and then cried
out in a voice of agony:

"Look here!  I don't want to lose holt o' myself
yet; perhaps a little bit of grub now might help me.
I reckon I might be able to shove some down my
neck as a dooty.  You go and make up the fire
outside, do."

He spoke this in a beseeching whine.  To see the
way the creature changed and veered about in his
manner was interesting.

"We ain't goin' to sleep in here to-night, anyways,
not for Jo, wi' them mountain rats comin' in on us.
It'll take quite a while o' huntin' to get all their holes
filled up.  You go and make dinner.  I could do a
flapjack and a slice o' bacon, I think, with a bit o'
a struggle and some resolution like."

Anything that might prevent me having a madman
on my hands in that wilderness was not to be
ignored, so I went out and ran down the slope to where
the bushes climbed, and gathered fuel, a great armful,
and so came back again and made up a fire.

Water was not so easy to find, but a muddy and
boggy part of the hill led me to a spring, and I set to
work on preparing food.

With all this coming and going I must have been
busied quite half an hour before even getting the
length of mixing the dough.  Canlan, by that time,
had got the windlass out and had lugged it across
to the covered shaft beside the spur of outcropping
rock that ran down parallel with the ridge in the
lee of which I had lit the fire.  He went back to
the cabin and carried out the coil of rope, and had
just got that length in his employ when I called him
over for our meal; our evening meal it was, for,
intent on our labours, we had not noticed how the sun
was departing.  All the vasty world of hollows below
us was brimmed with darkness.  All the peaks and
the mountain ridges marching one upon the other
into the shadowing east were lit, toward us, with the
last light when Canlan sat down to force himself to
eat.  But I saw he had difficulty in swallowing.  The
jerking of face and hands, I also perceived, was
increasing past ignoring.  So too, presently became
the fixed stare of his eye upon us as he sat with his
hand frozen on a sudden half-way to his mouth.

"Listen!  Don't you hear nuthin'?" he asked,
hoarse and low.

"Nothing," said I.

"Ah!  It's jest them fancies," said he, and fell silent.

Then again, with a strange, nervous twitch and
truly awful eyes, he said in a whisper, "Say, tell me
true?  Did n't you hear suthin' right now?"

"I heard a coyote howl," I said.

"No, no; but somebody whispering?" he said.
"Two or three people all huddling close somewhere
and tellin' things about me.  By gum!  I won't have
it!  I dursent have it!" he said in a low scream—which
is the best description of his voice then that I
can give you.

I shuddered.  He was a terrible companion to have
here on this bleak, windy hillside, with the thin trees
below us marching down in serried ranks to the
thicker forest below, and the scarped peaks showing
against the pale moon that hung in the sky awaiting
the sun's going.

I shook my head.

"Sure?" he asked.

"Positive," said I.

He bent toward me and said in a small voice,
"Keep your eye on me now.  I ain't goin' to ask
you another time, for I think when I speak they stop
a-whispering; but I'll jest twitch up my thumb like
this—see?—fer a signal to you when I hear 'em."

He sat hushed again; and then suddenly his eyes
started and he raised his thumb, turning a face to me
that glittered pale like lead.

"Now?" he gasped.

"Nothing," I said: "not a sound."

"Ah, but I spoke there," he said.  "I ought n't to
have spoken; that scared 'em; and they quit the
whispering when they hear me."

He sat again quiet, his head on the side, listening,
and I watching his hand, thinking it best to humour
him and to try to convince him out of this lunacy.

But my blood ran chill as I sat, and his jaw fell
suddenly in horror for a voice quavering and ghastly
cried out from somewhere near by, "Mike Canlan!
Mike Canlan!  I see you, Mike Canlan!"

And a horrible burst of laughter that seemed to
come from no earthly throat broke the silence, died
away, and a long gust of wind whispered past us on
the hill-crest.

It had been evident to me that though Canlan
bade me hearken for the whispering voices that he
himself did not actually believe in their existence.
He had still sufficient sense left to know that the
whispering was in his own fancy, the outcome of
drink and of—I need not say his conscience,
but—the knowledge that he had perpetrated some
fearsome deeds in his day, deeds that it were better not
to hear spoken in the sunlight or whispered in the
dusk.

But this cry, out of the growing night, real and
weird, so far from restoring equanimity to his mind
appeared to unhinge his mental faculties wholly.
His eyeballs started in their sockets; and there
came the cry again:

"Mike Canlan!  Mike Canlan!  I 'm on your trail,
Mike Canlan!"

As for myself, I had no superstitious fears after the
first cry, though I must confess that at the first
demented cry my heart stood still in a brief, savage
terror.  But I speedily told myself that none but
a mortal voice cried then; though truly the voice
was like no mortal voice I had ever heard.

It was otherwise with Canlan.  Fear, abject fear,
held him now and he turned his head all rigid like
an automaton and, in a voice that sounded as though
his tongue filled his mouth so that he could hardly
speak, he mumbled: "It's him.  It's Death!"

Aye, it was death; but not as Canlan imagined.

There was silence now, on the bleak, black hill,
and though I had mastered the terror that gripped
me on hearing the voice, the silence that followed
was a thing more terrible, not to be borne without
action.

Then suddenly the voice broke out afresh quite
close and Canlan turned his head stiffly again and
I also looked up whence the voice came—and there
was the face of Larry Donoghue looking down on
us from the rib of rocky hill under whose shelter we
sat.  There was a trickle of blood, or a scar—it was
doubtful which—from his temple down his long,
spare jaw to the corner of the loose mouth; the eyes
stared down on us like the eyes of a dead man, blank
and wide.

He stretched out his arms and gripped in the
declivity of the hill with his fingers, crooked like
talons, and pulled himself forward; but at that tug
he lost his balance, lying on his belly as he was, and
came down the slope, sliding on his face, the kerchief
still about his head as I had seen him when I thought
he had breathed his last.

In Canlan's mind there was no question but that
this was Larry Donoghue's wraith.  He tried to cry
out and could not, gave one gulping gasp in his
throat, and when Donoghue slid down the bank, as
I have described, Canlan leapt to his feet and ran for
it—ran without any intelligence, straight before him.

I have told you that the next rib of rock broke off
sheer and went down in a declivity.  Thither Canlan's
terror took him; and the last I saw of him was his
legs straddled in the run, out in mid-air, as though to
take another stride; and then down he went.  But
it was to Donoghue I turned and strove to raise him.
For one fleeting moment he seemed to know me; our
eyes met and then the light of recognition passed out
of his and he sank back.  It was a dead man I held
in my arms, and though I had never greatly cared for
him, that last glance of his eye was so full of
yearning, so pathetic, so helpless that I felt a lump in my
throat and a thickness at my heart and as I laid him
back again I burst into a flood of tears that shook
my whole frame.

A strange, gusty sound in my ear and the feeling
of a hot vapour on my neck brought me suddenly
round in, if not fear, something akin to it.  But I
think absolute fear was pretty well a thing I should
never know again after these occurrences.

It was Canlan's horse standing over me snuffing
me; and when I raised my head he gave a quiet
whinny and muzzled his white nose to me.  Perhaps
in his mute heart the horse knew that these sounds
of mine bespoke suffering, and truly these
pack-horses draw very close to men, in the hills.

But though the horse brought me back in a way
to manliness and calm it was a miserable night that
I spent there.  I sat up and with my chin in my
hands remained gazing vacantly eastwards until the
morning broke in my eyes.  And behind me stood
the horse thus till morning, ever and again touching
my shoulder with his wet nose, his warm breath
puffing on my cheek.

I was thankful, indeed, more than I can tell you,
for that companionship.  And now and then I put
up my hand and when I did so the beast's head
would come gently down for me to clap his nose,
and doing so I felt myself not altogether alone and
friendless on that hill of terror and of death.





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.. _`Compensation`:

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   CHAPTER XX


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   *Compensation*

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From where I sat on the frontage of
that hill, the black, treeless mountain
behind me, the hurly-burly of the
scattered, out-cropping hills and
tree-filled basins below me, as the sun
came up in my face, my gaze was attracted to a bush
upon the incline.

This bush stood apart from the others on the hill,
like an advance scout; and as the sunlight streamed
over the mountains I saw the branches of it agitated
and a bird flew out, a bird about the size of a
blackbird.  I do not know its name, but it gave one of the
strangest cries you ever heard—like this:

"Bob White!  Bob White!  Bobby White!"

And away it flew with a rising and falling motion
and down into the cup below, from where its cry
came up again.

It is difficult for me to tell you exactly what that
bird meant to me then.  My heart that was like a
stone seemed cloven asunder on hearing that bird's
liquid cry.  That there was something eerie in the
sound of it, so like human speech, did in nowise
affect me.  To terror, to the weird, to the unknown
I now was heedless.  But at that bird's cry my heart
seemed just to break in sunder and I wept again, a
weeping that relieved me much, so that when it was
over I felt less miserable and heartsore.  And I prayed
a brief prayer as I had never prayed before, and was
wondrously lightened after that; and turning to the
horse, as men will do when alone, I spoke to it,
caressing its nose and pulling its pricked ears.  And then
it occurred to me that if Donoghue had survived his
wound, Apache Kid might still be alive.  It had been
for Apache, indeed, that I had entertained greater hope.

"Shall we go down to the valley and see if my
friend still lives?" I said, speaking to the horse; and
just then the beast flung his head up from me and
his eyeballs started.

I looked in the direction of his fear—and there
was Apache Kid and no other, climbing up from
the direction of the bush whence the bird had flown
away.

I rushed down the rise upon him with outspread
arms, and at our meeting embraced him in my relief
and joy, and dragged him up to my fire, and had all
my story of my doings of the night, the day, and the
night told him, and of Donoghue and of Canlan—a
rattling volley of talk, he listening quietly all the
while, and smiling a little every time I broke in upon
my tale with: "You do not blame me, Apache?"

And then I asked him, all my own selfish heart
being outpoured, how it was that I found him here
alive.

"As for your accusations," he said, "dismiss them
from your mind.  In all you have told me I think
you acted with great presence of mind and forethought.
As for my escape from death, and Larry's,
it must have been due entirely to the condition of that
reptile's nerves, as you describe him to me."

He had been standing with his back to where Donoghue
lay, and now in the light that took all that black
hillside at a bound, I saw a sight that I shall never
forget.  For there, where should have been the dead
man's face, was nought but a skull, and perched upon
the breast of the man and licking its chops, showing
its front teeth, was one of the great mountain rats.

Apache Kid followed the gaze of my eyes, looked
at me again with that knitting of the brows, as in anger
almost, or contempt.

"Brace up!" he said sharply.

"Brace up!" I cried.  "Is it you who tell me to
brace up, you who brought me into this hideous
place, you who are to blame for all this!  I was a lad
when you asked me to accompany you that day at
Baker City—it feels like years ago.  Now, now,"
and I heard my voice breaking, "now I am like a
man whose life is blighted."

When I began my tirade he looked astonished at
first, and then I thought it was a sneer that came
upon his lips, but finally there was nothing but
kindliness visible.

"I was only trying the rough method of pulling
you together," he said, "and it seems it has
succeeded.  Man, man, you have to thank me.  Come,"
and taking me by the arm and I unresisting, he led
me to the cabin.

It was curious how then I felt my legs weak under
me, and all the hill was spinning round me in a
growing darkness.  I felt my head sinking and heard my
voice moan: "Oh!  Apache, I am dying.  This
night has killed me!" and I repeated the words in a
kind of moan, thinking myself foolish in a vague way,
too, I remember, and wondering what Apache Kid
would think of me.  And then the darkness suddenly
closed on me, a darkness in which I felt Apache Kid's
hands groping at my armpits, lifting me up, and then
I seemed to fall away through utter blackness.

When I came again from that darkness, I stretched
out my hands and looked around.

I had been dreaming, I suppose, or delirious and
fevered, for I thought myself at home in the old
country, imagined myself waking in the dark Hours;
but only for a moment did that fancy obtain with me.
All too soon I knew that I was lying in the Lost Cabin,
but by the smell of the "fir-feathers" on which I lay,
I knew that they were freshly gathered, and from the
bottom of my heart I thanked Apache Kid for his
forethought.  For to have wakened in one of these
bunks would, I believe, have made me more fevered
than I was already.  It was night, or coming morning
again.  The hatch was off the roof, and through that
hole a grey smoke mounted from a fire upon the
earthen floor.  The door was fastened up again.

At my turning, Apache Kid came to me out of the
shadows and bent over me; but his face frightened
me, for with the fever I had then on me it seemed
a monstrous size, filling the whole room.  I had sense
enough to know from this that I was ill, and looking
into that face which I knew my fever formed so
hideously, I said:

"Oh, Apache Kid!  It would be better to die and
have done with it."

"Nonsense, man," he said.  "Nonsense, man.
There are so many things that you have to live
for:" and he held up his left hand, the fingers
seeming swollen to the size of puddings, and
began counting upon them.  "You have a lot of
duties to perform to mankind before you can
shuffle off.  Shall I count some of them for you?"  And
he put his right forefinger to the thumb of his left
hand and turned to me as though to begin; but he
thought better of it, and then said he:

"I know you have a lot to do before you can
shuffle off.  But if you would perform these duties,
you must calm yourself as best you can."

"How long have I lain here?" I asked suddenly.

"Just since morning," said he.  "A mere nothing,
man.  After another sleep you will be better, and
then we——" he paused then.

"We will do what?" I said.

"We will get out of here and away home," he said,
and took my hand just as a woman might have done,
and wiped my brow and kept smoothing my hair till
I slept again.

From this I woke to a sound of drumming, as of
thousands of pattering feet.

It was the rain on the roof.  Rain trickled from it
in many places, running down in pools upon the floor.
The smoke hole was again covered, the fire out, but
the door was open, and through it I had a glimpse
of the hills, streaming with rain and mist.

Apache Kid sat on one of the rough stools by the
door, looking outward, and I called him.

He came quick and eager at my cry.

"Better?" he said.  "Aha!  That's what the rain
does.  And here 's the man that was going to die!"
he rallied me.  "Here, have a sip of this.  It is n't
sweet, but it will help you.  I 've been rummaging."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Just a little nip of cognac.  They had that left,
poor devils.  It's a wonder Canlan——" he
continued, and then stopped; doubtless I squirmed at
the name.

I took over the draught, and he sat down on the
fir-boughs and talked as gaily as ever man talked.
All the substance of his talk I have forgotten, only
I remember how he heartened me.  It was my determination
to fight the fever and sickness, that we had
nothing in the way of medicines to cure, that he was
trying to awaken.  And I must say he managed it
well.

With surprise I found myself sitting up and smoking
a cigarette while he sat back nursing a knee, laughing
on me and saying:

"Smoking a cigarette!  A sick man!  Sitting up—and
inhaling, too—and blowing through the nose—a
sick man—why, the thing's absurd!"

