Élise reached the foot of the stone steps, shot a look of fierce defiance at the threatening Morrison, then she turned toward Firmstone, with her head bent forward till her upturned eyes just reached him from beneath her arching brows. She swept him a low courtesy.
"Good-bye, Mr. Minion!" she called. "I've had an awfully nice time."
She half turned her head toward Morrison, then, as Firmstone lifted his hat in acknowledgment, she raised her hand to her laughing lips and flung him a kiss from the tips of her fingers. Gathering her skirts in her hand, she darted up the steps and nearly collided with Morrison, who had deliberately placed himself in her way.
She met Morrison's indignant look with the hauteur of an offended goddess. Morrison's eyes fell from before her; but he demanded:
"Where did you pick up that – that scab?" It was the most opprobrious epithet he could think of.
Élise's rigid figure stiffened visibly.
"It's none of your business."
"What have you been talking about?"
"It's none of your business. Is there any more information you want that you won't get?"
"I'll make it my business!" Morrison burst out, furiously. "I'll – "
"Go back to your gambling and leave me alone!" With unflinching eyes, that never left his face, she passed him almost before he was aware of it, and entered the open door.
Could Morrison have seen the change that came over her face, as soon as her back was toward him, he might have gained false courage, through mistaking the cause. Loathing and defiance had departed. In their place were bewildering questionings, not definite, but suggested. For the first time in her life her hitherto spontaneous actions waited approbation before the bar of judgment. The coarse, venomous looks of Morrison ranged themselves side by side with the polished ease and deference of Firmstone.
As she passed through the bar-room long accustomed sights were, for the first time, seen, not clearly, but comparatively. In the corridor that led to the dining-room she encountered Pierre. She did not speak to him. The quick eyes of the little Frenchman noted the unwonted expression, but he did not question her. At the proper time he would know all. Meantime his concern was not to forget.
Élise opened the door of the dining-room and entered. Madame looked up as the door closed. Élise stood with distant eyes fixed upon the pathetically plain little woman. Never before had she noticed the lifeless hair strained from the colourless tan of the thin face, the lustreless eyes, the ill-fitting, faded calico wrapper that dropped in meaningless folds from the spare figure. Madame waited patiently for Élise to speak, or to keep silence as she chose. For a moment only Élise stood. The next instant Madame felt the strong young arms about her, felt hot, decided kisses upon her cheeks. Madame was surprised. Élise was fierce with determination. Élise was doing penance. Madame did not know it.
Élise left Madame standing bewildered, and darted upstairs to her little room. She flung herself on her bed and fought – fought with ghostly, flitting shadows that elusively leered from darker shades, grasped at fleeting phantoms that ranged themselves beside the minatory demons, until at last she grew tired and slept.
Élise had left the Blue Goose in the morning, a white-winged, erratic craft, skimming the sparkling, land-locked harbours of girlhood. She returned, and already the first lifting swells beyond the sheltering bar were tossing her in their arms. She had entered the shoreless ocean of womanhood.
Pierre passed from the corridor to the bar-room. He glanced from the bar to the gaming-tables, where a few listless players were engaged at cards, and finally stepped out upon the broad piazza. He glanced at Morrison, who was following Firmstone with a look of malignant hatred.
"Meestaire Firmstone, he bin come from ze mine?"
"To hell with Firmstone!" growled Morrison. He turned and entered the saloon.
Pierre followed him with knowing eyes.
"To hell wiz Firmstone, heh?" He breathed softly. "Bien!"
Pierre stood looking complacently over the broken landscape. Much understanding was coming to him. The harmlessness of the dove radiated from his beaming face, but the wisdom of the serpent was shining in his eyes.
CHAPTER XI
The Devil's Elbow
If Firmstone had flattered himself that his firm but just treatment of Luna in the case of the stolen ore had cleared his path of difficulties he would have been forced by current events to a rude awakening. He had been neither flattered nor deceived. He knew very well that a prop put under an unstable boulder may obscure the manifestation of gravity; but he never deceived himself with the thought that it had been eliminated. The warming-up process, recommended by Pierre, was being actively exploited. Scarcely a day passed but some annoying accident at the mine or mill occurred, frequently necessitating prolonged shut-downs. Day by day, by ones, by twos, by threes, his best men were leaving the mine. There was no need to ask them why, even if they would have given a truthful answer. He knew very well why. Yet he was neither disheartened nor discouraged. He realised the fact clearly, as he had written to his Eastern employers that it would take time and much patient endeavour to restore order where chaos had reigned so long undisturbed. There was another element impeding his progress which he by no means ignored – that was the Blue Goose.
He had no tangible evidence against the resort beyond its obvious pretensions. He had no need of the unintentional but direct evidence of Élise's words that the habitués of the Blue Goose there aired their grievances, real or imagined, and that both Pierre and Morrison were assiduously cultivating this restlessness by sympathy and counsel. He was morally certain of another fact – that the Blue Goose was indirectly, at least, at the bottom of the extensive system of thieving, in offering a sure market for the stolen gold. This last fact had not especially troubled him, for he felt sure that the careful system of checks which he had inaugurated at the outset would eventually make the stealing so dangerous that it would be abandoned.
