Читать книгу: «The Award of Justice; Or, Told in the Rockies: A Pen Picture of the West», страница 4

“Snow-storms!” they all exclaimed; “What!” said Miss Gladden, “after such warm weather as this?”

“Oh, yes,” said Lyle, “this is only the early warm weather we always have in May, but it will be much colder again before summer really begins in earnest; though the weather is never so severe here as in the gulches farther up the mountains.”

“It seems to me,” said Rutherford, “I’ve heard of the greatest number of ‘gulches’ out here, and some of them have the most remarkable names; very original, certainly.”

“Their names are mostly indicative of their early history,” Lyle answered; “there are a number of them in this vicinity,–Last Chance gulch, Poor Man’s gulch, Lucky gulch, Bloody gulch, and so on.”

“Has this gulch where we are, any such euphonious title?” inquired Miss Gladden.

“This one has two names, equally euphonious and equally historical; it is now called Spotted Horse gulch, but years since it was known as Dead Man’s gulch.”

“That sounds cheerful!” commented Miss Gladden.

“Is there a ghost story connected with the gulch, Miss Maverick?” inquired Houston.

“Yes,” said Lyle, “several of them, for the miners are mostly very superstitious. Years ago, when there were no well developed mines here, only a few prospects, a man who had just sold one of the properties, was murdered for his money, about half way between here and the mines, where the road is so narrow and passes under the overhanging rocks. He rode a spotted horse, and from the indications when he was found a few days after, he must have made a desperate fight, for both he and the horse were shot several times. Ever since, it has been said that the spotted horse goes up and down the gulch at night, sometimes alone, and sometimes with his rider, and so the gulch received its name.”

“Is that story still believed here?” asked Houston.

“More or less,” replied Lyle. “There is just enough faith in it, that, excepting Jack,” and she nodded slightly to Miss Gladden, “there is not a miner in camp who could be hired to pass through that part of the gulch at midnight, for fear of seeing the phantom horse and his rider.”

“Possibly,” said Miss Gladden, “it would be well for us to adjourn for the night, or we may have a glimpse of the phantoms; it must be after ten o’clock.”

“After ten, impossible!” exclaimed Rutherford, springing to his feet; “I beg your pardon, ladies, for having detained you so long; I never dreamed it was so late.”

“The long twilight here deceives one, I have hardly become accustomed to it myself,” said Miss Gladden.

“The ladies will surely pardon us,” said Houston, “since it is through their making the time pass so pleasantly that we have trespassed.”

They separated for the night, and a little later, Mr. Blaisdell and Haight came up from the office, but Morgan did not return until daylight was beginning to tinge the eastern sky.

CHAPTER IX

A number of days passed uneventfully. Houston was occupied in getting familiarized with the work at the office, having first created an epoch in the history of that institution by having the windows thoroughly cleaned.

One of the noted characters of the mining camp was a small boy who, when he could scarcely walk, had, on account of his fearless spirit and indomitable pluck, been dubbed with the name of “Bull-dog.” The name was so appropriate, and the little fellow himself so proud of it, that as he grew older it was forgotten if he ever had any other; if he had, no one knew what it was. He was now nearly twelve years of age, as small as most boys of eight or nine, but he possessed the same spirit as of old. Bull-dog was the oldest of five children; his parents lived at the Y, a worthless, disreputable pair; he spent very little time under the parental roof, and filial respect was entirely left out of his composition, and no wonder! He was a favorite among the miners, spending much of his time in the camp, and the shrewd little fellow was very observant of what went on around him, and very keen and worldly-wise in his judgment of human nature as he found it.

He speedily made the acquaintance of Houston, and when the latter came down to the office on his second morning, he found the boy awaiting him, and an idea occurred to him.

“Say, Bull-dog, can you wash windows?” he asked.

“Bet yer life,” was the laconic reply, accompanied by a grin.

“What will you charge me for washing these four?”

The small individual surveyed the windows critically, then answered:

“Six bits.”

“Go ahead,” said Houston, “let’s see how good a job you can do.”