I looked and listened and smiled in return on
him, and some thought came to me of what manner
of man this was who ministered so kindly to me,
and also of how near death's door he himself had
been.

"How are you?" I asked.  "Where was it you
said you had been wounded?  I fear I was so sick
and queer that I have forgotten everything but seeing
you again."

"I?" he said.  "Oh, I have just pulled myself
together by sheer will-power.  I have a hole in my
side, filled up with resin.  But that's a mere nothing.
It 'll hold till we get back to civilisation again, or else
be healed by then.  Thank goodness for our late
friend's shaky hand."  And at these words it struck
me, thinking, I suppose, how narrowly Apache had
missed death, that Canlan might be alive despite his
fall.

Apache read the thought before I spoke.  He
nodded his head reassuringly, and said:

"We are safe from him.  He will trouble us no
more.  I have seen, to make sure."

"I think I should be ashamed of myself," said I,
"for giving in like this."

"Nonsense," said he.  "You were sick enough
last night, but you are all right now.  Could you
eat a thin, crisp pancake?—I won't say flapjack.
A thin, crisp pancake?"

I thought I could, and found that he had a few
ready against such a return to my normal.  As I
ate, he meditated.  I could see that, though he spoke
gaily enough, there was something on his mind.  He
looked at me several times, and then at last: "Do
you think you could stand bad news?" he asked.

I looked up with inquiry.

"It's a fizzle, this!" he snapped; and then he
told me that sure enough the three original owners
of the mine had "struck something."  But the ore,
according to Apache Kid's opinion of the samples
lying in the cabin, was of such a quality that it would
not repay anyone to work the place.

"O," he said, "if there was a smelter at the foot
of the mountains, I don't say it would n't repay to rig
up a bucket-tramway and plant; it's not so very
poor looking stuff; but to make a waggon road, or
even a pack-road, from here, say, to Kettle River Gap
or even to Baker City and use the ordinary road
there for the further transportation—no, it would n't
pay.  We might hold this claim all our lives and the
country might never open up this way while we
lived; and what would we be the better for it all?"

It mattered little to me.  My soul was sick of it all.

"Of course, that's the black side," he broke off.
"Again, this valley might be opened up—other
prospects put on the market—and down there in
that valley you 'd live to see the smoke of a smelter
smelting the ore of this little place of yours."  He
paused again.  "But I doubt it," he said.

"So it's a fizzle?" I said half-heartedly.

"Yes," said he.  "That is, practically a fizzle.  As
the country is at present it does n't seem to me very
hopeful.  But of course I am one of those who
believe in big profits and quick returns.  It is
perhaps scarcely necessary for me to tell you of that
characteristic of mine, however, unless the
excitement of your recent experience has caused you to
forget the half-told story I was spinning to you when
friend Canlan interrupted us.  Man, how it does
rain!  And this," said he, looking up, "is only a
preamble.  If I 'm not in error, we 're going to have a
fierce night to-night.  The storm-king is marshalling
his forces.  He does n't often do it here, but when he
does he does it with a vengeance.  I think our best
plan is to get the holes in this roof tinkered.  I see
the gaps round about have been blocked up recently.
Was it you did that?"

I told him that the tinkering was Canlan's doing,
to prevent an inroad of the rats, should we have slept
in the place.

"Thanks be unto Canlan," said he.  "We 'll start
on the roof."

At this task I assisted, standing on the wabbly
stool and filling up the crevices.

It was when thus employed that in a cranny near
the eaves I saw a piece of what looked like
gunnysacking protruding and catching hold of it it came
away in my hand and there was a great scattering to
the floor—of yellow raindrops, you might have
thought; but they fell with a dull sound.  I looked
upon them lying there.

"What's that?" I cried.  But indeed I guessed
what these dirty yellow things were.

Apache Kid scooped up a handful and gave them
but one glance.  He was excited, I could see; but
it was when he most felt excitement that this man
schooled himself the most.

"Francis," said he, "there is, as many great men
have written, compensation in all things.  I think
our journey will not be such a folly after all."

"These are gold nuggets?" said I.  "Our fortunes
are——" and then I remembered that I had already
received my wages and that none of this was mine.
"Your fortune is made," said I, correcting myself.

He smiled a queer little smile at my words.

"Well," he said, "if this indicates anything, my
fortune is made in the only way I could ever make a
fortune."

"Indicates?" I said.  "How do you mean?"

"Pooh!" said he, turning the little, brass-looking
peas in his hand.  "These would hardly be called a
fortune.  Even a bagful of these such as you have
unearthed don't run to very much.  There is more
of this sort of stuff in our cabin," said he.

I was a little mystified.

"Search!" he said.  "Search!  That is enough
for the present.  If our labours are rewarded, then I
will give you an outline of the manner and customs
of the Genus Prospector—a queer, interesting race."

We thought little now of filling up the holes in
that cabin.  It was more a work of dismantling that
we began upon, I probing all around the eaves,
Apache Kid picking away with one of the miners'
picks, beginning systematically at one end of the
cabin and working along.

"Here," I cried, "here is another," for I had come
upon just such another sack and quickly undid the
string.

"Why, what is this?" said I.  "What are these?"

He took the bag and examined a handful of the
contents—the green and the blue stones.

"This," said he, "is another sign of the customs of
these men.  This was Jackson's little lot, I expect;
the man the Poorman boys picked up.  Jackson was
a long time in the Gila country."

"But what are they?" I said.

"Why, turquoises," replied Apache Kid.

"Turquoises in America?" I said.

"Yes," said he, "and a good American turquoise
can easily match your Persian variety."

He went over and sat down upon his stool.

"I don't like this," said he, disgustedly, and I
waited his meaning.  "Fancy!" he cried, and then
paused and said: "Fancy?  You don't need to
fancy!  You see it here before you.  When I say
fancy, what I mean is this: Can you put yourself,
by any effort of imagination, into the ego of a man
who has a fortune in either of his boot-soles, a fortune
in his belt, a fortune in the lining of his old overcoat,
and yet goes on hunting about in the mountain seeking
more wealth, grovelling about like a mole?  Can
you get in touch with such a man?  Can you
discover in your soul the possibility of going and doing
likewise?  If you can, then you're not the man I
took you for."

"They did n't get these turquoises here, then?" I
said.

"Oh, no!  I don't suppose that there is such a thing
as a turquoise in this whole territory.  Don't you
see, we've struck these fellows' banking accounts?
Did you ever hear of a prospector putting his whole
funds in a bank?  Never!  He 'll trust the bank with
enough for a rainy day.  The only thing that he 'll
do with his whole funds is to go in for some big
gamble, such as the Frisco Lottery that put
thousands of such old moles on their beam ends.  In a
gamble he 'll stake his all, down to his pack-horse.
But he does n't like the idea of putting out his wealth
for quiet, circumspect, two-a-half per cent interest.
He 'd rather carry it in his boot-soles than do that
any day."

Up he got then, and really I must leave it to you
to decide how much was pose, how much was actual
in Apache Kid, when he said:

"I think we had better continue our search, however,
not so much for the further wealth we may find
as to satisfy curiosity.  It would be interesting to
know just how much wealth these fellows would n't
trust the banks with.  Let us continue this interesting
and instructive search."

For my part, I, who heard the ring in his voice
as he spoke, think he was really greatly excited, and
to talk thus calmly was just his way.





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.. _`Re-enter—The Sheriff of Baker City`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI


.. class:: center medium bold

   *Re-enter—The Sheriff of Baker City*

.. vspace:: 2

.. dropcap:: "P
   :image: images/img-cap-21.jpg
   :lines: 5

"Pardon the question," said Apache
Kid, looking on me across the hoard,
he sitting cross-legged upon one side,
I sprawled upon the other, "but do
you feel no slightest desire stealing in
upon you to possess this all for yourself?"

I stared at him in astonishment, so serious he was.

"It does not even enter your head to regret my
return from the dead?"

"Apache!" I exclaimed.

He chuckled to himself.

"I fear," said he, "that you are of too refined a
nature for this hard world.  I predict that before you
come to the age of thirty you will be aweary of its
cruelty—always understanding when I say world
that I mean the men in the world.  I have to thank
you for not suggesting that that was the way in which
I used the word.  It wearies me to have the obvious
always iterated in my ears.  So you feel no
hankerings to see me dead?"

I made no reply, and he chuckled again and then
looked upon our trove.

We made certain we had found it all—the first bag
of small nuggets of which I told you, the bag of
turquoises, two more bags of larger nuggets, and three
separate rolls of dollar and five-dollar bills.  The bills
amounted to a hundred and fifty dollars—a mere
drop in the bucket, as Apache said.  It was the two
bags of larger nuggets and the bag of turquoises that
were the real "trove," but Apache Kid would not
hazard a guess of their value.  All that he would say
then, as he weighed them in his palm, was: "You
are safe, Francis—you need no more run with the
pack."  I did not at the moment understand his use
of the word "pack," but his next words explained it.

"The only way," said he slowly, rolling a cigarette
with the last thin dust of tobacco that remained in
his pouch, so that he had to shake it over his hand
carefully, "the only way that I can see to prevent
that world-weariness coming over you is for you to
acquire a sufficiency to live upon, a sufficiency that
shall make it unnecessary for you to accept the laws
of the pack and rend and tear and practise cunning.
I think, considering such a temperament as yours,
I should call off with our old bargain and strike a
new one with you—half shares."

I heaved a deep sigh.  I saw myself returning
home—and that right speedily—I saw already the
blue sea break in white foam on the ultimate rocks
of Ireland, the landing at Liverpool, the train journey
north, the clean streets of my own town through which
I hastened—home.

"Ah, these castles," said Apache Kid, after a
pause which I suppose was very brief, for such
thoughts move quickly in the mind.  "They can all
be built now."

Then he leant forward; and he was truly serious
as he looked on me.

"But one thing you will do in return," he said, and
it was as the sign of an agony that I saw on his face.
"You will do that little bit of business for me that
I asked you once before?"

He paused, hearkening; and I too was on the alert.
The squelching of a horse's hoofs was audible without.

"Our pack-pony," said I; "it has come down for
shelter, I expect."

He rose and walked to the door.

"Chuck that stuff under your bed!" said he,
suddenly.

I made haste, with agitated hands, to carry out the
order, and as I bent to my task I heard a voice that
seemed familiar say:

"Apache Kid, I arrest you in the name of——"

The remainder I lost, for Apache Kid's cheery
voice broke in:

"Well, well, Sheriff—this is an unexpected
pleasure!  Come in, sir; come in; though I fear we can
offer but slender——"

"All right," I heard the sheriff say.  "Glad to see
you take it so well."  And with a heavy tramp
entered the sheriff of Baker City, booted and spurred
and the rain running in a cascade from his hat, the
brim of which was turned down all around.

"Donoghue," he said, "Larry Donoghue, I arrest
you in—  Say!  Where's Donoghue, and what are
you doin' here, you, sir?"

This latter was of course to me.

"Donoghue you can never get now," said Apache
Kid.  "He will be saved the trouble of putting up
a defence.  But won't you bring in your men?"

"Is that your hoss along there on the hill under
that big tree?" said the sheriff.

"That," said Apache Kid, "was Canlan's horse,
I believe."

The sheriff hummed to himself.

"So," he said quietly, "just so.  There ain't any
chance o' Canlan dropping in here, is there?"

"None whatever," said Apache Kid, calmly.

"So," said the sheriff.  "Well, I guess them pinto
broncs of ours can do very well under that tree.
That bronc of Canlan's seemed some lonesome.
Seemed kind o' chirped up to see others o' his
species.  They 'll do very well there till we get dried
a bit."

He looked again at me and shook his head mournfully.

"You look kind of sick," he said, "but it's all right.
Don't worry.  You 'll only be in as a witness."

"Witness for what?" I asked.

"Murder of Mr. Pinkerton, proprietor of the
Half-Way House to Camp Kettle."

Apache interrupted:

"Do you happen to have such a thing as quinine
about you, Sheriff?"

"Sure," said the sheriff: "always carry it in the
hills."

"Give my friend a capsule," he said, "and defer
all this talk."

"Murder of Mr. Pinkerton!" I cried; but just
then the sheriff stooped and lifted a slip of paper
from the floor.

"Literature!" he said.  "Keepsake *pome* or what?"

Then I noticed his firm, kindly eyebrows lift.  He
turned to Apache Kid.

"This," he said, "seems to have fallen out your
press-cuttin' book.  I see in a paper the other day
where they supply press-cuttin's to piano wallopers
and barn-stormers and what not.  You should try
one o' them.  I disremember the fee; but it was n't
nothing very deadly."

Then I knew what the cutting was that had come
into his possession.  It was the cutting Larry
Donoghue had shown me in his childish, ignorant pride,
the account of the "hold-up" by "the two-some
gang."  I must have thrust it absently into my
pocket, hardly knowing what I was doing, when
Canlan's shot interrupted the unusual conversation
of that terrible camp.

The sheriff hummed over it.

"Kind o' lurid, this," he said; and at that comment
Apache Kid's face became radiant in a flash.

"Sir," he said, "I am charmed to know you.  You
are a man of taste.  I always object to the way these
things are recounted."

The sheriff rolled his bright eye on Apache,
misunderstanding his pleasure which, though it sounded
something exaggerated, was assuredly genuine enough.

"I guess the way it's told don't alter the fact that
in the main it's true.  It would mean a term of years,
you know."

For the first time in my knowledge of him Apache
Kid's face showed that he had been hit.  He gave a
frown, and said:

"Yes, that's the ugly side of it; that's the reality.
It must be an adventurous sort of life, the life
portrayed in that cutting.  I fancy that it is the
adventuring, and not the money-getting, that lures anyone
into it, and a man who loves adventure would
naturally resent a prison cell."

The sheriff, with lowered head and blank eyes,
gazed from under his brows on Apache Kid.

"I guess it's sheer laziness, sir," said he, "and the
man who likes that ways of living, and follows it up,
is liable to stretch hemp!"

"That would be better, I should fancy, than the
prison cell," said Apache Kid.  "The fellows told
about there would prefer that, I should think."

The sheriff made no answer, but turned to the door
and bade his men unharness the pintos and come in.

"You there, Slim," said he to one of the two;
"you take possession o' them firearms laying there.
But you can let the gentlemen have their belts."

Apache Kid was already kindling the fire.  The
rain had taken off a little, and before sunset there
was light, a watery light on the wet wilderness.  So
the hatch was flung off and supper was cooked for
all.  The sheriff and these two men of his—one an
Indian tracker, the other ("Slim") a long-nosed
fellow with steely glints in his eyes and jaws working
on a quid of tobacco when they were not chewing
the flapjack—made themselves at home at once.
And it astounded me, after the first few words were
over, to find how the talk arose on all manner of
subjects,—horses, brands, trails, the relative uses and
value of rifles, bears and their moody, uncertain
habits, wildcats and their ways.  Even the Paris
Exposition, somehow or other, was mentioned, I
remember, and the long-nosed, sheriff's man looked at
Apache Kid.