So far in the history of the camp, when once the plates were cleaned and gold, as ingots, was in possession of the company, it had been perfectly safe. No attempts at hold-ups had ever been made. Yet Firmstone had provided, in a measure, safeguards against this possibility. The ingots had been packed in a small steel safe and shipped by stage to the nearest express office, about ten miles distant. Shipments had not been made every day, of course. But every day Firmstone had sent the safe, loaded with pigs of lead. The next day the safe was returned, and in it was the agent's receipt. Whether the safe carried gold or lead, the going and the returning weight was the same. If the safe carried gold enough lead was added by the express agent to make the returning weight the same. This fact was generally known, and even if a stage hold-up should be attempted, the chances were thirty to one that a few pounds of lead would be the only booty of the robbers.
This afternoon Firmstone was at his office-desk in a meditative and relieved frame of mind. He was meditative over his troubles that, for all his care, seemed to be increasing. Relieved in that, but an hour before, $50,000 in bullion had been loaded into the stage, and was now rolling down the cañon on the way to its legitimate destination. His meditations were abruptly broken, and his sense of relief violently dissipated, when the office-door was thrust open, and hatless, with clothing torn to shreds, the stage-driver stood before him, his beard clotted with blood which flowed from a jagged cut that reached from his forehead across his cheek.
Firmstone sprang to his feet with a startled exclamation. The driver swept his hand over his blood-clotted lips.
"No; 'tain't a hold-up; just a plain, flat wreck. The whole outfit went over the cliff at the Devil's Elbow. I stayed with my job long's I could, but that wa'n't no decades."
Firmstone dragged the man into his laboratory, and carefully began to wash the blood from his face.
"That's too long a process, gov'ner." The driver soused his head into the bucket of cold water which Firmstone had drawn from the faucet.
"Can you walk now?" Firmstone asked.
"Reckon I'll try it a turn. Been flyin', for all I know. Must have been, to get up the cliff. I flew down; that much I know. Lit on a few places. That's where I got this." He pointed to the cut.
Firmstone led the man to his own room adjoining the office, and opening a small chest, took out some rolls of plaster and bandages. He began drying the wound.
The office-door again opened and the bookkeeper entered.
"Go tell Bennie to come down right away," Firmstone ordered, without pausing in his work.
Satisfied that the man's skull was not fractured, he drew the edges of the wound together and fastened them with strips of plaster. A few minutes later Bennie, followed by Zephyr, hurriedly entered the office. Paying no attention to their startled exclamations, Firmstone said:
"I wish you would look after Jim. He's badly hurt. He'll tell you about it. You said at the Devil's Elbow?" turning to the driver.
Zephyr glanced critically at the man; then, making up his mind that he was not needed, he said:
"I'll go along with you. Are you heeled?"
Firmstone made no audible reply, but took down his revolver and cartridge-belt, and buckled them on.
"'Tain't the heels you want; it's wings and fins. They won't be much good, either. The whole outfit's in the San Miguel. I followed it that far, and then pulled out." The driver was attempting to hold out gamely, but the excitement and the severe shaking-up were evidently telling on him.
Firmstone and Zephyr left the office and followed the wagon-trail down the cañon. Neither spoke a word.
They reached the scene of the wreck and, still silent, began to look carefully about. A hundred feet below them the San Miguel, swollen by melting snows, foamed and roared over its boulder-strewn bed. Near the foot of the cliff one of the horses was impaled on a jagged rock; its head and shoulders in the lapping water. In mid-stream and further down the other was pressed by the current against a huge rock that lifted above the flood. No trace of the stage was to be seen. That, broken into fragments by the fall, had been swept away.
The spot where the accident occurred was a dangerous one at best. For some distance after leaving the mill the trail followed a nearly level bench of hard slate rock, then, dipping sharply downward, cut across a long rock-slide that reached to the summit of the mountain a thousand feet above. On the opposite side a square-faced buttress crowded the trail to the very brink of the cañon. The trail followed along the foot of this buttress for a hundred feet or more, and at the edge it again turned from the gorge at an acute angle. At the turning-point a cleft, twenty feet wide, cut the cliff from the river-bed to a point far above the trail. A bridge had spanned the cleft, but it was gone. The accident had been caused by the giving way of the bridge when the stage was on it.
"Well, what do you make of it?" Firmstone turned to Zephyr and Zephyr shook his head.
"That's a superfluous interrogation. Your thinks and mine on this subject under consideration are as alike as two chicks hatched from a double-yolked egg."
"This is no accident." Firmstone spoke decidedly.
Zephyr nodded deliberately.
"That's no iridescent dream, unless you and I have been hitting the same pipe."
"The question is," resumed Firmstone, "was the safe taken from the stage before the accident?" He looked at Zephyr inquiringly.
