CHAPTER XVII
THE WORKING OF THE PUBLIC MIND
The month following Will’s departure from the village saw stirring times for the citizens of Barnriff.
The exploding of Dan McLagan’s bombshell in their midst was only the beginning; a mere herald of what was to follow. Excitement after excitement ran riot, until the public mind was dazed, and the only thing that remained clear to it was that crime and fortune were racing neck and neck for possession of their community.
The facts were simple enough in themselves, but the complexity of their possibilities was a difficult problem which troubled Barnriff not a little.
In the first instance McLagan’s alarm set everybody agog. Then a systematic wave of cattle-stealing set in throughout the district. Nor were these depredations of an extensive nature. Cattle disappeared in small bunches of from ten to forty head, but the persistence with which the thefts occurred soon set the aggregate mounting up to a large figure.
The “AZ’s” lost two more bunches of cattle within a week. The “◇ P’s” followed up with their quota of forty head, which set “old man” Blundell raving through the district like a mad bull. Then came a raid on the “U–U’s.” Sandy McIntosh cursed the rustlers in the broadest Scotch, and set out to scour the country with his boys. Another ranch to suffer was the “crook-bar,” but they, like the “TT’s,” couldn’t tell the extent of their losses definitely, and estimated them at close on to thirty head of three-year-old beeves.
The village seethed, furious with indignation. For years Barnriff had been clear of this sort of thing, and, as a consequence, the place had been left to bask in the sun of commercial prosperity consequent upon the thriving condition of the surrounding ranches. Now, that prosperity was threatened. If the ranches suffered Barnriff must suffer with them. Men spoke of a vigilance committee. But they spoke of it without any real enthusiasm. The truth was they were afraid of inaugurating an affair of that sort. There was scarcely a man in the place but had at some time in his life felt the despotic tyranny of a vigilance committee. Though they felt that such an organization was the only way to cope with the prevailing trouble they cordially dreaded it.
Then, in the midst of all this to-do, came the news of Will’s rich strike in the hills. He had discovered a “placer” which was yielding a profit of fabulous dimensions. Of how rich his strike really was no one seemed to possess any very definite information. In the calm light of day men spoke of a handsome living wage, but, as the day wore on, and Silas Rocket’s whiskey did its work, Will’s possible wealth generally ended in wild visions of millions of dollars.
Under this inspiring news the commercial mind of Barnriff was stirred; it was lifted out of the despondency into which the news of the cattle-stealing had plunged it. It cleaned off its rust and began to oil its joints and look to its tools. With the first news it, metaphorically, “reared up.” Then Will came into town with a bag of dust and nuggets, and the optical demonstration set lips smacking and eyes gleaming with envy and covetousness. They asked “Where?” But Will shook his head with a cunning leer. Let them go and seek it as he had to do, he said. And forthwith his advice was acted upon by no less than a dozen men, who promptly abandoned profitable billets for the pursuit of the elusive yellow ore.
Two weeks later Will again visited the village. This time he staggered the folks by taking his wife to Abe Horsley’s store, and spending two hundred dollars in dry-goods and draperies for her. He flashed a “wad” of bills that dazzled the lay-preacher’s eyes, and talked of buying a ranch and building himself a mansion on it.
Nor did he visit the saloon. He was sober, and looked the picture of health and cheerfulness. He talked freely of his strike and its possibilities. He swaggered and patronized his less fortunate fellow townsmen, until he had them all by the ears and set them tumbling over each other to get out after the gold.
He was followed and watched. Men shadowed his every movement in the hope of discovering his mine, but he was too clever for them. They kept his trail to the hills, but there he quickly lost them. He never took the same route twice, and, on one occasion, traveled for three days and nights, due north, before entering the foot-hills. He was as elusive as the very gold his pursuers sought.
One by one the would-be prospectors returned disappointed to the village, and again took up their various works, forced to the sorry consolation of listening to the tales of Will’s wealth, and watching him occasionally run in to the village and scatter his money broadcast amongst the storekeepers.
Of all Barnriff Peter Blunt seemed the least disturbed. He went calmly on with his work, smiling gently whenever spoken to on the subject. And his reply was invariably the same.