"I think I seen you there," said he.

"Likely enough," said Apache Kid, unconcernedly.

"What was you *blowing in* that trip?" asked the
long-nosed fellow, with what to me seemed distinctly
admiration in his manner.

Apache looked from him to the sheriff.  They
seemed all to understand one another very well, and
a cynical and half-kindly smile went round.  The
Indian, too, I noticed,—though he very probably
had only a hazy idea of the talk,—looked long and
frequently at Apache Kid, with something of the
gaze that a very intelligent dog bestows on a
venerated master, his intuition serving him where his
knowledge of English and of white men's affairs were
lacking.

They talked, also, about the ore that had gathered
us all together there, and Apache Kid showed the
sheriff a sample of it, and listened to his opinion,
which ratified his own.

On the sheriff handing back the sample to Apache
Kid the latter held it out to the assistant with the bow
and inclination that you see in drawing-rooms at
home when a photograph or some curio is being
examined.

There was a quiet courtesy among these men that
reminded me of what Apache Kid had said regarding
Carlyle's remark on the manners of the backwoods.
And it was very droll to note it: Apache in his shirt
and belt, and the long-nose—I never heard him
called but by his sobriquet of "Slim"—opposite
him, cross-legged, with his hat on the back of his
head and his chin in the palm of his hand, the elbow
in his lap, at the side of which stuck out the butt of
his Colt, the holster-flap hanging open.

"I know nothing about mineral," said Slim, in his
drawl.  "I 'm from the plains."

Apache Kid handed the ore over to the Indian,
who took it dumbly, and turned it over, but with
heedless eyes; and he presently laid it down beside
him, and then sat quiet again, looking on and
listening.  Never a word he said except when, each time
he finished a cigarette and threw the end into the
fire, the sheriff with a glance would throw him his
pouch and cigarette papers.  The dusky fingers would
roll the cigarette, the thin lips would gingerly wet it,
and then the pouch was handed back with the papers
sticking in it, the sheriff holding out a hand, without
looking, to receive it And on each of these
occasions—about a dozen in the course of an hour—the
Indian opened his lips and grunted, "Thank."

Then the conversation dwindled, and the sheriff
voiced a desire "to see down that there hole myself."

The Indian had risen and gone out a little before
this, and just as the sheriff rose he appeared at the
door again, and looking in he remarked:

"Bad night come along down," and he pointed to
the sky.

"Oh!" said the sheriff, "bad night?"

"Es, a bad mountain dis," said the Indian.  "No
good come here."

"You would n't come here yourself, eh?" said the
sheriff, smiling, but you could see he was not the
man to ignore any word he heard.  He was wont to
listen to everything and weigh all that he heard in
his mind, and take what he thought fit from what he
heard, like one winnowing a harvest.

"No, no!" said the Indian, emphatically.  "I
think—a no good stop over here.  Only a darn fool
white man.  White man no care.  A heap a bad
mountain," he ended solemnly.

"Devils?" inquired the sheriff.  "Bad spirits,
may be?" and he looked as serious as though he
believed in all manner of evil spirits himself.

The Indian seemed almost bashful now.

"O!  I dono devil," he said, and then after thinking
he decided to acknowledge his belief.  "Ees," he
said, and he looked more shy than ever, "maybe bad
spirit you laugh.  Bad mountain, all same, devil o' no
devil."

"And what's like wrong with the mountain?"

"He go away some day."

"Mud-slide, eh?" asked Apache Kid.

The Indian nodded,

"O!  Heap big mud-slide," he said.  "You come a look."

We all trooped on his heels, and then he led us
to the gable of the shanty and pointed up to the
summit.

"Good preserve us," said Slim.

"Alle same crack," said the Indian.  "Too much
dry.  Gumbo[#] all right; vely bad for stick when
rain come; he hold together in dry; keep wet long
time—all same chewing gum," he added with
brilliancy.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] A sticky soil common in these parts.

.. vspace:: 2

"But this ain't like chewin' gum, heh?" said
the sheriff, following the drift of the Indian's pidgin
English.

"Nosiree," said the Indian, "no hold together,
come away plop, thick."

"It's a durned fine picture he's drawin'," said
Slim.  "I can kind o' see it, though.  'Plop,' he
says.  I can kind o' hear that plop."

Along the hill above us, sure enough, we could see
a long gash running a great part of the hill near the
summit, in the black frontage of it.

"Well," said the sheriff, "I should n't like to be
under a mud-slide.  But you 'd think that them two
ribs here would hold the face o' this hill together,
would n't you?"

He looked up at the sky; sunset seemed a thought
quicker than usual, and there were great, heavy clouds
crawling up again, as last night, from behind the
mountains.

Apache Kid had said not a word so far, but now
he spoke.

"I 've seen a few mud-slides in my time, Sheriff,"
he said: "but this one would be a colossal affair.
Might I ask you a question before I offer advice?"

"Sure," said the sheriff, wonderingly.

"Is it only the charge of murdering Mr. Pinkerton
that you want me for, or would you try to make a
further name for your smartness by using that clew
you got about the two-some gang—not to put too
fine a point upon it?"

You would have thought the sheriff had a real
liking for Apache Kid the way he looked at him then.

He took the cutting from his sleeve, and tore it up
and trampled it into the wet earth.

"I guess the hangin' will do you, without anything
else," said he; from which, of course, one could not
exactly gauge his inmost thoughts.  But sheriffs study
that art.  They learn to be ever genial, without ever
permitting the familiarity that breeds contempt—genial
and stern.

"In that case," said Apache Kid, "I would suggest
leaving this cabin right away.  I want to clear myself
of that charge; and if that crack widened during the
night, I might never be able to do that."





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.. _`The Mud-Slide`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXII


.. class:: center medium bold

   *The Mud-Slide*

.. vspace:: 2

.. dropcap:: F
   :image: images/img-cap-22.jpg
   :lines: 5

From our scrutiny of the mountain
above us the sheriff turned aside.

"If we have to leave here, I reckon
I just have a look at that hole o' theirs
and see what like it is to my mind,"
said he, "with all due respect to your judgment, sir,"
(this to Apache Kid) "and out of a kind o' curiosity."

He bade the Indian go with him to tend the
windlass and Apache Kid and I returned to the cabin,
Slim following ostentatiously at our heels, and
remaining at the door watching the sheriff.

I plucked my friend by the sleeve.  This was the
first opportunity we had had for private speech since
the sheriff's arrival.

"Apache," I said, "what is the meaning of this
arrest?  Is it the half-breed that came with Mr. Pinkerton
who has garbled the tale of his death for some
reason?"

He shook his head.

"No," said he, "not the half-breed.  I 'll wager it is
some of Farrell's gang that are at the bottom of it."

"But they," I began, "they were all——" and I
stopped on the word.

"Wiped out?" he said.  "True; but you forget
Pete, the timid villain."

"But he," I said, "he was away long before that
affair of poor Mr. Pinkerton."

"Yes, but doubtless the Indian made up on him,
and whether they talked or not Pete could draw his
conclusions.  And a man like Pete, one of your
coyote order of bad men, would just sit down and
plot and plan——"

"But even then," I said, "they can't prove a thing
that never occurred; they can't prove that you did
what you never did."

He looked at me with lenient, sidewise eyes, not
turning his head, and then pursed his lips and gazed
before him again at the door, where Slim's long back
loomed against the storm-darkened sky.

"All this," said he, "is guesswork, of course; for
the sheriff is reticent and so am I.  But as for
*proving*, I dare say Pete could get a crony or two
together to swear they saw me.  O!  But let this
drop," he broke out.  "If there's anything that
makes me sick now, it's building up fabrications.  Let
us look on the bright side.  Gather together your
belongings and thank Providence for sending us the
convoy of the sheriff to see us safely back to
civilisation with our loot."

"You 're a brave man," I said.  But he did not
seem to hear.

"What vexes me," said he, "is to think that Miss
Pinkerton may have heard this yarn and placed
credence in it."

The entrance of the sheriff, with a serious face, put
an end to the conversation then.

"Well," said Apache Kid, "what do you think?"

"I think this is a derned peculiar mountain," said
the sheriff, "and I reckon you boys had better pack
your truck.  That hole 's full."

"Water?" said Apache Kid.

"No," said the sheriff: "full of mountain.  You
can see the upward side of it jest sliding down bodily
in the hole, props and all.  They must ha' had some
difeeculty in it, the way they had it wedged.  You
noticed?"

"Yes."

"Well, it's just closed up now, plumb.  Went together
with a suck, like this yere," and he imitated it
with his mouth.  "Reckon we better get ready to
pull out, if needs be.  What in thunder——" he
broke off.

Apache Kid, Slim, and the sheriff looked at each
other.  You should have heard the sound.  It was like
the sound of one tearing through a web of cloth—a
giant tearing a giants web and it of silk.

"The horses!" the sheriff cried; but the Indian
had already gone.  "How about yours, young feller?"

I made for the door to follow the Indian and catch
the horses, out onto the hillside—and saw only half
the valley.  The other half was hid behind the wall
of rain that bore down on us.

The Indian was ahead of me, scudding along to
where the lone pine stood; but the terrified horses
saw us coming and ran to meet us, quivering and
sweating.

Then the rain smote us and knocked the breath
clean out of me.  I had heard of such onslaughts but
had hardly credited those who told of them.  I might
have asked pardon then for my unbelief.  I was sent
flying on the hillside and was like a cloth drawn
through water before I could get to my feet again.
The Indian was scarcely visible, nor his three horses.
I saw him prone one moment, and again I saw him
trying to hold them together as he—how shall I
describe it?—*lay* aslant upon the gale.  I succeeded in
quieting my beast, and then turned and signed to
him that I would lead one of his beasts also, for when
I opened my mouth to speak, he being windward of
me, the gust of the gale blew clean into my lungs so
that I had to whirl about and with lowered head gasp
out the breath and steady myself.  But he signed to
me to go, and nodded his head in reassurance;
though what he cried to me went past my ear in an
incomprehensible yell.

Thus, staggering and swaying, we won back to the
rib beside the cabin, but this we could scarcely mount.
So the Indian, coming level with me, stretched his
hand and signed that he would hold my pack-horse
with his own.  I saw the sheriff battling with the
gale and the dim forms of Apache Kid and Slim a
little ahead of him, Slim and Apache Kid weighted
greatly down.  How we ever succeeded in getting the
saddles on the horses seemed a mystery.  But the
beasts themselves were in a state of collapse with
terror.  I dare say they would have stampeded had
there been any place to stampede to; but there was
no place.  For a good five minutes you might have
thought we were hauling on saddles and drawing up
straps and cinches on the bed of a lake that had a
terrible undercurrent in it.  Then the first onslaught
passed and we saw the hill clear for a moment, but
still lashed with hail, so that our hands were stiff and
numb.  The sheriff and Apache Kid were floundering
back to the cabin, and it was then that the catastrophe
that the Indian had feared took place.  Mercifully,
it was not so sudden as an avalanche of snow; for, at
the united yell of the three of us who cowered there
with the beasts, the sheriff and Apache Kid looked
up at the toppling mountain.  Aye, toppling is the
word for it.  The lower rim of the chasm I told you
of was falling over and spreading down the surface of
the hill.  It was a slow enough progress to begin with,
and the two men seemed to waver and consider the
possibility of again reaching the cabin.  Then they
saw what we beheld also—the whole face of the
mountain below the chasm sagged forward.  It looked
as though there was a steadfast rib along the top; but
barely had they gained the rocky part where we stood,
than that apparent backbone collapsed upon the lower
part, and, I suppose with the shock of the impact on
the rest, completed the mischief.  The sound of it
was scarce louder than the hiss of the rain, a
multitude of soft bubblings and squelchings.  But if there
was with this fall no sound as when a rock falls, it was
none the less awful to behold.

We saw the mountain slide bodily forward, and the
one thought must have flashed into all our minds at
once, "If this rock on which we stand is not a rib of
the hill, but is simply imbedded in that mud mountain,
we are lost."

That of course could scarcely be, but nevertheless
we all turned and fled along the ridge, horses and
men, and, as we looked over our shoulders, there was
the farther spur of rock, which had attracted the three
prospectors, slipping forward and down, whelmed in
the slide.  The rest was too sudden to describe
rightly.  A great crashing of trees and a rumbling,
now of rocks, came up from the lower valley, and the
mountain absolutely subsided in the centre and went
slithering down.  We posted along the face of the
hill here to the south, I think each of us expecting
any moment to feel the ground fail under him.  But
at last we gained the hard, rocky summit of a ridge
that ran edgewise into that black mountain.  There
we paused and looked back.

There was now a dip in the ridge, where before had
been an eminence; and farther along, where a new
precipice had been made by this fall, we saw (where
the rain drove) huge pieces of earth loosen and fall,
one after the other, upon the blackness below.  But
these droppings were just as the last shots after a
battle, and might keep on a long while, sometimes
greater, sometimes less, but never anything to
compare with the first fall.

But we could not remain there.  A fresh bending
over of the tree-tops, like fishing-rods when the trout
runs, a fresh flurry of wind, and a sudden assault of
hail sent us from that storm-fronting height to seek
shelter below.

One would have thought that there could be no dry
inch of ground in all the world; the hills were
spouting foaming torrents, and in our flight, as we passed
the place up which Canlan and I had come, I saw the
watercourse no longer dry, but a turbulent rush of
waters.

It was farther along the hill, so anxious were we to
pass beyond the possibility of any further crumbling,
that we made a descent.  Our faces were bruised
with the hail and we were stiff with cold, when at last
we came to what you might call an islet in the storm.

The hill itself, quite apart from its watercourses,
was all a-trickle and a-whisper with water, but here
was a little rise where the water went draining around
on either side, and in the centre of the rise a monster
fir-tree, the lowest branches about a dozen feet from
the ground which all around the tree was dust-dry,
so thick were the branches overhead.

Under this natural roof we sheltered; here we built
our fire, dried ourselves, and cooked and ate the meal
of which we stood so greatly in need; and after that
we sat and hearkened, with a subdued gladness and
a kind of peaceful excitement in our breasts, to the
voices of the storm—the trailing of the rain, the cry
of the wind, and the falling of trees.

So we spent the night, only an occasional raindrop
hissing in our little fire or blistering in the
dust.  But by morning the itching of the ants had
us all early awake.  It was in a pause in the
breakfast preparations that Slim remarked:

"Well, I guess anybody that wants that there ore
now will find it in bits strewed about the valley.  It
won't need no crushing before it gets smelted."

"Yes," said the sheriff, "there's abundance o'
'floats' lying in among that mud, but, now that I
think on it, that was the tail end they were on,
them three fellers.  In the course o' time yonder
chunk was broken off and sagged away into yonder
wedge-like place of mud.  I bet you the lead is right
in this hill to back of us.  Suppose you was
prospectin' along through the woods up there now and
found any of them floats, why, you 'd go up to look
for the lead right there.  It would n't astonish me
one little bit to find that with the mud sliding away
there it would jest be a case o' tunnelling straight in."