Two hours afterward the windows were shining, and Houston paid the little fellow an equally shining dollar, instead of the six bits, thus making of Bull-dog a friend for life, and one whose friendship afterward proved of great value.

Nearly every afternoon found Lyle at Jack’s cabin, diligently reading or studying, guarded by Rex, the faithful collie, who would let no one but Lyle enter the cabin while Jack and Mike were at their work. Two or three evenings of each week she spent there, reviewing her lessons with Jack, or listening, either to the stories which he and Mike told of other countries, or to the music of Mike’s violin, fierce and wild, or sweet and pathetic, according to the mood of the musician. The cabin, built of logs and plaster, and consisting of two rooms and a small attic, resembled miners’ cabins in general, with the exception of the second and inner room. Here, the floor was nearly covered with skins of animals, while on the walls were shelves and brackets, hand-carved in delicate designs, and filled with books and choice pictures, beautiful etchings and photographs of various works of art. A few larger pictures hung on the walls, framed in some of the same skillfully carved work. The pine table, covered with a brightly colored spread, was strewn with finely bound volumes, and scattered about the room were several comfortable folding chairs, which Jack had bought in some of his trips to Silver City. A rude fireplace had been built in one side of the room, over which were arranged artistically two or three rifles, and the heads and horns of various animals, while on the mantel was a fine collection of ores. Altogether, it was a pleasant room, and gave more evidence of good taste, education and refinement than could have been found for more than a score of miles in that region. This was Jack’s sanctum, and none but his two friends, Lyle and Mike, were ever allowed within it.

In this room, a few evenings after the arrival of the two strangers, Lyle was sitting with her friends. The weather was already much cooler, and a bright fire was burning, before which Rex was comfortably stretched, while he watched the faces of his two friends, Jack and Lyle, who, having finished their usual reading, were silent for a few moments, looking into the fire and listening to Mike as he sat in his corner, his eyes closed, his head bent lovingly over his violin, while he evoked some of the wild, plaintive airs of his native country.

Jack was the first to speak, as he asked in a low tone, “You have met the young men I spoke of the other evening?”

“Yes,” replied Lyle, still gazing into the fire, “they are stopping at the house.”

“How long will they remain?”

“The younger one, the one you particularly admired, is to stop for a few weeks only; the other will probably remain permanently, as he is bookkeeper for the mining company.”

Jack gave an almost imperceptible start, but slight as it was, Lyle noticed it, and turning quickly, saw a peculiar expression of mingled surprise, perplexity and annoyance on his usually immobile face.

“Bookkeeper for the mining company!” he exclaimed, “are you sure you are correct?”

“I can only quote for my authority the Honorable J. O. Blaisdell,” she replied archly, “you surely wouldn’t doubt his word under any circumstances, would you? You look surprised; did you consider Mr. Houston one of the ‘lilies’?”

Jack looked at her inquiringly.

“One of the ‘lilies’ like Mr. Rutherford,” she explained, “who ‘toil not neither do they spin,’ I supposed him one at first, but I think differently now; I believe he would always be a worker of some kind, whether it were necessary or not; at the same time I don’t believe it is exactly necessary for him to be a bookkeeper.”

“You seem to have made a study of him,” remarked Jack, quietly.

“Of course,” answered Lyle, “what else are my eyes and my small stock of brains for, but to study everybody and everything that comes in my way? Besides, it’s rather interesting to find a person of some depth, after such shallow people as Mr. Blaisdell and Haight, and that class.”

“Sometimes, Lyle,” said Jack, slowly, “these deep people make a dangerous study; they are likely to become too interesting.”

“Never you fear for me, Jack,” said the girl, with considerable spirit, but kindly, “I know too well how the world would look upon old Jim Maverick’s daughter, to carry my heart on my sleeve.”

Both were silent for a moment, Jack watching her face intently. Mike had left the room. Lyle continued, in a gentler tone,

“Mr. Houston is a perfect gentleman; he would make a safe study for me, even if I didn’t realize my position. He reminds me of you, Jack, in some ways.”