“I’m not handling ‘placer,’” he told Doc Crombie one day, when that strenuous person was endeavoring to “pump” him on the subject. “I allow ‘placers’ are easy, and make a big show. But my ‘meat’ is high grade ore that’s going to work for years. His strike don’t interest me a heap, except it proves there’s gold in plenty around these parts.”
Nor could he be drawn into further discussion in the matter.
Yet his interest was far greater than he admitted. He was puzzled, too. He could not quite make out how he had missed the signs of alluvial deposit. Both scientifically and practically he was a master of his hobby, in spite of local opinion. Yet he had missed this rich haul under his very nose. That was his interest as a gold miner. But there was another side to it, which occupied his thoughts even more. And it was an interest based on his knowledge of Will Henderson, and–various other things.
He was out at a temporary camp at one of his cuttings with Elia, who, since his first sojourn with the prospector, now frequently joined him in his work. They had just finished dinner, and Peter was smoking and resting. Elia was perched like a bird on an upturned box, watching his friend with cold, thoughtful eyes. Suddenly he blurted out an irrelevant remark.
“Folks has quit chasin’ Will Henderson,” he said.
“Eh?”
Peter stared at him intently. He was becoming accustomed to the curious twists of the lad’s warped mind, but he wondered what he was now driving at.
“He’s too slim for ’em,” Elia went on, gazing steadily into the fire. “He’s slim, an’–bad. But he ain’t as bad as me.”
Peter smiled at the naive confession.
“You’re talking foolishly,” he said, in a tone his smile belied.
“Maybe I am. Say, I could track Will.”
“Well?”
“I’m goin’ to. But I’ll need your help. See here, Peter, I’ll need to get away from sis, an’ if I get out without sayin’, she’ll set half the village lookin’ to find me. If I’m with you, she won’t. See?”
Peter nodded.
“But why do you want to track him?”
“’Cause he’s bad–an’ ain’t got no ‘strike.’ He’s on some crook’s work. Maybe he’s cattle duffin’. I mean to find out.”
Peter’s eyes grew cold and hard, and the boy watching him read what he saw with a certainty that was almost uncanny.
“You’ve been thinking that always, too,” he said. “You don’t believe in his strike, neither,” he added triumphantly.
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t,” replied Peter, guardedly.
“Yes, you do,” the boy persisted. “It’s because he’s bad. Say, he’s makin’ Eve bad takin’ that money he sends her. An’ she don’t know it.”
“And supposing it’s as you say–and you found out?”
“The boys ’ud hang him. And–and Eve would be quit of him.”
“And you’d break her heart. She’s your sister, and would sooner cut off her right hand than hurt you.”
Elia laughed silently. There was a fiendishness in his manner that was absolutely repulsive.
“Guess you’re wrong,” he said decidedly. “It wouldn’t break Eve’s heart worth a cent. She don’t care a cuss for him, since–since that night. Eve’s a heap high-toned in her notions. He hit her. He nigh killed her. She ain’t one to fergit easy.” He laughed again. “I ken see clear through Eve. If Will was dead, in six months she’d marry agin. D’ye know who? Jim Thorpe. She’s jest a fool gal. She’s allus liked Jim a heap. That night’s stickin’ in her head. She ain’t fergot Jim–nor you. Say, d’you know what she’s doin’? When Will sends her money she sets it aside an’ don’t touch it. She don’t buy things for herself. She hates it. She lives on her sewin’. That’s Eve. I tell you she hates Will, same as I do, an’ I’m–I’m glad.”
Peter smiled incredulously. He didn’t believe that the girl’s love for her husband was dead. Possibly her attitude deceived the lad, as well it might. How could one of his years understand a matter of this sort? But he thought long before he replied to the venomous tirade. He knew he must stop the lad’s intention. He felt that it was not for him to hunt Will down, even–even if he were a cattle-thief.
“Look here, laddie,” he said at last, “I promised you all the gold I found in this place. I’m going to keep that promise, but you’ve got to do something for me. See? Now I’m not going to say you can’t track Will if you’ve a notion to. But I do say this, if he’s on the crook, and you find it out, you’ll promise only to tell me and no one else. You leave Will to me. I’m not going to have you hanging your sister’s husband. You’ve got to promise me, laddie, or you don’t see the color of my gold. And don’t you try to play me up, either, because I’ll soon know if you are. Are you going to have that gold?”