Apache Kid became so interested in this suggestion
that he wanted to go back there and then to
see what the storm and the mud-slide had laid bare,
but the sheriff broke in on him:

"Sorry, sir; I understand your curiosity, and I 'm
right curious myself; but I 'm sheriff first, and
interested in mineral after:" and then the hard,
callous side of the man peeped through, and yet with
that whimsical look on his chubby face: "But after
I 've seen you safely kickin' I don't know but what
I might come along and have a study of the lay of
the land now."

"Well," said Apache Kid, lightly, "to a man in
your position it would n't matter so much, though
the assay was nothing very great."

"No, sir; that's so," said the sheriff.  "So you
see that it's advisable for a man to get a position
in life.  Sheriff Carson of Baker City has expressed
in glowin' terms his faith in the near future of the
valley," he said, like a man reading.

Apache Kid laughed.

"I suppose Sheriff Carson's expression of faith
would soon enough get up a syndicate to work it!"

"I would n't just say no," said the sheriff.

There was more of such banter passed, and
suggestions as to where the city—Carson City—would
be built; but when Apache Kid suggested the
stagecoach route the sheriff scoffed.

"Stage-route nothing!" he said.  "Railroad you
mean, spur-line clear to Carson City."

"The country is sure opening up and developing
to lick creation," said Slim; but at that the sheriff
frowned.  He might banter with his prisoner, but
not with his subordinate.

So we saddled up again, the sheriff looking with
interest on the heavy gunny-bags that we stowed
carefully away again among the blankets on our
pack-horse, but making no comment on them.  He
must have known pretty well what they contained.

Apache Kid's eyes and his met, and something
of the look I have already told you of, that came
at times, grew on Apache Kid's face, and a sort
of reply to it woke in the sheriff's.  But, as I say,
no word passed on the matter then.  Apache Kid
had taken care to bring our treasures from the
cabin before thinking of aught else.

That return journey with the sheriff, which had
been so suddenly proved impossible, was to bring
our firearms which the sheriff had appropriated on
his arrival and made Slim set in a corner.  The
sheriff himself was not in a very happy mood, quite
snappy because of that foiled attempt.  He had
thrown off his cartridge-belt in the cabin, and in the
flurry at the end had only been able to secure his
rifle in addition to his blankets.  How many charges
were in its magazine I did not know.  He had worn
his cartridge-belt apart from the belt to which his
revolver hung, and in the latter were no cartridge-holders.

Part of the sheriff's "shortness" when speaking
to Slim was due to the fact, I think, that Slim, intent
upon getting out the provisions, had come away
without a thought for any arms at all.  But the
Indian had made up for Slim, for he had not
unbuckled his arsenal, and in addition to his revolver had,
on either side of his tanned and fringed coat, cartridge
pockets with four shells on either side.  The loss of
our weapons (Apache's and mine) mattered little.

But this is all by the way, and was not so
carefully considered at the time as these remarks would
lead you to think.  I mention it here at all simply
because of what happened later.  We were not seers
or prophets to be able at the time to know all that
this shortage of ammunition was to mean.

Enough of that matter, then, and as for the
journey through the wilderness, which was by Canlan's
route now, at an acute angle from our former route,
I need not tire you with a description.  It was just
the old story of plod, plod, plod over again; of trees
and open glades and silence, and at nightfall the
forest voices that you know of already.

After three days of this plodding we sighted a
soaring blue mountain ridge with snow in its high corries
and this as I guessed was Baker Ridge; but it took
us a good day's journey to come to its base, even
though the valley between was but scantily wooded.
It was on the afternoon of the fourth day that we
came to the eastern shoulder of Baker Ridge and lost
sight for a space of the valley behind ere we sighted
the one ahead, travelling as on a roof of the world
where were only scattered blackberry bushes and
rocks strewn like tombstones or tipped on end like
Druidical stones.

Then the falling sides of the southern steep came
to view, bobbing up before us, and on the first plateau
of the descent the sheriff had some private talk with
Slim who presently, with a final nod to a final word of
instruction, set off with a sweep of his pony's tail and
loped away out of sight, going down sheer against
the sky over the plateau's verge.

When we, following more slowly, arrived at that
point he was nowhere visible, having evidently pushed
on speedily.  Nor at the third level did we have any
sight of him, though now we caught a glimpse of the
first sign of civilisation—a feather of steam puffing
up away to left among the scrubby trees, indicating
the Bonanza mine; and a little beyond it another
plume of steam from the McNair mine.  A little
below us there was a running stream and this being a
sheltered fold of the hill, I suppose, defended from
the east and north, there grew honeysuckle there and
the scent of it came to us most refreshingly.  There
we sat down, apparently, from the sheriff's manner,
to await some turn of events.





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.. _`The Sheriff Changes His Opinion`:

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   CHAPTER XXIII


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   *The Sheriff Changes His Opinion*

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It was a good two hours after the
departure of Slim.

We sat in silence (while the ponies
browsed the tufts of grass) watching
the clouds of mosquitos hanging in
their phalanxes along the trickle of the stream and
the bright, gauzy, blue wings of two mosquito-hawks
flashing through their midst.

"By the way," said Apache Kid, "do you know if
Miss Pinkerton herself has heard of this accusation
against me?"

"By now, she is liable to have heard some rumour
of it, I reckon," said the sheriff; "but as to whether
she heard the news or not at the time of my starting
out after you, I dunno."

The implication was amusing.

"Ah, yes, of course," said Apache Kid.  "You act
so promptly, always, Sheriff."

The Indian, who was sitting a little above us,
spoke: "Tree men," he said, "an' tree men and one
man come along up-hill beside the honeysuckle."

"That's seven," said Apache Kid.

"Seven?" said the Sheriff, sharply, rising to his
feet; "and no waggon?"

"No."

"I reckon this is a deppitation," said the sheriff,
as he glared down-hill.

"I don't like deputations of seven," said Apache
Kid, looking down to the honeysuckle.  "We were
visited by one deputation of seven on this trip
already; eh, Francis?"

"Ho?" said the sheriff.  "You did n't tell me;"
but he was not looking at Apache.  He was gazing
across the rolling land towards those who were
coming in our direction, now quite plain to see—seven
mounted men, armed, and suspicion-rousing.

"Pity about them guns and shells being lost," said
the sheriff, and then he sung out:

"Halt right there and talk.  What you want?"

One man moved his horse a step or two ahead of
the others, who had reined in.

"We want that man you have there," said he.

"Halt right there," said the sheriff again; and then
he remarked to Apache:

"Reckon you 'd rather travel down to Baker City
with a reputable sheriff and have an orderly trial
before hangin' instead o' hangin' up here-aways without
no trial."

"I 'd rather go down——"

"Halt right there!" roared the sheriff.

"—and prove myself innocent of the charge,"
Apache ended.

"Well, then," said the sheriff, "I reckon here's
where we become allies and you gets on the side o'
law and order for once.  Take that," and he clapped
the butt of his Colt into Apache Kid's hand.  "Draw
close, boys, till I palaver" and he rose from his rock
seat, with his Winchester lying on his arm.

"Well, gentlemen," he said.  "I reckon you's all
aware that you are buttin' up ag'in law and order,"
he began.

"Law is gettin' kind of tender-hearted," replied
one of the newcomers.  "We want to see justice done."

"I don't seem to know your face," said the sheriff.

"Oh!  We 're mostly from outside your jurisdiction,"
was the reply.  "We jest came along up from
the Half-Way House to see that justice is done in
this yere matter."

"I don't know 'em," said the sheriff to Apache Kid.

"That's not their fault," said Apache Kid.  "I
know two of them by head-mark.  A fat lot they
care for seeing justice done.  It's revenge they want
on the loss of Farrell."

"What about Farrell?" said the sheriff.  "You
did n't tell me."

"He was one of the seven I mentioned," said
Apache Kid.  "But where, might I ask, Sheriff, do
you intend to make your fire zone?"  And he
nodded his head toward the seven who were walking
their horses a trifle nearer yet.

"Yes," said the sheriff, "they do creep up some.
Dern, if we could only pow-wow with 'em till Slim
gets back with the posse and the waggon."

This was the first hint of what business Slim had
been despatched upon, but that is by the way.  The
sheriff apparently was not to be permitted a
"pow-wow" to kill the time.

"See here," cried the spokesman of the party,
"jest you throw up your hands, the lot of you
or——"

"Or what?" said the sheriff.

"Or we come and take him."

"Now, gentlemen," said the sheriff, "I 'm a
patient man.  If it was n't for the responsible position
I holds, I would n't argue one little bit with you, but
you know I 'm elected kind o' more to save life than
to destroy it."

Apache hummed in the air.

"That's just their objection," said he, softly.

"Pshaw!" said the sheriff.  "That was a right
poor cyard I played; but it's tabled now and can't
be lifted.  Get back there!  By Jimminy! if you
press any closer, we fire on you."

There was a quick word among the seven men and
then they swooped on us.  I tell you it was a sudden
business that.  Down went the sheriff on his knee.
And next moment the now familiar smell of powder
was in my nostrils.  Two of the seven fell and their
charge broke and they swept round us to left and
right.

"Anybody hit here?" said the sheriff.  "Nobody!
Guess they don't want to hit you, Apache Kid."

"I 'm getting used to that treatment," said Apache
Kid.  "It 's not the first time I 've pressed a trigger
on seven men who wanted my life—rather than my
death," he ended grimly.

"You got to tell me about that, later," said the
sheriff.  "I gets interested in this seven business
more and more every time you refers to it."

"I hope to have the opportunity, at least," said
Apache, grimly, "to satisfy your curiosity."

"Look up!  Here they come again," the sheriff
interjected.

There was another crackle to and fro, a quick
pattering of hoofs and flying of tails.  One bullet
zipped on a granite block in front of me and spattered
the splinters in my face.  The five wheeled and
gathered; one of the fallen men crawled away and
lay down in the shadow of a rock to look on at the
fight, with a sick face.

"They do look like as they were gatherin' again
systematic.  Pity about that there mud-slide comin'
so sudden," remarked the sheriff again, as though
talking to himself more than to us; and then again
he cried: "Lookup!"

Down came the five then, bent in their saddles,
their right hands in air, apparently determined to
make a supreme effort.  They were going to try the
effect of a dash past, with dropping shots as they
came.  But at a word from one they wheeled, rode
back a distance, and then, spinning round, rode back
as you have seen fellows preparing for a running start
in a race, wheeled, and then came down in a scatter
of dust, and a cry of "Yah!  Yah!" to their horses.

Next moment they were past—four of them.

"If them four fellows come again," said the Indian,
"my name Dennis."

I wondered how Apache Kid could titter at this remark.

I thought perhaps that it was half excitement that
caused the laugh.  It was not that exactly, however.
It was something else.

"As you remarked," said he to the sheriff, "it's a
pity about that mud-slide," and he swung his revolver
to and fro in a limp hand.

"Don't drop that gun o' yours," said the sheriff in
anxiety.  "Don't you give the show plumb away.
By Jimminy! they are meditatin' another.  Say!
Guess I 'll palaver again some."

He leaped to his feet and waved the palm of his
hand toward the four and then set it to the side of
his mouth like a speaking-trumpet.

"I tell yous," he cried, "I 'm not a bloody man.
I'm ag'in blood.  That's why I give you this last
reminder that you 're kickin' ag'in the law and I
advise you to take warnin' from what you got
already.  If I was n't ag'in blood, I would n't talk
at all."

Apache Kid tittered again.

"You need n't just tell them it's your own blood
you are thinking of, Sheriff."

"No!" said the sheriff, with a queer, flat look about
his face—I don't know how else to describe
it—"I 've said enough, I reckon.  If I seem anxious to
spare 'em and warn 'em off some more, they might
be liable to tumble to it that we 've put up our last
fight, eh?"  And he gave a grim, mirthless laugh.

The four seemed uncertain.  Then one of them
looked down-hill, the other three followed his gaze,
and away they flew above us and round in a circle,
not firing now, to where their wounded comrade lay
by the rock, and after capturing his horse, one of
them, alighting, helped him to the saddle.  It is a
wonder to me that they did not surmise that our
ammunition was done, for they came close enough
to carry away the others who had fallen.  But they
themselves did not fire again.  They seemed in haste
to be gone, and with another glance round and shaking
their fists backwards as they rode, they departed
athwart the slope and broke into a jogging lope down
Baker shoulder.

Apache Kid had moved away a trifle from the rest
of us as we watched this departure, and now he sat
grinning at the sheriff who was mopping his brow
and head.

"Well, Sheriff," he said.  "I hope this convinces
you of my innocence."

"What?" asked the sheriff, a little pucker at the eyes.

Apache handed him back the revolver that he had
received at the beginning of the fight.

"That!" said he.

The sheriff looked at the chambers which Apache
Kid's finger indicated with dignified triumph.

"Two shells that you did n't fire!" said the
sheriff.  "What does that show?"

"That I had you held up if I had liked—you and
your Indian—and I passed the hand, so to speak.
My friend and I might leave you now if we so desired.
There are other ways through the mountains besides
following these gentlemen.  We could do pretty well,
he and I, I think."

The sheriff smiled grimly.

"This here Winchester that's pointin' at your belly
has one shell in yet," said he.  "It come into my
haid that maybe——" and he stopped and then in a
voice that seemed to belie a good deal of what I had
already taken to be his nature, a voice full of beseeching,
he said: "Say, Apache, I got to apologise to you
for keepin' up this yere shell.  You 're a deep man, sir,
but I guess you are innocent, right enough, o' wipin'
out Pinkerton.  Here comes Slim and the waggon."

Apache looked with admiration on the sheriff.

"Diamond cut diamond," he said, and laughed;
and then said he: "And have I to apologise for
keeping my two shells?"

"No, sir!" cried the sheriff.  "You kept them to
show me you was square.  I kept my last one
because I did n't trust you.  I guess I do now."

"We begin to understand each other," said Apache.

"I don't know about understand," said the sheriff.
"But I sure am getting a higher opinion of you than
I had before."





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.. _`For Fear of Judge Lynch`:

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   CHAPTER XXIV


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   *For Fear of Judge Lynch*

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The long, dragging scream of wheels
came to our ears, putting an end to
this mutual admiration; and then
there came out of the cool of the
woods below, where the honeysuckle
showed, into the blaze of the hillside, with its
grey-blue granite blocks and their blue shadows, a large
Bain-waggon drawn by two horses.

On either side of it two men rode on dark horses.
The sheriff signed to the cortège to stop, and by the
time that we had descended to this party the waggon
was turned about.

"Well," said the sheriff to Slim who was driving
the team, his horse hitched behind, "you got it from
him.  Was he kind o' slow about lendin' it?"