“Of me!” said Jack sarcastically, “your Mr. Houston would doubtless feel nattered at being compared to a weather-beaten miner.”

“You were not always a miner,” retorted Lyle quickly, “and you are a gentleman, and always will be.”

“In your opinion, child,” said Jack pleasantly; then turning the subject, he asked, “What do you think of the ‘lily’ as you styled him, Mr. Rutherford, I think you called his name?”

“Oh, he is a gentlemanly fellow, not so ridiculous as he looks; good-hearted, but not deep like the other,–not half so interesting to study.”

“Very well,” replied Jack, “go on with your ‘study,’ but I wish you would make a little more of a study of yourself and of your own life,” and as he spoke, he carelessly took up a magazine and began turning the pages.

“I don’t know why,” answered Lyle slowly, at the same time going over to the table where she had caught sight of a photograph which had evidently been concealed by the magazine, “my life before you became my friend and teacher would not make an interesting study for any one.–Oh, Jack, whose picture is this? and when did you get it?”

“That?” said Jack, answering indifferently, but watching her face keenly, “Oh, that is a picture I’ve had a great while.”

“But, Jack, I never saw it, did I?”

“No, Lyle, I haven’t seen it myself for years, until to-night.”

“Not for years? how strange!” said Lyle in a low tone; then looking wistfully at the picture, she said, half to herself, “She must have been some one you loved some time.”

“She was very dear to me,” he replied, so quietly that Lyle said nothing, but remained looking long and earnestly at the photograph. It was the picture of a young girl, a few years older than herself, but much more matured, and wondrously beautiful. The features were almost perfect, and the eyes, even there, seemed so radiant and tender. There seemed a wealth of love and sympathy in those eyes that touched Lyle’s lonely heart, and her own eyes filled with tears, while she gazed as if under a spell; then she asked in a sort of bewildered tone:

“Jack, I never saw her, did I?”

“Certainly not while you have been here,” he replied, “I cannot say whom you may have seen before that.”

“Before I came here,” repeated Lyle dreamily, laying down the picture and preparing to go, “that is a sort of blank for the most part. It seems as though this hateful life had obliterated everything before it; the early years of my life seem buried out of sight.”

“Try to resurrect them,” said Jack, adding, “Keep your eyes and ears open, and let me know results. Had I not better go home with you?”

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Lyle, smiling brightly, “it isn’t late.”

“Then Rex must go,” and Rex who was only waiting for the word bounded to the door to signify his readiness.

After Lyle had gone, Jack took the picture, and after looking at it sadly for a moment, replaced it in the little case in his trunk where it had lain so long, and then sat down by the fire, muttering, “Strange she did not see the resemblance! I hoped she would; there could not be two faces more alike.”

All the way home, Lyle was thinking of the beautiful face, wondering where she had seen it, that it should seem so familiar, and after dismissing Rex with a caress, she sat for some time in the low porch, trying to solve the mystery.

“It is no use,” she said to herself at length, “it is no face I have ever seen, unless in some of those strange dreams I used to have.”

Going into the house, she found her parents had retired. Rutherford sat in his room reading, waiting for Houston, who was working late that night, Mr. Blaisdell having gone back to the city for a day or two. Miss Gladden was writing in her room, but Lyle would not disturb her, and going quietly to her own little room, she was soon sleeping peacefully, and the beautiful face was for a time forgotten.

CHAPTER X

The next morning was several degrees colder, and there were indications of a snow-storm. Within doors, the atmosphere betokened a coming storm, as old Jim Maverick was several degrees more quarrelsome and ugly-tempered than usual. He glared sullenly at Lyle, as she stepped quietly about the kitchen, preparing the early breakfast that he and the boys took before starting for their work.

Finally he growled, “What was you doin’ out so late last night? Pretty time ’twas when you come in, where’d you been?”

Lyle seemed to take no notice of his questions for a moment, then replied, without a glance at him:

“I was not out late; I went out for a walk early in the evening, and came back early, but I staid out on the porch.”