The boy’s face was obstinately set. Yet Peter realized that his cupidity was fighting with the viciousness of his twisted mind, and had no doubt of the outcome. The thought of seeing Will hang was a delirious joy to Elia. He saw the man he hated suffering, writhing in agony at the end of a rope, and dying by inches. It was hard to give it up. Yet the thought of Peter’s gold–not the man himself, of whom, in his strange fashion, he was fond–was very sweet. Gold! It appealed to him, young as he was, as it might have appealed to a mind forty years older; the mind of a man beaten by poverty and embittered by a long life of hopeless struggle. Finally, as Peter expected, cupidity won the day, but not without a hot verbal protest.
“You’re a fool man some ways, Peter,” the boy at last declared in a snarling acquiescence. “What for d’you stop me? Gee, you’ve nothing to help him for. Say, I’d watch him die, I’d spit at him. I’d–I’d–” But his frenzy of evil joy made it impossible for him to find further words. He broke off, and, a moment later, went on coldly: “All right, I’ll do as you say. Gee, but it makes me sick. Eh? No. I won’t tell other folk. Nor Eve–but–but you’re goin’ to give me that gold, an’ I’ll be rich. Say, I’ll be able to buy buggies, an’ hosses, an’ ranches, an’ things? I’ll be able to have plenty folks workin’ for me? Gee! I’ll make ’em work. I’ll make ’em sick to death when I get that gold.”
Peter rose abruptly to return to work. The boy’s diseased mind nauseated him. His heart revolted with each fresh revelation of the terrible degeneracy that possessed the lad.
CHAPTER XVIII
A WOMAN’S INSTINCT
The women of Barnriff were as keenly alive to the prevailing excitements as the men. Perhaps they were affected differently, but this was only natural. The village, with its doings, its gossip, was their life. The grinding monotony of household drudgery left them little margin for expansion. Their horizon possessed the narrowest limits in consequence. Nor could it be otherwise. Most of them lived in a state of straining two ends across an impossible gulf, and the process reduced them to a condition of pessimism which blinded them to matters beyond their narrow focus.
But just now the cloud had lifted for a moment and a flutter of excitement gave them an added interest in things, and relieved them from the burden of their usual topics. When they met now matters of housekeeping and babies, and their men-folk, were thrust aside for the fresher interests. And thus Pretty Wilkes, blustering out of Abe Horsley’s emporium in a heat of indignation, found little sympathy for her grievance from Mrs. Rust and Jane Restless.
“Say, I’ll give Carrie a word or two when I see her,” she cried, viciously flourishing a roll of print in the faces of her friends. “If Abe isn’t a money grubbing skinflint I just don’t know nothin’. Look at that stuff. Do I know print? Do I know pea-shucks! He’s been tryin’ to sell me faded goods that never were anything else but faded, at twice the price they ever were, when they couldn’t have been worth half of it if the color hadn’t faded that never did, because there wasn’t no decent color to fade. I’ll–”
But the two women’s attention was wandering. They were gazing across at Eve’s house where Annie Gay was just disappearing through the doorway. Pretty saw her, too, and, in a moment, her anger merged into the general interest.
“Say, if that ain’t the third time this mornin’,” she exclaimed.
“Meanin’ Annie?” inquired Mrs. Rust.
“Chasin’ dollars,” added Jane Restless, with a sniff.
Pretty laughed unpleasantly.
“Why not?” she asked, and promptly answered herself. “Guess her man’s taught her. However, I don’t blame her. Dollars are hard enough to come by in this place. Say, they tell me Eve’s gettin’ ’em in hundreds.”
“Thousands,” said Mrs. Rust, her eyes shining.
“Say, ain’t she lucky?” exclaimed Jane. “I don’t care who knows it. I envy her good an’ plenty. Thousands! Gee!”
“I don’t know she’s to be envied a heap,” said Mrs. Rust. “I ’lows all men has their faults, but Will Henderson ain’t no sort of bokay of virtues. He’s a drunken bum anyway.”
“An’ he knocks her about,” added Pretty, with a snap.
“But he’s pilin’ up the dollars for her,” Jane urged, still lost in serious contemplation of the fabulous sums her simple mind attributed to Eve’s fortune.