"Nosiree," said Slim.  "He was settin' on a
dump near the cable-house when I got to the mine,
settin' shying crusts o' punk at the chipmunks—they
've a pow'ful lot of them around the Molly
Magee—and he seemed kind o' astonished to see
me.  'Up to business?' he says, 'up to business?
You ain't goin' to take him away from me?' he says,
meanin', of course, the violinist——"

Apache said to me at that: "Remind me to tell
you what he means—about the violinist."

"So I jest tells him no," continued Slim, "and
asked him the loan o' one of his waggons, and he
says, 'What for?'  And I takes him by the lapel o'
his coat an' says, 'Can you keep a secret?' and he
says then, 'Aha,' he says, 'I know what it is.  You
got Apache Kid on the hill there and you want the
waggon to get him through the city for fear o' any of
the boys tryin' to get a shot at him.'  Says I: 'Who
told you?  Guess again.'  And he says he
reckoned he would lend me the waggon, and right
pleased" (Slim shot a meaning look at Apache
Kid), "but as for keepin' quiet, that was beyond
him, he said."

"Dern!" said the sheriff.  "So he 'll be telling
the Magee boys and havin' 'em comin' huntin' after
us, like enough, for our prisoner, if feelin' is high
about this."

Slim laid a finger to his nose.  "Nosiree," said
he.  "I jest told him if he could n't keep holt o' our
secret for three hours, and give us a start, that first
thing he knew we'd come along and be liftin' his
violinist, some fine day, along with a nice French
policeman or sheriff, or what they call 'em there—*grand
army* or something—all the way from Paris."

The sheriff gloated on this.

"That would tighten him up some," said he.

"It did," replied Slim, and would have continued
to pat himself on the back for his diplomacy, I believe,
but the sheriff turned abruptly to Apache Kid and
me and ordered us with a new sharpness, because of
the newcomers, I suppose, to get into the waggon;
and soon we were going briskly down-hill, the four
mounted men riding two by two on either side, the
sheriff loping along by the team's side and my pack-horse
trotting behind, with Slim's mount in charge of
the Indian.

We gathered from the remarks of the sheriff that
these four men had been camped down-hill a little
way for three days, out of sight of the waggon track,
awaiting our coming.  Slim had evidently, after
securing the waggon, picked them up.

"That violinist," said Apache Kid to me, "that
Slim mentioned to the Molly Magee boss by way of a
threat, is rather a notable figure here.  He was leader
of an orchestra in Paris, embezzled money, bolted out
here and up at the Molly Magee gets his three and a
half dollars a day of miner's wages and keeps his
hands as soft as a child's.  He could n't tap a drill on
the head two consecutive times to save his life."

"What do they keep him for, then?" I asked.
"And why do they pay him?" though really I was
not much interested in violinists at the time and
wondered how Apache Kid could talk at all or do else
than long for getting well out of this grievous pass
that he was in.  And, from his own lips, I knew he
thought his condition serious.

"Well," said he, "the reason why gives you an
idea of how very stiff a miner's lot is in some places.
The Molly Magee mine is a wet mine, very wet, and
it lies in a sort of notch on the hill where the wind is
always cold.  Crossing from the mine to the
bunkhouse men have been known to take a pain in the
back between the shoulder-blades, bend forward, and
remark on the acuteness of it and be dead in three
hours—of pneumonia.  It's a wet mine and a cold
hill.  This violinist is just a Godsend to the owners.
Instead of having to be content with whoever they
can get to work the mine for them they have the
pick of the miners of the territory; even most of the
*muckers* in the mine are really full-fledged miners,
but are yet content to take muckers' wages—and all
because of this violinist.  He plays to them, you see,
and his fame has gone far and wide over the territory.
The Molly Magee, bad mine though she is, with a
store of coffins always kept there, never lacks for
miners.  That's what they keep our violinist for."

But we were jolting well down-hill now and soon
caught glimpses of Baker City between the trees.

"I reckon you better lie down in the bottom of
that there waggon," said the sheriff, looking round,
his left hand resting on his horse's quarters.  "When
they see you it might rouse them."

"Sir!" said Apache (it was the first word he had
spoken, apart from his talk with me, since the guard
joined us), "I 'm innocent of this charge, and I want
to live to disprove it, not for my own honour alone.
For many reasons, for many reasons I want to disprove
it.  But I 'm damned if I grovel in the bottom of a
waggon for any hobo in Baker City!"

The sheriff said not a word in reply, just nodded
his head as though to say, "So be it, then," stayed his
horse till the waggon came abreast, leant from his
saddle and spoke a word to Slim, who suddenly emitted
a yell that caused the horses to leap forward.

The guard on either side had their Winchesters
with the butts on their right thighs—and so we went
flying into Baker City, the sheriff again spurring
ahead; so we whirled along, with a glimpse of the
Laughlin House, dashed down that street, suddenly
attracting the attention of those who stayed there, and
they, grasping the situation after a moment's hesitation,
came pounding down on the wooden sidewalks after us.

So we swept into Baker Street, where a great cry
got up, and men rose on the one-storey-up verandahs
of the hotels and craned out to look on us; and the
throng ran on the sidewalks on either side.

Apache Kid had a sneer beginning on his lips, but
that changed and his brows knitted as a man who,
on toting up a sum, finds the result other than he
expected.  For those, who saw our arrival waved
their hats in air and cheered our passage; and it was
with a deal of wonder and astonishment that I saw the
look of admiration on the brown faces that showed
through the dust we raised.  To me it looked as
though, had these men cared to combine to stop
our progress, it would not have been to hale Apache
Kid before Judge Lynch, but rather to have taken the
horses from the waggon, as you see students do with
the carriage of some man who is their momentary
hero, and drag us in triumph through the city.

The sheriff had expected to find the city enraged at
us, anxious to do "justice" in a summary fashion.

This cheering must have puzzled him.  It certainly
puzzled us.





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   CHAPTER XXV


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   *The Making of a Public Hero*

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An old, bowed greybeard, with an
expressionless, weather-beaten mask of
a face, closed the gate into the
"lock-up" after us as we swept into the
square.  I remember the jar with
which that massive gate closed, but somehow it did
not affect me as I thought it should have done.
Perhaps the reason for this absence of awe was due to the
fact that the murmur of voices without, as of a
concourse gathering there, was not a belligerent murmur.

"If Judge Lynch goes to work like this," said I to
myself, "he has a mighty cheerful way of carrying
out his justice on those who offend him."

But I saw that the sheriff and Slim and the guard
also were somewhat "at sea," at a loss to account for
the manner of our reception.  The sheriff flung off his
horse and marched into the gaol building, I suppose
to see that the entrance into the office was closed.
We remained still in the waggon.

Slim chewed meditatively and spat in the sand of
the patio, or square—familiarity I suppose breeding
contempt—and to the old greybeard, who had
closed the gate on our entrance, and now stood by
the waggon clapping the quick-breathing horses, he
said: "Well, Colonel, you know how them turbulent
populace acts.  You hev seen some turbulent
populaces in your time, Colonel.  What does this yere
sound of levity pertend?"

"You mought think from the sound they was
electin' a new mayor, eh?" said the old man
addressed as colonel.  "B'ain't a hangin', for sure,"
and at these words I impulsively laid my hand on
Apache Kid's forearm and pressed it; but the colonel
at the same moment tapped Apache Kid on the small
of the back, and he turned round to find that worthy
holding up a leathery hand and saying, "Shake."

"With pleasure," said Apache Kid.  "It is an
honour to me to shake hands with you, Colonel."

The old man seemed to enjoy being addressed in
this flattering fashion, which doubtless Apache Kid
knew; for after the hand-shaking, when the colonel
waddled away to the horses' heads to begin
unhitching, a task in which Slim promptly assisted
(I think more to ask questions, however, rather
than to share the work), Apache Kid remarked to me:

"He 's a great character, that; he goes out
about town now with the chain-gang; you must
have seen him trotting behind them, with his head
bowed, squinting up at his flock from the corners
of his eyes, his rifle in hand.  That's the job he gets
in the evening of his days; but if any man could
make your hair curl, as the expression is, that old
man could do it with his yarns about the days when
everything west of the Mississippi was the Great
American Desert.  He seems to be congratulating
me on something.  Whether he thinks I 'm one of
the baddest bad men he 's ever seen, or whether——"

It was then that the sheriff came slowly down the
three steps into the square.

"You two gentlemen," said he, "might be good
enough to step this way.  And say, Slim!  That
there pack-horse is jest to be left standing,
meanwhile.  I reckon the property on its back ain't come
under the inspection of the law yet—quite."

I could have cried out with joy; not for myself,
for the sheriff had led me to believe all the way that
I had got mixed up with this "trouble" on the less
objectionable side,—the right side.  It was for
Apache Kid that my heart gladdened.  Yet he, to
all appearance, was as little affected by this ray of
hope as he had been by the expectation of
"stretching hemp."

He swung his leg leisurely over on to the tire of
the wheel, stepped daintily on to the hub, and leaped
to the ground.

"At your service, Sheriff," said he, and I followed him.

I noticed that the sheriff had again assumed his
ponderous frown, a frown that I was beginning to
consider a meaningless thing,—a sort of mere badge
of office.  He led us into a white-painted room, where
a young lady habited plainly in black sat, with bent
and sidewise head.  And we were no sooner into the
room, hats in hand, than the door closed behind us
and we heard the sheriff's ponderous tread depart
with great emphasis down an echoing corridor.

The young lady, as you have surmised, was
Mr. Pinkerton's daughter; and there was a wan smile
of welcome on her saddened face as she looked
up to us.

We stood like shamed, heart-broken culprits
before her; and I know that my heart bled for her.

She was so changed from the last time I had seen
her.  The innocent expression of her face, the openness
and lack of all pose, were still evident; but these
things served to make her lonely position the more
sad to think of.  She was like a stricken deer; and
her great eyes looked upon us, craving, even before
she spoke her yearning, some word of her father.

"Tell me," she said.  "Charlie has told me—in
his way.  Oh!  It is a hard, bitter story, as it comes
from him."

"To my mind," said Apache Kid, in a soft voice,
"it is at once one of the saddest stories and one of
which the daughter cannot think without a greater
honouring of her father."

Her hungering eyes looked squarely on him, but
she spoke not a word.

"To me," he said, "his passing must be ever
remembered with very poignant grief; and to my
friend"—and he inclined his head to me—"it must
be the same."

I thought she was on the brink of tears and breaking
down, and so, I think, did he; for as I looked
away sad (and ashamed, in a way), he said: "God
knows how I feel this!"

I think the interjection of this personal cry helped
her to be strong to hear\  She tossed the tears from
her eyes bravely, and he went on:

"When I think that he died through simple disinterested
kindness, and that that kindness, that was
his undoing, was done for me—and my friends," he
said in a lower tone, "then, though it makes me but
the more sorrowful, I feel that"—he spoke the rest
more quickly—"he died a death such as any man
might wish to die.  It was a noble death, and he was
the finest man——"

"Oh!" she cried, "but I—I—it was I who bade
him follow you."

Apache Kid's eyes were staring on the floor; and
in the agony of my heart, whether well or ill advised
I do not know, I said:

"Your name was the last on his lips."

Her face craved all that could be told; and I told
her all now, she growing calmer, with bitten lips, as
I, feeling for her grief, found the more pain.

Then Apache Kid spoke, and I found a tone in his
voice,—I, who had come to know him, being cast
beside him in the mountain solitudes,—that made
me think he spoke what he did, not because he really
did believe it, but because he thought it fit to say.

"It may seem strange," said he, "to hear it from
my lips, as though I desired to lighten my own
regret, but I think our days are all ordained for us;
and when those we love have been ordained to
unselfishness, and to gain the crown of unselfishness,
which is ever a crown of thorns, we can be but
thankful—though at the moment we dare not say this to
ourselves."

He looked dumbly at me, pleadingly, I thought.  I
had an idea that his eyes besought something of
me—but I knew not what; and then he turned to her
and took her hand ever so fearfully, and said:

"You will remember that we have a charge from
him, as my friend has told you; and indeed, it was
not necessary that the charge should have been laid
on us."  He dropped her hand, and looking at me,
said: "I believe we both would have considered it a
privilege to in some slight way——" he seemed to
feel that he was upon the wrong track, and she said:

"Oh!  That is nothing.  Now that I have heard it
all from you it is' not—not so cruel as Charlie's
account.  I think I must go now, and I have to thank
you for being so truthful with me and telling me it all
so plainly."

She turned her face aside again and we perceived
that she would be alone.  So we passed from the
room very quietly and saw the sheriff at the end of
the corridor beckoning us, and went toward him.

"She hes told you, I guess," said he, "that the
case is off."

Apache shook his head.

"Pshaw!" said the sheriff.  "What she want with you?"

"To hear how Mr. Pinkerton died."

"But she knew."

"Yes," said Apache Kid, "as a savage saw it."

The sheriff puckered his heavy mouth and raised
his eyes.

"Sure!" said he.  "That's what.  Pretty coarse,
I guess.  You would kind o' put the limelight on
the scene."

"Sir, sir!" said Apache Kid.  "We have just
come from her."

"I beg your pardon, gen'lemen," he said.  "I
understand what you mean; I know—women and
music, and especially them songs about Mother, and
the old farm, and such, jest makes me *feel* too, at
times.  I understand, boys, and I don't mock you
none.  And that jest makes me think it might be
sort of kind in you if you was goin' out and gettin'
them cheerin' boys out there some ways off, lest she
hears them cheerin' an' it kind o' jars on her."

"Then I am free?"

"Yap; that's what," said the sheriff.  "She rode
up here with that Indian trailer feller when the news
spread.  The colonel tells me that it was a fellow,
Pious Pete, hetched the story out.  It was two
strangers to me came to inform me about the killing
of Pinkerton—said they saw you do it from out a
bush where they was camped, and would have gone
for you but they had gone busted on cartridges and
you was heeled heavy.  They put up a good enough
story about them bein' comin' back from a prospectin'
trip, and had it all down fine.  So I jest started
right off."

"But how did you know what way to come for
us?" asked Apache Kid.

"Oh, well, you see, I had been keepin' track of
Canlan.  I hed lost sight o' you, and when I heard
you was in the hills away over there, and also knew
how Canlan had gone out over Baker shoulder, I
began to guess where The Lost Cabin lay.  It was
handier like for me to start trackin' Canlan than to
go away down to Kettle with them fellows and into
the mountains there, and try to get on to your trail
where they said you had buried Mr. P."

Apache Kid nodded.

"So I left them two here to eat at the expense o'
the territory till my return.  It was the colonel got
onto them fust—recognised 'em for old friends of a
right celebrated danger to civilisation which his name
was Farrell."

"Ah!" said Apache Kid.