“Oh,” he replied with a sneer, “so you was settin’ out there waitin’ for the new clerk to come home, wasn’t you?”

“I didn’t even know he was out of the house,” said Lyle, indifferent to his sneers, so long as he did not mistrust where she had really spent the evening.

“Oh, no, of course not! I understand you pretty well, and don’t you forgit it, always puttin’ on your damned airs round here, too nice for any of your own folks; I’d like to see you made a fool of by some of the dudes you’re so stuck on.”

“You never will have that pleasure,” replied Lyle, coolly, “I know too well the opinion that people have of you and your family, to ever be in any danger of being made a fool of.”

Old Jim’s face grew livid with rage, and he clenched his hand with an oath, but hearing some of the boarders coming in to breakfast in the next room, he only hissed, with a terrible leer:

“Never mind, even if you are my child, with that doll-face o’ yourn, you might rope in that rich young feller for a few thousands.”

Lyle staggered under the insult as if she had received a blow, and pale and trembling, went into the next room to wait on the guests. She was relieved to see that Rutherford was not there; she felt she could not have faced him while those words of her father’s were ringing in her ears. There was only Mr. Houston, who greeted her with his usual gentle courtesy, and Morgan, whom she despised.

Out in the kitchen, however, her cause was being championed by Mrs. Maverick, the fire flashing from her faded eyes, as she talked in a manner very unusual for her.

“You may abuse me as much as you like, Jim Maverick,” she was saying, “I’ve had nothing but abuse from you for the past twenty years, and I don’t never expect nothing else, but if you ever lay a hand on that girl, or speak to her like that again, you’ll be sorry for it. I can make you smart for it, and you know it, and I’ll do it too.”

The boys, Joe and Jim, aged respectively twenty and eighteen, stared at their mother in astonishment, but their father, several shades paler, ordered them from the house; then advancing toward his wife, shaking his fist and cursing her, he exclaimed:

“You damned old fool! do you think you can try to scare me? you’ll find ’tain’t very healthy business for you.”

“Kill me, if you want to,” she replied doggedly, “but you’ll find it won’t make you any better off; I’ve fixed you for that.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, now thoroughly frightened.

“Mean!” said his wife, as she saw that she at last had the brute in her power, “it means that you’ve got to let that girl alone, and behave yourself to me, or you’ll wish you had, that’s all.”

Just then, Minty entered on the scene, her round eyes wide open with astonishment, and Lyle entering an instant later from the breakfast room, Maverick slunk away to his work.

Meanwhile, the other boarders were gathering in the breakfast room, Miss Gladden and Rutherford being the last to enter.

“Whew!” exclaimed the latter, rubbing his hands, “this seems a little wintry, doesn’t it? Looks like a storm, too!”

“Yes,” said Morgan, glancing up, “we’ll probably have a snow-storm before noon.”

“How do you pleasure seekers intend to spend the day?” inquired Houston, addressing Miss Gladden and Rutherford.

“I think I shall spend it beside the fire,” replied Miss Gladden, shivering slightly, and sitting down for a moment beside the little box stove, where a wood fire was crackling and spluttering; “I haven’t quite decided what to do, because I didn’t come out here prepared for snow-storms.”

“I believe,” said Rutherford, “I’ll take a day off and develop some of the pictures I’ve taken lately, and sort over my collection of views.”

“That will be delightful,” exclaimed Miss Gladden, smiling brightly at Lyle who had entered the room in time to hear Rutherford’s remark, “We will make Mr. Rutherford entertain us with his collection, won’t we Lyle?”

Lyle smiled in assent, but Miss Gladden very quickly detected traces of trouble in her face, and determined, if possible, to gain her confidence, and find the cause. Rutherford also noticed the change in her appearance, and remarked, after she had again left the room:

“Miss Maverick doesn’t look like herself this morning, I wonder what is the matter.”

“I think there has been a storm of some kind in the kitchen,” Houston replied, “I heard pretty loud talk when I first came in.”

“Yes,” said Morgan, joining in the conversation, “she and the old man have some high old times, once in a while; and one thing is curious, the girl never seems afraid of him, and that’s more than can be said of many of the men around here.”