But Pretty Wilkes had no sympathy with such excuses.
“Well, dollars or no dollars, I wouldn’t change places with Eve for a lot. Guess there’s some folk as would sell their souls for dollars,” she said, eyeing Jane Restless severely. “But if dollars means having Will Henderson behind ’em, I’d rather get out an’ do chores all my life.”
“Guess you’re right,” acquiesced Mrs. Rust, thoughtfully. “Will’s a whiskey souse an’ poker playin’ bum. What I sez is, give me a fool man like my Rust, who’s no more sense than to beat hot iron, an’ keep out o’ my way when I’ve a big wash doin’.”
“That’s so,” agreed Pretty. “An’ if I’m any judge, that’s just ’bout how pore Eve feels.”
“Pore?” sniggered Jane.
“Yes, ‘pore.’” Pretty’s manner assumed its most pronounced austerity. “That gal ain’t what she was, an’–an’ I can’t get the rights of it. What for does she keep right on with her needle, with all those dollars? She don’t never laff now for sure. There’s something on her mind, and it’s my belief it’s Will Henderson. Say, Kate Crombie told me that Eve never spent any o’ those dollars, an’ it was her belief she ain’t never touched ’em. She says it’s ’cause of him. She says it’s ’cause she hates Will, has hated him ever since that time she fell agin the coal box. That was Will. Kate said so; and her man fixed Eve up. Say, he orter been lynched. An’ if the men-folk won’t do it, then we ought to. It makes my blood boil thinkin’ of it. Pore Eve! I allus liked her. But she’s fair lost her snap since she’s got married. Guess it ’ud bin different if she’d married Jim Thorpe.”
“I don’t know,” exclaimed Jane, with some antagonism. “I don’t know. Jim Thorpe’s a nice seemin’ feller enough, someways, but–”
“But–what?” inquired Mrs. Rust, eagerly.
“Oh, nothin’ much, on’y there’s queer yarns goin’ of that same Jim Thorpe. Restless was yarning with two of McLagan’s boys, who are out huntin’ the stolen cattle. Well, they got a yarn from one of the boys of the ‘◇ P.’s’ Course I don’t know if it’s right, but this feller seen a big bunch of cattle running where Jim keeps his stock. An’ he swore positive they was re-branded with Jim’s mark. You know, ‘**,’ which, as he pointed out, was an elegant brand for covering up an original brand. Them boys, Restless said, was off to look up the stock.”
Jane told her story with considerable significance, and, for the moment, her two friends were held silent. Then Pretty Wilkes gathered herself to protest.
“But–but Jim’s McLagan’s foreman. He don’t need to.”
“That’s just it. Folks wouldn’t suspect him easy.”
The force of Jane’s argument almost carried conviction. But the blacksmith’s wife liked Jim, and could not let Jane carry off honors so easily.
“Jim ain’t no cattle-thief,” she said. “And,” she hurried on, with truly feminine logic, “if he was he’d be cleverer than that. Mark me, Jim’s too dead honest. Now, if it was Will Henderson–”
But the gossip was becoming too concentrated, and Pretty helped it into a fresh channel.
“Talkin’ of Will Henderson,” she said, “Kate Crombie told me the Doc’s goin’ to make him say where he gets his gold–in the interest of public prosperity. That’s how she called it. That’s why he ain’t showed up in town for nigh three weeks. Guess he’ll go on keepin’ away.”
“Doc’s up again Will someways,” said Jane.
“Most folks is,” added Mrs. Rust.
“Doc’s a bad one to get up against,” observed Pretty. “If he’s going to make Will talk, our men-folk ’ll all get chasin’ gold. I don’t know, I’m sure. Seems to me a roast o’ beef in the cook-stove’s worth a whole bunch o’ cattle that ain’t yours. Well, I’ll get on to home, an’ get busy on the children’s summer suitings–if you can call such stuff as Abe sells any sort o’ suitings at all. Good-bye, girls.”
She left the matrons and hurried away. A moment later Jane Restless went on to the butcher’s, while Mrs. Rust pottered heavily along to Smallbones’ store to obtain some iron bolts for her husband.
But these good women wronged Annie Gay when they hinted at time-serving to Eve on account of the money her husband was making. Her friendship for Eve was of much too long standing, and much too disinterested for it to be influenced by the other’s sudden rise to prosperity. As a matter of fact it made her rejoice at the girl’s sudden turn of fortune. She was cordially, unenviously glad of it.