"So I hear now, when I comes back, anyway,"
said the sheriff.  "Then along comes Miss Pinkerton,
and when they see her on the scene, well, why they
reckon on feedin' off this yere territory no more.
The colonel is some annoyed that they did n't wait
on and try to hold up their story.  I reckon they
either had not figured on Miss P., or else had
surmised she 'd not raise her voice ag'in' your decoratin'
a rope.  But I keep you from distractin' them boys
out there and they starts cheerin' ag'in.  After you 've
kind o' distributed them come back and see me.  I 'm
kind o' stuck on you, Apache.  I guess you 'll make
a good enough citizen yet—maybe you might be in
the running yet for sheriff o' Carson City within the
next few years."

But a renewed outbreak of the cheering brought a
frown to Apache Kid's face and sent him to the door
speedily, with me at his heels.

The sheriff opened the door and out stepped
Apache Kid.  The first breath of a shout from the
crowd there he stopped in the middle.  What his
face spoke I do not know, being behind him; but his
right thumb pointed over his shoulder, his left hand
was at his lips, I think,—and the cry stopped.

"Gentlemen," he said, and broke the cry that
threatened again to rise with a raised hand; "the
lady within"—he got to the core of his remark
first—"has her own sorrow.  We must think of her."

You could hear the gruff "That's what," and
"That's no lie," and "That's talking," and see heads
nodded to neighbour's heads in the crowd.

But the question was how to get away?  Apache
Kid stepped down to the street level and then,
before we knew what was come to us we were
clutched by willing hands and, shoulder high, headed
a silent procession tramping in the dust out of
ear-shot of the jail—that the woman within might not
feel her sorrow more bitter and lonely hearing the
cheers that were given to the men who had "wiped
out the Farrell gang."

So much the populace knew had happened.  That
much had leaked out, and the least that was expected
of Apache Kid was that he would get out on some
hotel verandah and allow himself to be gazed upon
and cheered and make himself for a night an excuse
for "celebration" and perhaps, also, in the speech
that he must needs make, give some slight outline
of how Farrell *got it*—to use (as Apache Kid would
say) the phraseology of the country.





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   CHAPTER XXVI


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   *Apache Kid Makes a Speech*

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There was a good deal of the spirit
of Coriolanus in Apache Kid, and he
knew the worth of all this laudation.

When we at last found ourselves
jostled up onto the balcony of that
saloon which I spoke of once as one of the "toughest"
houses in Baker City, that very saloon at the door
of which I had beheld the sheriff of Baker City give
an example of his "smartness," the throng was
jostling in the street and crying out:

"What's the matter with Apache Kid?—He's all right!"

Both question and answer in this cry were voiced
always in one, not one man crying out the question
and another replying, and it made the cry seem very
droll to me.

Apache Kid was thrust to the front and the
crowd huzzahed again and shouted: "Speech!"  And
others cried out: "Tell us about Farrell's
gang."

So Apache Kid stepped to the rail and raised his
head, and, "Gentlemen," he began, "this is a great
honour to me;" and they all cried out again.

"If it is not," said he, "it should be."

I think the majority took this for humour and they
laughed and wagged their heads and looked up
smiling, for more.

"When I think of how so shortly ago I merited
your disapproval and now, instead of gaining that,
am welcomed so heartily and effusively, I cannot but
feel how deeply I am indebted to all the citizens—"
he paused and I heard him laugh in his throat, "of
our progressive and progressing city."

They gave vent to a bellow of pleasure and some
cried out again: "Farrell!  Farrell!  Tell us about
Farrell."

"I must appeal to the sense of propriety," he said,
"for which our western country is famous.  In the
West we are all gentlemen."

There was a cry of: "That's what!"

"And a gentleman never forces anyone to take
liquor when he does not want to, never forces anyone
to disclose his history when he does not want to.
The gentleman says to himself, in the first instance,
'there is all the more for myself.'  In the second
case he knows that his own past might scarcely bear
scrutiny.  Ah well!  As we are all gentlemen here
I know that with perfect reliance in you I can say
that I had rather not speak about Farrell and his gang."

There was a slight murmur at this.

"There are men of the gang still in the territory.
As you are now aware, it was they who came to you
with a cock-and-bull story about me.  In your
desire to further law and order in this progressive
Baker City you rightly decided that I must pay the
penalty for the deed you believed that I had done."

He paused a moment and then continued in
another tone:

"Now there is nothing I regret more than the sad
death of Mr. Pinkerton.  He was a man we all
honoured and respected.  I am glad you do not now
believe that I was his slayer.  With those who raised
that calumny against me—should I meet them—I
will deal as seems fit to me."

A great cheer followed this.

Apache Kid cleared his throat.

"Men of Baker City!" he cried, "I wish, finally,
to thank you for this so exuberant expression of your
regret that you believed me guilty."

They took this better than I expected.  A cheer
in which you heard an undercurrent of rich laughter
filled the street and drowned his last words:

"I bear you no ill will."

He bowed, backed from the balcony-rail into the
saloon, touched me on the arm where I stood by the
door, and before those who had followed us in well
knew what we were about, we had run through the
sitting-room that gave out on that balcony, gained
the rear of the house, and were posting back to the
jail by the rear street.

But there, relieved at last of the anxiety that had
held me together all the way from the Lost Cabin
Mine, knowing now that my friend was safe, all the
vigour seemed to leave me.

My memory harked back to the nights in the
forests on the hillsides, to the attack upon us on the
shoulder of Baker Ridge, to the mud-slide, to the
night of Canlan's madness, and the previous night of
his onslaught on our camp.  Larry Donoghue loomed
in my mind's eye, large-framed, loose-limbed,
heavy-mouthed.  Again I saw the summit over which we
passed, the Doréesque ravines and piled rocks, the
forest trail, the valley where Mr. Pinkerton lay, on
the cliff of which I had faced the terrors of the snake.
I saw the Indians trooping at the ford, the dead men
lying in the wood at Camp Kettle, the red-headed
man in the Rest House, the loathsome "drummer"
at the Half-Way House,—and all the while the
sheriff's voice was in my ears and sometimes
Apache's replying.

My brain was in a whirl, and I heard the sheriff say:

"That boy is sick looking."

He said it in a kind, reassuring voice, and I knew
that I was in the home of friends, and need no longer
keep alert and watchful and fearful.  My chin went
down upon my breast.

I had a faint recollection of fiery spirits being
poured down my throat, and then of being caught by
the arm-pits and lifted and held for awhile, and of
voices whispering and consulting around me.  Then
I felt the air in my face, and came round sufficiently
to know I was in the street, and the dim ovals of
faces turned on me, following me as I was hurried
forward at what seemed a terrible speed, and
then I opened my eyes to find myself in a room with
the blind down at the open window.

It was night time, for the room was in darkness,
and I lay looking at a thin cut in the yellow blind, a
cut of about three inches long, through which the
moonlight filtered; and as I looked at it I saw it
begin to move with a wriggling motion, and even as
I looked on it it stretched upward and downward
from either end.  At the top ran out suddenly two
horizontal cuts, the lower end split in two, and ran
out left and right, and then it all turned into the form
of a man like a jumping-jack, with twitching legs and
waving arms.  A head grew out of it next, and rolled
from side to side; it was the figure of Mike Canlan.
I turned my head on the pillow and groaned.

"Heavens!" I cried, "I am haunted yet by this."

And then a great number of voices began whispering
in a corner of the chamber.  I cried out in terror,
and then the door opened and a woman entered,
carrying a candle, shaded with one hand, the light of it
striking upon her freckled face and yellow hair.

It was Mrs. Laughlin, and she sat down by me and
took my hand, feeling my pulse, and ran her rough
palm across my brow.  She may have been a
belligerent woman, and had many "tiffs" with her
husband, but I cannot tell you how soothing was her
rough touch to me then,—rough, but extremely kind.

The whisperings kept on, but very faint now,—fainter
and fainter in my ears like far echoes, and,
holding her bony hand, I fell asleep.

The fever of the mountains, the weariness of the
way, the fear of pursuit, the smell of powder, and the
sight of dead men's eyes,—all these I had braced
myself against.  But now I steeled myself no longer.
Now I rested, I, who had feared much and yet been
strong (which I have heard persons say is the greatest
form of bravery,—the coward's bravery), I rested
fearless, clinging to this worn woman's hand.





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.. _`The Beginning of the End`:

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   CHAPTER XXVII


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   *The Beginning of the End*

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I feel somehow that I have to apologise
for "giving in" that way.  I should
have liked to figure before you like
a cast-iron hero.  But when I set out
to tell you this story I made up my
mind to tell the truth about all those concerned in
it—myself included.

I could not understand how Apache Kid kept so
fresh through it all.  But, of course, you remember
what he told me of his life, and he was, as the saying
is, "hard as nails."  Yet he avoided commiserating
me on my condition, being a man quick enough to
understand that I resented this break-down.  He
even went the length of telling me, as he sat in my
room, that he felt "mighty rocky after that trip,"
himself.  And when the doctor pronounced that I might
get up, he told me that I was getting off very easily.

On two points I had to question Apache Kid and
his answers to my questions gave me a further insight
into his character.  The first of these matters was
regarding the wealth we had brought with us from the
Lost Cabin Mine.

"I have done nothing about it yet," said he.  "I
thought it advisable for us to go together to the bank."

I looked my surprise, I suppose.

"Then you have no idea what it amounts to yet?"
I asked.

"No," said he.  "You know it will neither increase
nor diminish with waiting."

"But why did you wait?"

"O," he said lightly, "if a man cannot wait for his
partner getting well, and do the thing ship-shape,
he must be very impatient."

"You don't seem anxious, even, to know what you
are really worth."

"I fear not," said he.  "O, man, can't you see
that once we know, to a five-cent piece, what all that
loot is worth, we are through with the adventure and
there's no more fun to be had?  I'm never happy
when I get a thing.  It's in the hunting that I find
relief."

But there fell a shadow on his face then.

I asked him if Miss Pinkerton was still in Baker
City.  I declare, he blushed at the very mention of
her name.  I could see the red tinge the brown of
his cheeks.

I often wondered, when Apache Kid spoke, just
what he was really thinking.  He did not always say
what he thought, or believe what he said.  He had a
way, too, of giving turns to his phrases that might
have given him a name for a hardness that was not
really his.

"O," he said, "she heard that you were ill and
wanted to come and look after you, but you were
babbling not just of green fields, exactly—you were
babbling of Hell—and I can never get over a foolish
idea that early in youth was pumped into me that
women do not know about Hell and should not know.
I thought it advisable to prevent her coming to see
you—and hear you."

I felt my own cheeks tingle to think that I had
been raving such ravings as he hinted at.

"And did Mrs. Laughlin——" I began.

But Mrs. Laughlin herself replied, coming quietly
into the room.

"Yes, yes," she said, and laughed.  "Mrs. Laughlin
heerd it all," and then she turned on Apache Kid.
"And Mrs. Laughlin was none the worse o' hearing
it, Apache Kid," she said, "not because she 's old,
but because in gettin' up in years she 's learnt how to
weigh things and know the good from the bad, even
though the good does look bad.  Oh!  I know what
you are thinking right now," she interrupted herself.
"You 're thinkin' you might remark I don't have no
call to talk 'cause I heerd you talkin' just now without
you knowin'——"

"Madam——" began Apache Kid, in a courteous
voice, but she would not permit him to speak.

"I was coming along in my stocking soles, in case
the lad was sleeping," and she plucked up her dress
to disclose her stockinged feet, "and I heerd by
accident what you was talkin'.  And I 'm going to tell
you, Mr. Apache Kid, that you 're a deal better a
man than you pretend."

It was, to me, an unlooked-for comment, for her
manner was almost belligerent.

"You had it pumped into you, you says!  O!
An old woman like me understands men well.  It's
you sarcastic fellows, you would-be sarcastic fellows,
that have the kind, good hearts.  And you talk that
way to kind of protect them."

I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows; but, as for
me, I do not know enough of human nature to
profess to understand all that this wise woman spoke.

"Take you care, Apache Kid," she said, and shook
her finger at him, and even on her finger, as I noticed,
there were freckles, and on the back of her hand.
"Take you care that you don't get to delude
yourself into hardness, same as you delude men
into thinking you a dangerous sort o' fellow—a
kind of enigma man."

"I am afraid I don't follow you," said Apache Kid.

"But you do follow me," she said.  "All you
want to do is to let yourself go—let that bit of
yourself go and have its way—that bit that you
always make the other half of you sit and jeer at!"

She paused, and then shaking her finger again
remarked solemnly:

"Or you 'll maybe find that the good, likeable
half o' you ain't a half no longer, only a quarter,
dwindled down to a quarter, and the half of you
that puts up this bluff in the face of men becomes
three-quarter then.  I 'm thinking I would n't like
you so good then, Apache Kid!  Not but what I 'd
be——" she hesitated, "sorry for you like," she said.

"To win your sorrow, Mrs. Laughlin," said he,
looking on her solemnly, "would be a desirable thing."

She gazed at him a long while, and to my utter
astonishment, for I did not quite understand all this,
there were tears in her eyes when she said, as to
herself, "Yes, you mean that."

She sighed, and then said she: "What you need
is to settle down with a good, square, honest girl.
If I was younger like myself——" she broke off
merrily.

Apache Kid looked her in the face with interested eyes.

"I wish I knew just what you were like, just how
you spoke and acted when you were—in the
position you have suggested as desirable."

"Would you have had me?" she said.

"I would perhaps have failed to know you
possessed all these qualities you do, for you would
never have shown them to me."

"Would I not?" said she.  "Well, I show myself
now; and if you object to young girls not showing
their real selves, you begin and set 'em the
example.  You go down to the Half-Way House
and show that Miss Pinkerton your real self,
and——"

"Mrs. Laughlin!" he said.  "I would not have
expected this——"

"Why!" she cried, "I'm old enough to be your
grandmother.  Well, well!  I see the lad is all right;
that's what I came up for, so I 'll get away down
again."

"Laughlin has certainly a jewel of a wife," said
Apache Kid, after she departed, and that was all
on the matter.

Miss Pinkerton herself was not mentioned again
by either of us, and the other subject of our talk
we settled two days later, when I, having "got to
my legs" again on the day following that chat,
accompanied Apache Kid to the jail where the
sheriff unlocked the safe for us and gave us our
property, which he had in keeping.

The horse, I heard then, had been returned to the
livery stable from which Canlan had hired it.

All that the sheriff had to say on the matter of
our property was to the effect that though two of the
Lost Cabin owners had been often enough known
to say that they had no living relative, the
other—Jackson—was supposed to have a sister living.

"If you want to do the square thing," said he,
"you ought to advertise for her."

Apache turned to me.

"I forgot that," said he; "I forgot to tell you,"
and he drew a newspaper from his pocket.  "Don't
you get the 'Tribune,' Sheriff!"

He opened the paper and pointed to his announcement
for relatives of J. E. Jackson.

"I have put it in this local rag," said he, "and
a similar one in a dozen leading papers over the
States, and in three of the smaller papers in his
own State.  I heard he was an Ohio man."

The sheriff held out his hand.