“Why,” asked Houston, “is he considered dangerous?”

“He is a pretty tough customer,” said Morgan, “I guess there’s no job too dirty for him to do, if he’s only paid for it;” and then added carelessly, “that’s the kind of a man Blaisdell likes to have ’round once in a while.”

“What does he do?” asked Houston, “does he work in the mines?”

“He used to,” replied Morgan, “but he don’t do any more underground work, he–”

“Doesn’t he?” interrupted Haight, with a peculiar emphasis.

“Oh, yes, in some ways, plenty of it,” laughed Morgan, “but I was speaking of the mines; he’s a sort of foreman now in one of ’em, and tends to the sorting of the ore occasionally; helps Haight out sometimes, when he has a particularly delicate job on hand,” and Morgan winked across the table at the expert, who smiled knowingly in return.

Lyle coming into the room again, the talk regarding Maverick ceased, but when she had left, Morgan continued:

“She’s a queer girl; she gives it to the old man sometimes, up and down; the boys don’t dare give him any lip, but she’s no more afraid of him, than–”

“Than she is of you,” again interrupted Haight, with a smile that seemed to discompose Morgan considerably, for he colored and bit his lip.

Miss Gladden looked annoyed, as did Houston, and Rutherford, feeling something was amiss, unintentionally said about the worst thing he could just at that moment.

“I think Miss Maverick is an awfully nice girl.”

“We all think so,” said Haight, in his blandest manner, “Mr. Morgan especially.”

“Oh,” said Morgan, angrily, but trying to speak indifferently, “she’s nice enough, as nice as girls of her class generally are.”

With a look of scorn and contempt that neither Haight nor Morgan soon forgot, Miss Gladden rose from the table and left the room, while Rutherford exclaimed indignantly:

“Whatever ‘her class’ is, she is deucedly your superior, you contemptible puppy!”

Lyle just then entering, there was an ominous silence for an instant; then Houston, rising from the table, remarked in a cool, even tone:

“There has been enough said for the present, but” turning toward Morgan and Haight, “I’ve something to say to you two, a little later.”

Morgan put on his hat and started sullenly for the office, but Haight, assuming his most ingratiating smile, stepped up to Houston, and, in a low tone, began to apologize. Houston interrupted him.

“There is no need of any words here,” he said coldly, “I shall call on you at the sorting rooms this morning, and shall then have something to say to you, but I wish no words from you, at all,” and retiring to his room, he left Haight in a state of considerable trepidation. He hurried after Morgan, and soon overtook him.

“I say,” he began, “we’ve got that new fellow stirred up, and I wish we hadn’t; I don’t want any trouble.”

“Hang you, you little, sneaking coward!” answered Morgan, “if you didn’t want trouble, why didn’t you hold your tongue? Whatever fuss there is you’ve kicked up yourself, with your own smartness, so what are you whining about?”

“Oh, well, you know my principles, Morgan; I never want quarrels with anybody; you know the old saying, ‘the good will of a dog is better than–’”

“Oh, shut up!” said Morgan, “you make me tired! You’re a damned coward, and that’s all there is about it. It’s my opinion, though, in the case of this dog, that his bark is a good deal worse than his bite.”

Meanwhile, Houston was preparing to go to the office.

“Say, old boy,” said Rutherford, “hadn’t I better go down with you? You may have some trouble, you know, and I shouldn’t wonder if they would be two pretty nasty fellows to meddle with.”

“Much obliged, Ned,” said Houston, “but I can take care of those two fellows, and twenty more just like them. Haight is an out and out coward, he wouldn’t fight any more than he would cut his own throat. Morgan would show fight, perhaps, but I’d finish him up before he even knew where he was.”

“I guess I put my foot in it, saying what I did,” said Rutherford, staring through his eye-glasses in a meditative manner, “but it did make me hot, their insinuating things in that way about such a nice little girl as Lyle, and before Miss Gladden, too.”

“There will be no more of it, that is certain,” replied Houston decidedly, and he was gone.