She found Eve hard at work at her sewing-machine, in the midst of an accumulation of dress stuff, such as might well have appalled one unused to the business. But the busy rush of the machine, and the concentrated attitude of the sempstress, displayed neither confusion nor worry beyond the desire to complete that which she was at work on.
Eve glanced up quickly as Annie came in. She gave her a glance of welcome, and silently bent over her work again. Annie possessed herself of a chair and watched. She liked watching Eve at work. There was such a whole-hearted determination in her manner, such a businesslike directness and vigor.
But just now there was more to hold her interest. The girl was not looking well. Her sweet young face was looking drawn, and, as she had told her that very morning, she looked like a woman who had gone through all the trials of rearing a young family on insufficient means. Now she was here she meant to have it out with Eve. She was going to abandon her rôle of sympathetic onlooker. She was going to delve below the surface, and learn the reason of Eve’s present unsmiling existence.
All this she thought while the busy machine rattled down the cloth seams of Jane Restless’s new fall suit. The low bent head with its soft wavy hair held her earnest attention, the bending figure, so lissome, yet so frail as it swayed to the motion of the treadle. She watched and watched, waiting for the work to be finished, her heart aching for the woman whom she knew to be so unhappy.
How she would have begun her inquiries she did not know. Nor did she pause to think. It was no use. She knew Eve’s proud, self-reliant disposition, and the possibilities of her resenting any intrusion upon her private affairs. But she was spared all trouble in this direction, for suddenly the object of her solicitude looked up, raised her needle, and drew the skirt away from the machine.
“Thank goodness that’s done,” she exclaimed. Then she leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms and eased her aching back. “Annie, I’m sick of it all. Sick to death. It’s grind, grind, grind. No lightness, nothing but dark, uncheered work.” She turned her eyes to the window with a look of sorrowful regret. “Look at the sunlight outside. It’s mocking, laughing. Bidding us come out and gather fresh courage to go on, because it knows we can’t. I mean, what is the use of it if we do go out? It is like salt water to the thirsty man. He feels the moisture he so needs, and then realizes the maddening parching which is a hundred times worse than his original state. Life’s one long drear, and–and I sometimes wish it were all over and done with.”
Annie’s pretty eyes opened wide with astonishment. Here was the self-reliant Eve talking like the veriest weakling. But quick as thought she seized her opportunity.
“But, Eve, surely you of any folk has no right to get saying things. You, with your husband heapin’ up the dollars. Why, my dear, you don’t need to do all this. I mean this dressmakin’. You can set right out to do just those things you’d like to do, an’ leave the rest for folks that has to do it.”
She rose from her chair and came to her friend’s side, and gently placed an arm about her shoulders.
“My dear,” she went on kindly, “I came here now to talk straight to you. I didn’t know how I was to begin for sure, but you’ve saved me the trouble. I’ve watched you grow thinner an’ thinner. I’ve sure seen your poor cheeks fadin’, an’ your eyes gettin’ darker and darker all round ’em. I’ve seen, too, and worst of all, you don’t smile any now. You don’t never jolly folks. You just look, look as though your grave was in sight, and–and you’d already give my man the contract. I–”
The girl’s gentle, earnest, half-humorous manner brought a shadowy smile to Eve’s eyes as she raised them to the healthy face beside her. And Annie felt shrewdly that she’d somehow struck the right note.
“Don’t worry about me, Annie,” she said. “I’m good for a few years yet.” Then her eyes returned to the gloomy seriousness which seemed to be natural to them now. “I don’t know, I s’pose I’ve got the miserables, or–or something. P’raps a dash of that sunlight would do me good. And–yet–I don’t think so.”
Suddenly she freed herself almost roughly from Annie’s embracing arm and stood up. She faced the girl almost wildly, and leaned against the work-table. Her eyes grew hot with unshed tears. Her face suddenly took on a look of longing, of yearning. Her whole attitude was one of appeal. She was a woman who could no longer keep to herself the heart sickness she was suffering.