"I once reckoned," said he, "that we 'd be ornamenting
a telegraph pole in Baker City with you, but now I
reckon we will see you sheriff of Carson City, sure."

Apache Kid took the proffered hand and shook
it; but he showed me deeper into himself again when
he said in a dry voice:

"I don't think, Sheriff, that there will be any real
need for you to congratulate me any oftener than
you have done already, on finding out further
mistakes you have made in your attempts to discover
my real character."

And so saying we went out; and as I shook the
sheriff's hand I noticed that he took mine absently.
I think he was pondering what my friend had said.

"One grows weary of patronage," said Apache
Kid to me as we plodded along the deserted streets
to the bank.

"Deserted streets?" you say.  Yes, deserted.  For
an "excitement" had sprung up at Tremont during
my ten days in bed.  As we passed the hotels on
our way to the bank, the hotels that had always
been thronged and full of voices, the doors always
on the swing, we saw now on the verandah of each
of them one solitary man, with chair tilted back and
feet in the rail.  These were the worthy proprietors,
each figuring on the chances of Baker City booming
again, each wondering if he should follow the rush.

As we passed the corner of the street in which
"Blaine's joint" had stood, I noticed above the door
and window a strip of wood less sun-scorched than
the rest.  That was where the famous canvas sign
had been, rolled up now and carted off with the
coffee-urn to this other "city" that had depopulated Baker
City.  The stores, of course, were still open; for the
city which is centre for five paying mines can never
die.  It may not always *boom*, with megaphones in
every window and cigar smoke curling in the streets,
but it will not *languish*.

Still, it was not the Baker City that I knew of yore,
and as we entered the door of the bank, carrying our
bullion, it struck me that the stage-setting was just in
keeping with the part we played; for as Apache Kid
had said—when we knew our wealth the adventure
would be over.  This was the last Act, Scene I.  And
I felt a quiver in my heart when the thought intruded
itself, even then, that Scene II (and last) would be a
farewell to Apache Kid.

Slowly the teller in the bank weighed out our
nuggets, scanning us between each weighing over his
gold-rimmed glasses and noting down the amounts
on his writing pad.

"Grand total," said he, and paused to awaken the
thrill of suspense, "forty thousand dollars."

"Forty thousand dollars," thought I, "and fifteen
hundred in notes, that makes forty-one thousand five
hundred."

"A mere flea-bite," Apache said.

"I beg your pardon?" said the teller, astonished.

"A mere flea-bite," repeated Apache Kid.  "Look
at that," and he held up a turquoise in his fingers.
"Don't you think a man would give forty-one
thousand five hundred for a bagful of these?"

"A bagful?" said the teller.

Apache nodded.

"Do you wish to dispose of some of these, too?"
the teller asked.

"No, thanks," said Apache Kid.  "They go to an
eastern market."

"An eastern market!"  Did that mean that Apache
Kid was going east?  Was I to have his company
home?  Home I myself was going.  But he—as I
looked at his brown face, the alert eyes puckered at
the side with long life in the sunshine, the lips close
with much daring (and I think just a little hard), the
jaws firm with much endurance, and that self-possessed
bearing that one never sees in the civilised East, I knew
he was not going back East.

The tiny gold ear-rings might be removed, but the
stamp of the man could not; and men of that stamp
are not seen in cities.





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.. _`Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way House to Kettle`:

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   CHAPTER XXVIII


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   *Apache Kid Behaves Strangely at the Half-Way
   House to Kettle*

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You hear people talk of the *Autumn
feeling in the air*.  Well, the Autumn
feeling was in the air as we drove
down through the rolling foothills to
the Half-Way House.

My farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Laughlin had touched
me deeply.  It was only a word or two and a handshake,
for when it comes to parting in the West, there
is never any effusion—partings there are so frequent
that people spare themselves the pain of them and
make them brief.  But nevertheless, they sting.

There was sunlight, to be sure, all the way; but
that Autumn feeling was there.  The sound of the
wheels fell dead on the air, and we were all moody
and quiet.  I got it into my head that I was soon to
say farewell to Apache Kid, and that forever.  He was
exceedingly thoughtful and silent, and I wondered if
he was meditating on the suggestion of Mrs. Laughlin
regarding the advisability of his settling down, asking
Miss Pinkerton for her hand, and becoming a
respectable person.

Before we came in sight of the Half-Way House we
heard the dull rasp of a saw, and then, topping the
second last roll of the sandy hills and swinging round
the base of the last one, we went rocketing up to the
hotel.  A man at the wood trestle, which stood at the
gable-end, straightened himself and looked up at our
approach, and I saw that he was the red-headed man
who had "held up" Apache Kid at the Rest House
on our last journey.

Apache Kid's face went a trifle more thoughtful at
sight of him, but just then Miss Pinkerton appeared
at the door to welcome us.  But when we alighted I
detected something new in her manner toward us.
What it was I cannot exactly tell.  Certainly she was
just as demure, as open-eyed, as natural as before.
But she did not seem to require our presence now for
all that she welcomed us in a friendly way.  There
was that in her manner that made me think she would
bid us farewell just as innocently and pleasantly, and
straightway forget about us.  Her welcome seemed
a duty.

"These are the two gentlemen I told you about,
George," she said to the red-headed man.  "Mr. Brooks,"
she introduced, "but I don't know your
names, gentlemen, beyond just Apache Kid and Francis."

George nodded to us.

"I guess these names will serve," said he.  "How
do, gentlemen?  Kind of close this eve."

"It is, indeed," said Apache Kid.  "The Summer
is ended, the harvest is past," he quoted.

"Yes," said George, "there is that feeling in the
air, now."

"As if the end of all things was at hand," said
Apache Kid.

He was looking George right in the eyes.

I thought something forbidding was in their
exchange of glances, but then of course I had seen
them meet before in the peculiar circumstances of
which you know.  Margaret, I think, saw nothing
noteworthy (for all she was a woman), but then, she
did not know that these men were acquainted; they
gave no sign of that.

"You will want a wash before you eat," she said,
ushering us in, and George nodded, and, "See you
later," said he.

Margaret attended to our wants herself when we
sat down to table in the fresh dining-room.  But
there was little said until the meal was over, and she
sat down beside us.  Apache Kid seemed to be
thinking hard.

"Well, Miss Pinkerton," he said at last, making
bread pills on the table and smoothing a few crumbs
about in little mountain ridges and then levelling
them again.  "You remember what we told you
about Mr. Pinkerton's last wishes for you?"

"Yes," she said, "I was telling George what pop
had said."

Apache's eyebrows frowned a trifle, and then
settled again.

"Yes?" he said, as though requesting an explanation
of what she meant by this; but she remained
silent.

"O, I thought perhaps the gentleman had made
some suggestion, when you mentioned his name just
now," said Apache Kid.

But she did not yet reply, and he went on again:

"Well, Miss Pinkerton, I may tell you that we
failed to find any such bonanza at the Lost Cabin
as we had hoped for."

Margaret Pinkerton stiffened, and I glanced up to
see her looking on Apache's face with pin-points of
eyes and a look on her face as though she said:
"So—you are a contemptible fellow, after all."

I think she had really admired Apache Kid before,
but I surmised—a third party, the one who looks on
and does not talk, can surmise a great deal—that, as
the saying is, she had been *tampered with*.  She had
heard tales against my friend, and now doubtless
believed that she was provided with proof that he was
a rogue.  The look on her face was as though she
were gaining confirmation.

"Excuse me interrupting," said George, in the
doorway, "but I suppose you have speciments o' this
ore."

I expected Apache Kid either to ignore the
interruption or to recognise it with some sarcasm or
flash of anger.  Instead, he turned lightly to the
speaker.

"Ah!" he said, "I had not noticed you.  So you
are interested in——" he paused, "in mines," he said.

Margaret stiffened, and George said easily:

"Well in this one I reckon I am."

"Ah yes," said Apache Kid.  "There has been of
course a lot of talk about it.  Yes, I have specimens."

He produced two pieces and handed them to
George, and then turning to Miss Pinkerton, he said:

"I was going to make a suggestion to you, Miss
Pinkerton, remembering your father's desire that
we—remembering the desire he expressed to us, I was
going to make the suggestion, that, if it would not
offend you, you would accept—  May I speak before
this gentleman?"

"Certainly," said she, coldly.

He bowed.

"I was going to suggest that you might allow me
to transfer to your bank the sum of—let me see—"
and he took a paper from his pocket.  It was
inconceivable that he had forgotten the amount, but he
glanced at the paper, and then looked up as though
making a computation, but in so doing looked both
at the young woman and at George, who was leaning
against a neighbouring table.  "The sum of twenty
thousand, seven hundred and forty dollars," said he.

There was no change on his face; he spoke as
lightly of the sum as might a Rockefeller, and his was
the only face that remained immobile.  But then, of
course, he was the only one who knew what was
coming.

George stared with a look of doubt.

Margaret looked at Apache Kid keenly and then
at George for a long space, thoughtfully.

For me—I was thunderstruck.  I gasped.  I think
I must have cried out something (I know that what
I thought was: "Why!  This is your entire share,
apart from the turquoises,") for the three were all
looking at me then.

I knew besides that he had no money left, apart
from our Lost Cabin wealth; for he had told me so.
Twenty thousand, seven hundred and fifty had been
his share of the gold and ten dollars of this he had
paid already for his seat in the stage.  He was giving
this girl all he had.

"It will not go very far," said Apache Kid, smiling.
"It is, after all, very little to offer, but I am in hopes
that within a fortnight or so I may be able to perhaps
double the amount.  I know," and now, if you like,
I could see the sneer creep on his face, "I know that
women are not mercenary and I must apologise for
speaking of money matters.  It was not only money
matters that were in Mr. Pinkerton's mind, I believe.
I believe it was your happiness that he was anxious
about.  I cannot pretend to myself that I could ever,
by offering you money, wipe out the debt we owe
him.  I know that we were the cause of his death,
though we did not fire the fatal shot.  Money, to
my mind, could never recompense for a life lost for
others."

He looked up and saw Margaret's eyes fixed on
him—and his eyes did not remove.  He gazed into
hers unflinching, and as he looked hers filled with
tears.  He had his head raised and she seemed to
be looking clear into his soul.  Her face was very
beautiful to see then.

How George took all this I do not know; for I was
looking on the girl.

"O!" she said, her voice quavering.  "O, I think
you are just *all right*."

Then she bowed her head and wept quietly to
herself and as I could not bear to see her thus and do
nothing to console her, I very softly rose to steal out.
I knew myself a spectator, not an actor in this affair.
Out into the red-gold evening I went and looked
across the brown, rolling plain and Apache followed
me and then George came after us and said quietly
to him:

"What game is this you are playing?"

Apache Kid turned to him.  "Be guided," he said,
"by a woman's intuition.  You saw that she knew
I was playing no game."

And then he said very quietly: "Are you aware,
George, that if I wished I could steal her away from
you?"

The breath sucked into George's nostrils in a series
of little gasps and came forth similarly.

"I believe you are a devil," he said.  "And if
it was n't for her, I 'd finish our other little matter
right now."

"We will let that rest—for her sake," said Apache
Kid.  "Still, tell me, are you aware of that?  Do
you know that I am master here?"

George's face was pale under the sun-brown.

We were standing there in that fashion when there
was a sound of slow hoofs in the sand and three
ponies came ploughing along the road, an old,
dry-faced Indian riding behind the string.

"You want to buy a horse?" he asked.

Apache Kid looked up.

"Well, we might trade," said he.  "How much
you want for them two, this and that?"

"Heap cheap," said the Indian.  "Ten dollah."

"For two?"

"No, ten dollah for one, ten dollah for one."

"It's a trade then," said Apache Kid.  "Will you
lend me twenty dollars, Francis?"

I glanced at George and saw him looking dazed,
uncomprehending.

I think the Indian was surprised there was no
attempt to beat down the price and regretted he had
not asked more.

When Apache Kid paid for the horses he gave me
the halters to hold, stood absently a moment with
puckered brows and biting lips, then drew a long
breath and stepped into the house again.  George
did not follow but stood looking over the plain.

"What is his game?" said George.

"I do not know," said I, "but whatever it is you
may be sure it is nothing mean."

George meditated and then:

"No, I guess not," he said.  "He's too deep for
me, though.  I don't understand him.  Did he ever
tell you our little trouble?"

"No," said I.

"Neither will I, then," said he, "and I guess he
never will."

"I would n't think of asking him," said I.

"And he would n't think of telling," replied George.

And just then Apache Kid came out and Miss
Pinkerton with him.  I think it was as well that the
verandah was in shadow.

"George," she said, and I at least caught a tremble
in her voice.  "Ain't this too bad?  Apache Kid
tells me that he has just reckoned on pulling out
right away,—says he never meant to stay here over
night.  I wanted to lend him two of our mounts,
but he says he 's got these two from an Indian, and
they 'll serve.  Do you think you could get a pair of
saddles turned out?"

"Ce't'inly," said George; and away he went to rout
out the saddles.

I could not understand Margaret's next remark.

"If they do come down after you," said she, "I 'll
tell them——"

"Better tell them you did n't see us go away,"
interrupted Apache Kid.  "Better just don't see
us go away—and then you 'll be able to speak
the truth.  You won't know which way we went."

She seemed very sad at this, but George now
returned with the saddles, and we were soon ready
for the way, our blankets strapped behind.

Margaret held up her hand.

"Good-bye," she said.

"Good-bye, Miss Pinkerton," said Apache Kid.

She stretched up and said: "You 're too good a
man to be——"  I lost the rest, and, indeed, I was
not meant to hear anything.

She shook hands with me.

"If ever you are in them parts again," she said,
"don't forget us; but you 'll have to ask for
Mrs. Brooks then."

Apache was holding out his hand to George, who
took it quickly, with averted face.

"Good-bye, Mr. Brooks," said Apache Kid.
"And, by the way, in case you might think it
worth while to have a look at that ore in place,
I 've left a map of your route to the mountain with
Miss Pinkerton, and an account of how you might
strike it.  You can tell the sheriff of Baker you have
it.  He and Slim, that lean assistant of his, are the
only men who know about the lie of the land; the
Indian tracker does n't count.  You can do what you
like between you."

George seemed nonplussed.

"This," said he, "is real good of you, sir; but I
don't know what you do it for."

"O!" said Apache Kid.  "I told you I had n't
much faith in its value, you remember."

"Yes, so you did," said George; but he seemed
doubtful, and then suddenly took Apache Kid's
hand again and shook it.  "We 're friends, we
two," said he.

"Why, sure, you 're friends," said Margaret,
hastily; but her eyes looked out on the road to Baker
City, and she seemed listening for some approach.

Apache touched his horse, and it wheeled and
sidled a little and threw up the dust, and then
suddenly decided to accept this new master.

My mount was duplicating that performance, and
when he got started Margaret gave just one wave
of her hand and, taking George by the arm, led him
indoors.  When we looked back, the house stood
solitary in the sand.