“Yes, yes, I am sick. It’s not bodily though, sure, sure. Oh, sometimes I think my heart will break, only–only I suppose that’s not possible,” she added whimsically. “Ah, Annie, you’ve got a good man. You love him, and he loves you. No hardship would be a trouble to you, because you’ve got him. I haven’t got my man, and,” she added in a low voice, “I don’t want him. That’s it! Stare, child! Stare and stare. You’re horrified–and so am I. But I don’t want him. I don’t! I don’t! I don’t! I hate him. I loathe him. Say it, Annie. You must think it. Every right-minded woman must think it. I’m awful. I’m wicked. I–!”
She broke off on the verge of hysteria and struggled for calmness. Annie sensibly kept silent, and presently the distracted woman recovered herself.
“I won’t say anything like that again, dear. I mustn’t, but–but I had to say it to some one. You don’t know what it is to keep all that on your mind and not be able to tell any one. But it’s out now, and I–I feel better, perhaps.”
Annie came to her side and placed her arm about her waist. Her action was all sympathy.
“I came here to listen,” she said kindly. “I knew there was things troublin’. You can tell me anything–or nothing. And, Eve, you’ll sure get my meanin’ when I say the good God gave me two eyes to use, an’ sometimes to sleep with. Well, dear, I mostly sleep at nights.”
Eve tried to smile, but it was a failure.
“You’re a good woman, Annie, and–and I don’t know how I’d have got on all this time without you. But sit you down and listen. I’ve begun now, and–and I must go on. Oh, I can’t tell you quite why, but I want to tell it to somebody, and–and–I’ll feel better. You said I don’t need to do all this,” she hurried on, pointing at the dressmaking. “I do. It’s the only thing that keeps me from running away, and breaking my marriage vows altogether. Will’s got no love for me, and I–my love for him died weeks ago. Maybe with those sharp eyes of yours you’ve seen it.”
Annie nodded and Eve went on.
“I’m frightened, Annie, and–and I don’t know why. Will’s a different man, but it’s not that. No,” she added thoughtfully, “somehow I’m not frightened of him now. I–I hate him too much. But I’m frightened, and–”
She flung herself upon the worn settee, and lifted a pair of gloomy eyes to her friend’s face. “I can never touch his money, nor the things he buys. I want nothing from him, either for Elia or myself. I’m married to him and that I can’t undo. Would to God I could! But I can never take anything from the man I do not love, and my love for Will is dead–dead. No, Annie, I must go on working in my own way, and I only hope and pray my husband will keep away. Maybe he will. Maybe when he’s made a big pile out of his–claim he will go away altogether, and leave me in peace with Elia. I’m hoping for it–praying for it. Oh, my dear, my dear, what a mistake I’ve made! You don’t know. You can’t guess.”
There was a silence for some moments. Annie was thinking hard. Suddenly she put a sharp question.
“Tell me, Eve. This fear you was saying. How can you be frightened? What of?”
There was no mistaking the effect of her words. Eve’s brown eyes suddenly dilated. She looked like a hunted woman. And Annie shrank at the sight of it.
“I don’t know,” she said with a shiver. “I–I can’t describe it. It’s to do with Will. It’s to do with”–she glanced about her fearfully–“his money, his gold find. Don’t question me, because I don’t know why I’m afraid. I think I first got afraid through Elia. He’s a queer lad–you don’t know how queer he is at times. Well”–she swallowed as though with a dry throat–“well, from the first, when–when Will found gold Elia laughed. And–and every time we speak about it he laughs, and will say nothing. Oh, I wish I knew.”
“Knew what?”
Annie’s question came with a curious abruptness. Eve stared. And when she spoke it was almost to herself.
“I don’t know what I want to know. Only I–I wish I knew.”
Annie suddenly came over to her friend’s side. She took her hands in hers and squeezed them sympathetically.
“Eve, I don’t guess I’ve got anything to say that can help you. But whenever you want to talk things that’ll relieve you, why, you can just talk all you like to me. But don’t you talk of these things to any other folk. Sure, sure, girl, don’t you do it. You can just trust me, ’cause I’ve got so bad a memory. Other folks hasn’t. I’ll be goin’ now to get my man’s dinner. Good-bye.”
She bent over and kissed the girl’s thin cheek with a hearty smack. But, as she left the house, there was a grave light such as was rarely, if ever, seen in her merry eyes.