"What does this mean?" I said.

But Apache Kid did not answer, and we rode on
and on in silence while the evening darkened on the
road to Camp Kettle.

But the look on Apache Kid's face forbade question.





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.. _`So-Long`:

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   CHAPTER XXIX


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   *So-Long*

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You will hardly be astonished to hear
that the saloons in Kettle are open
night and day.  Go there when you
please, you need no "knocking-up"
of sleepy attendants.  The hotel door
is never closed.

It was long after midnight when we came into the
place, over the very road and at the same hour and
at much the same speed as Mr. Pinkerton must have
ridden in pursuit of us, not a month prior to this ride
of ours.  This road from Baker City to Camp Kettle
was the base of a triangle over which we had
travelled, as it were, at the apex of which triangle was
the Lost Cabin Mine; and when we passed the place
on the hillside, where we had gone so short a while
before, something of a pang leapt in my heart.  I
bade farewell there to that terrible chapter in my
life forever,—bade farewell there to the Lost Cabin
Mine.

"I will have to borrow from you again," said
Apache Kid (the first speech he had spoken since
leaving the Half-Way House), as we came loping
into Kettle at three of the morning.  "Give me
fifty dollars, and we'll settle later."

I told him the money was as much his as mine,
and gave him what he asked before we reined up
at the hotel door, where a wild-faced lad took our
horses.  An effeminate-looking youth, with that
peculiar stamp that comes to effeminate youths in
the West,—as though they counterbalanced their
effeminacy, in so rugged a place, by keeping quiet,
and so held their own among the strenuous
majority,—led us to a double-bedded room (for we were
very sleepy and desired to rest), we carrying up our
blankets and belongings with us.  He set a lamp in
the room, wished us good-night with a smile,—for
it was nigh morning, really a new day,—and we sat
in silence, while on the low ceiling the smoke of the
lamp wavered.

The room was close, stuffy, and Apache Kid flung
open the window and moths straightway came fluttering
in, moths as large as a dollar piece, and other
strange insects, one like a dragon-fly that rattled on
the roof and shot from side to side of the apartment
so fiercely that it seemed rebounding from wall to
wall by the force of its own impact.

Apache threw off his coat and blew out a deep
breath.

"Warm," he said.  "It's beastly to sleep indoors.
No!  This just adds proof.  I could n't ever do with
civilised ways, now.  That girl," and he nodded
towards the west, "she is mine, or she was mine—when
she found that she had been right after all in
her opinion of me.  And she swung back to me
more than ever strong because she had been lured
away.  But I—" he threw up his head and cried the
words out in a whisper, so to speak: "I must never
be weighed in the balance before being accepted.  I
must just be accepted.  That is why I like you.
You just accept me.  But I made it all right with
her.  She will never regret having believed George's
stories of me for when I went back to her and put the
roll down and said: 'For your father's sake, Miss
Pinkerton—you will accept this,' you could see that
she wanted to ask forgiveness for having put me in
her black books.  But I put that all right."

"How?" I asked, for he had paused.

"Oh, I told her I was a villain, told her I fully
expected to be arrested there and had only stopped
to settle my promise to her father.  It was a different
thing for me to tell her I was a villain from another
telling her that.  When a villain tells his villainy to
the ear of a woman he becomes almost a hero to her.
She begged me to change my ways, and I promised
that for her sake I would.  Quite romantic, eh?  A
touch of Sydney Carton—eh?" and he laughed.
"And now she will remember me, if she does not
indeed forget me, as a good fellow gone wrong, and
thank God she has so good a husband as George.
And George is not so bad a fellow.  He can
appreciate his master when he meets him.  That is one
good point about George.  George is like the lion in
the cage, the lion that roars in rage after the tamer
has gone and determines to slay him on his next
visit.  But on the next visit he goes through his
tricks as usual.  It's a pleasure at least to know that
George at last was forced to hold out his hand to me
and call himself my friend.  He does n't know why
he did.  He 'll remember and wonder and he'll never
understand.  That day that he came in and held me
up,—you remember?—I said to myself: 'You
come to kill me to-day, but the day will come, not
when I will crush you, but when you will come to me
just like my little poodle dog.'"

He broke off and smote the buzzing insect to the
floor as it blundered past his face (he was sitting on a
chair with his arms folded on the back) and drew his
foot across it.

"And he came, didn't he?" he added.  "My poodle dog!

"But after all," he said, after a pause, "a woman
that could be moved by my little poodle dog could
never be the woman for me.  When I look for a
woman it must be one who does not doubt me—and
who does not fear me.  She did not fear me and that
was why I thought—  Ah well, you see, she doubted
me.  But let's to bed."

So we put out the light and turned in.

But I lay some time considering that Apache Kid
was not the domineering man his words might have
caused one to think.  He covered up a deal of what
was in his heart with a froth of words.

Next day (or I should say, later in that day), we
continued our journey, after a few hours' sleep and a
monstrous breakfast; but never another word was
spoken on the matter of the previous night and in
the bright afternoon we came into Kettle River Gap
and found that the "east-bound" was due at three in
the afternoon.

In the hotel to which we repaired for refreshment
Apache Kid wrote a letter to a dealer in New York,
a letter which I was to deliver in person, carrying
with me the turquoises.

"One gets far better prices in New York than in
any of the western towns," explained Apache Kid.
"You can rely on this fellow, too.  We are old friends,
and he will do the square thing.  You can send on
half the amount to me, deducting what you have lent me."

"Oh, nonsense!" said I.

"Deducting what you have lent me," he repeated.
"Twenty dollars at the Half-Way House and fifty at
Camp Kettle.  That makes seventy."

"You will need some more," said I.

"No," said he.  "I have still almost all the fifty,
of course, and I can sell the two pintos for what I
paid for them.  Don't worry me.  I have never been
obliged to a soul in my life for anything."

But looking up and catching my eye looking sadly
on him he smiled and: "Humour me," he said,
"humour me in this."

When the letter was written he handed it to me,
open, and said:

"Well, that is all, I think, until we hear the
east-bound whistle."

My heart was in my mouth.

"That other matter?" I said.

"What other?" said he.

"You wanted me to do something for you in the
old country."

"True," said he, and sat pondering; and then
coming to a conclusion he wrote a name and address
on another sheet, and putting it in an envelope, which
he sealed, he said: "When you reach home you can
open that, and—it should be easy enough to find
out who lives there.  If they are gone, you can trace
them without anyone knowing what you are doing.
They must never know about me, however.  You will
promise?"

"I promise," said I.

"You can write to—let me see—say, where shall
I go now?—say Santa Fe—to be called for."

"Had you not better come home?" I asked half-fearfully,
and he looked at me as twice I had seen him
look,—once, when he silenced the "Dago" livery-stable
keeper; once, when he silenced the sheriff.  I
knew Apache Kid liked me; but at that glance I
knew he had never let me quite close to himself.
There was a barrier between him and all men.  But
the look passed, and said he, slowly and definitely:

"I can never go home."

We went out into the air and sat silent till the
east-bound whistled and whistled and screamed nearer
and nearer.

It was while we sat there that I remembered that
he had advertised for Jackson's relatives, and asked
what he would do if they were heard of.

He had evidently forgotten about that, for he
seemed put out, and then remarked that he would
send them his share of the turquoises, still to be
disposed of.

"But you——" I began, and he held up his hand.

"I don't want the stuff, anyhow," said he.  "Now—don't
worry me.  Don't ask me questions.  What
I like about you is that you take me for granted.
Don't spoil the impression of yourself you have
given me by wanting to know how I will get on, and
thinking me foolish for what I intend to do."  He
looked round on me.  "Yes," said he, "I like you.
Do you know that the fact that you had never asked
me what George Brooks and I were enemies for
made me your most humble servant?  Would you
like to hear that story?"

I nodded.

"Well, well," he said, and laughed.  "That makes
me like you all the more.  You are really interested,
and yet are polite enough not to ask questions.
Yes—that's the sort of man I like."

But he had no intention of telling me that affair,—just
chuckled to himself softly and remarking, "That
must remain a mystery," he lapsed again into silence.

And then the train whistled at the last curve, shot
into sight, and came thundering and screaming into
the depot.

"Oh!  Apache Kid," said I, "I cannot go to-day.
I must wait till to-morrow."

"That is a pity," said he, "for then you would
have to wait here alone all to-morrow.  I go West
with to-morrow morning's 'west-bound.'"

"Ah, then," said I, "I will go with this one; for I
could not stand the loneliness here with you flying
away from me."

"No?" he said, half inquiringly; and then he
surveyed me, interested, and said again, "No, not so
easily as I can stand your departure—I suppose."  But
he looked away as he spoke.

My belongings lay just in the doorway, ready to
hand, and these he lifted, boarding the train with me
and finding me a seat.  This was no sooner done than
the conductor outside intoned his "All aboard!"

Apache Kid snatched my hand.

"Well," said he, "in the language of the
country—so-long!"

I had no word to say.  I took his hand; but he
gave me only the fingers of his, and, whirling about,
lurched down the aisle of the car, for the train had
already started, and the door swung behind him.  I
tried to raise the window beside me, but it was
fast, and by the time I had the next one raised and
looked out, all the depot buildings were in the haze
of my tears, in the midst of which I saw half a dozen
blurred, waving hands, and though I waved into that
haze I do not know whether Apache Kid was one of
those who stood there or not.

So the last I really saw of Apache Kid was his
lurching shoulder as he passed out of the swinging car.





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   CHAPTER XXX


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   *And Last*

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It was with a full heart that I sat down,
oblivious of all other occupants of the
car.  I sat dazed, the rattle of the
wheels in my ears, and the occasional
swishing sound without, when we
rattled across some trestle bridge above a foaming creek
hastening down out of the hills.  Sunset came, glowing
red on the tops of the trees on either hand.  The
Pintsch lamps were lit, and glimmered dim in that
glow of the sunset that filled the coaches.  It was not
yet quite dark when we left Republic Creek, the gate
city of the mountains, behind.  The sunset suddenly
appeared to wheel in the sky, and piled itself up again
to the right of the track.  We were looping and
twining down out of the hills.  I went out onto the rear
platform for a last look at them.  Already the plains
were rolling away from us on either side, billowy,
wind-swept, sweet-scented in the dusk.  Behind was
the long darkness, north and south, of the mountains.
I gazed upon it till the glow faded, and the sinister,
serrated ridge was only a long, thin line of black on
the verge of the prairie.

Then I turned inwards again to the car and lay
down to sleep, while we rolled on and on through the
night over the open, untroubled plains.

But sleep on a train is an unquiet sleep, and often
I would waken, imagining myself still in the heart of
the mountains, sometimes speaking to Apache Kid,
even Donoghue.

Old voices spoke; the Laughlins, the sheriff, my
two fellow-travellers spoke to me in that uneasy
slumber, and then I would awaken to answer and find
myself in the swinging car alone, and a great rush of
emotion would fill my heart.

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Two items still remain to be told.

At New York I found the address to which Apache
Kid had directed me.  A sphinx of a gentleman read
the letter I gave him, looked me over, and then asked:
"The turquoises?  You have them with you?"

I produced the bag, and he scrutinised them all
singly, with no change on his face, rang a bell, and
bade the attendant, who came in response, to bring
him scales.  He weighed each separately, touched
them with his tongue, held them up to the light, and
noted their values on paper.  He must have been,
indeed, a man Apache Kid could trust.

"Will you have notes or gold?" he asked.  "The
sum is two hundred thousand dollars, and I am
instructed in this note, which as it is open you will know
entitles you to half, to pay you on the spot."

I asked for a bill of exchange on the Bank of
Scotland.  He bowed and obeyed my request without
further speech, but when he rose to usher me to the
door his natural curiosity caused him to say:

"Do you know how your friend came by these?"

"I do," said I; but I thought to give this quiet
man a Roland for his Oliver, seeing he was so much
of a sphinx, and I said no more save that.

He smiled.

"Quite right," said he.  "And did you leave your
friend well?" he asked, smiling on me in a fatherly
fashion.

"In the best of health," I said.

"I see I have to remit to Santa Fe," said he.  "He
did not say where he was going after that, did he?  I
can hardly expect him to stay there long."

"No, he did not say," I replied.

"Ah!  Doubtless I shall hear of him when he
thinks necessary," and he bowed me out and shook
hands with me at the door.

The second item that still remains to be told is of
my opening of the second letter that Apache Kid
gave me.  There was no difficulty in finding the
address of his "people" which this contained.  But
if the address astonished me, I was certainly less
astonished than deeply moved, when, by watching the
residence, I found that his mother still lived,—a
stately, elderly lady, with silver hair.

By careful inquiries, and by some observation, I
found that there were two sisters also in the house, and
once I saw all three out shopping in Princes Street, very
tastefully but plainly dressed, and it struck me to the
heart, with a sadness I cannot tell, to think that here
was I, who could step up to them and say: "Madam,
your son yet lives; ladies, your brother is alive," and
yet to know that my lips were sealed; that for some
reason Apache Kid could never again come home.

They noticed me staring at them, and, remembering
my manners, I looked away.  This intelligence I
wrote to Apache Kid (to be called for at Santa Fe),
as he had desired.  But I never heard any word in
reply.  The letter, however, was not returned, so I
presume he received it.

I do not know whether the fact that I am bound
by a promise causes me, in contradictory-wise, to
desire all the more to speak to these three of Apache
Kid,—how alien his name sounds here in Edinburgh
of all places!—but I do know that I long to speak
to them.  In Apache Kid's younger sister, especially
in her winsome face, there is something I cannot
describe that moves my heart.  Once I saw her with
her sister eating strawberries on one of the roof-cafés
in Princes Street, whither I had gone with my mother.
My mother noticed the drifting of my eyes and looked
at the girl and looked back at me and smiled, and
shook her head on me, and said:

"She is a sweet girl, but do not stare; you have
lost your manners in America!"

She did not understand, and I could not explain.
But her words, spoken jestingly, took me back to
that conversation with Apache Kid on the
stagecoach, after we had left the Half-Way-to-Kettle
House, when he delivered his opinion on the
transition period in the West; and I wondered if he had
yet looked up Carlyle's remark about the manners of
the backwoods.

My little fortune had to be explained in some way,
but you may be sure I told nothing of the terrors of
the journey that we undertook in the gathering of it.
The common fallacy that fortunes are to be picked
up in America, by any youth who cares to go
a-plucking there, helped me greatly with most folk,
and I never was required to tell the bloody story of
the Lost Cabin Mine.

But now that they who might have wept for my
share in that business have gone beyond all weeping
and grieving I can publish the tale with no
misgivings; for the only fear that haunts me, as I go my
ways through the world, is lest I give pain to any of
these quiet, cloistered hearts, who, in their blissful
and desirable ignorance, live apart in peace, not
knowing how barbaric, how sad, how full of unrest,
and how blood-bespattered the world still is.

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