"That depends on Jim Norwood." Zephyr whistled meditatively, then spoke with earnest decision. "That safe's in the river. The Blue Goose has been setting for some time. This ain't the first gosling that's pipped its shell, and 'tain't going to be the last one, either, unless the nest is broken up."
"That's what I think." Firmstone spoke slowly. "But this is a dangerous game. I didn't think it would go so far."
"It's up to you hard; but that isn't the worst of it. It's going to be up to you harder yet. They never reckoned on Jim's getting out of this alive." Zephyr seated himself, and his hand wandered unconsciously to his shirt. Then, changing his mind, he spoke without looking up. "You don't need this, Goggles, but I'm going to give it to you, just the same. You're heavier calibre and longer range than the whole crowd. But I am with you, and there are others. The gang haven't landed their plunder yet, and, what's more, they aren't going to, either. I'll see to that. You just restez tranquille, and give your mind to other things. This little job is about my size."
Firmstone made no reply to Zephyr. He knew his man, knew thoroughly the loyal sense of honour that, though sheltered in humourous, apparently indifferent cynicism, was ready to fight to the death in defence of right.
"I think we might as well go back to the mill. We've seen all there is to be seen here."
They walked back in silence. At the office-door Zephyr paused.
"Won't you come in?" asked Firmstone.
"I think not, dearly beloved. The spirit moveth me in sundry places. In other words, I've got a hunch. And say, Goggles, don't ask any embarrassing questions, if your grub mysteriously disappears. Just charge it up to permanent equipment account, and keep quiet, unless you want to inquire darkly whether anyone knows what's become of that fellow Zephyr."
"Don't take any risks, Zephyr. A man's a long time dead. You know as well as I the gang you're up against. I think I know what you're up to, and I also think I can help you out."
Firmstone entered the office with no further words. It was the hardest task of many that he had had, to send a report of the disaster to the company, but he did not shrink from it. He made a plain statement of the facts of the case, including the manner in which the bridge had been weakened to the point of giving way when the weight of the stage had been put upon it. He also added that he was satisfied that the purpose was robbery, and that he knew who was at the bottom of the whole business, that steps were being taken to recover the safe; but that the conviction of the plotters was another and a very doubtful proposition. Above all things, he asked to be let alone for a while, at least. The driver, he stated, had no idea that the wrecking of the stage was other than it appeared on the face, an accident pure and simple. The letter was sealed and sent by special messenger to the railroad.
One thing troubled Firmstone. He was very sure that his request to be let alone would not be heeded. Hartwell, the Eastern manager of the company, was a shallow, empty-headed man, insufferably conceited. He held the position, partly through a controlling interest in the shares, but more through the nimble use of a glib tongue that so man[oe]uvred his corporal's guard of information that it appeared an able-bodied regiment of knowledge covering the whole field of mining.
If Firmstone had any weaknesses, one was an open contempt of flatterers and flattery, the other an impolitic, impatient resentment of patronage. There had been no open breaks between the manager and himself; in fact, the manager professed himself an admiring friend of Firmstone to his face. At directors' meetings "Firmstone was a fairly promising man who only needed careful supervision to make in time a valuable man for the company." Firmstone had strongly opposed the shipping of bullion by private conveyance instead of by a responsible express company. In this he was overruled by the manager. Being compelled to act against his judgment, he had done his best to minimise the risk by making dummy shipments each day, as has been explained.
The loss of the month's clean-up was a very serious one, and he had no doubt but that it would result in a visit from the manager, and that the manager would insist upon taking a prominent part in any attempt to recover the safe, if indeed he did not assume the sole direction. The opportunity to add to his counterfeit laurels was too good to be lost. In the event of failure, Firmstone felt that no delicate scruples would prevent the shifting of the whole affair upon his own shoulders.
Firmstone had not made the mistake of minimising the crafty cunning of Pierre, nor of interpreting his troubles at the mine and mill at their obvious values. Cunningly devised as was the wreck of the stage, he felt sure that there was another object in view than the very obvious and substantial one of robbery. With the successful wrecking of the stage there were yet large chances against the schemers getting possession of the safe and its contents. Still, there was a chance in their favour. If neither Pierre nor the company recovered the bullion, Pierre's scheme would not have miscarried wholly. The company would still be in ignorance of the possibilities of the mine. Firmstone arranged every possible detail clearly in his mind, from Pierre's standpoint. His thorough grasp of the entire situation, his unwearying application to the business in hand made further stealing impossible. Pierre was bound to get him out of his position. The agitation inaugurated by Morrison was only a part of the scheme by means of which this result was to be accomplished. A whole month's clean-up had been made. If this reached the company safely, it would be a revelation to them. Firmstone's position would be unassailable, and henceforth Pierre would be compelled to content himself with the yield of the gambling and drinking at the Blue Goose. Whether the bullion ever found its way to the Blue Goose or not, the wrecking of the stage would be in all likelihood the culminating disaster in Firmstone's undoing.
Firmstone's indignation did not burn so fiercely against Pierre and Morrison – they were but venomous reptiles who threatened every decent man – as at the querulous criticisms of his employers, which were a perpetual drag, clogging his every movement, and threatening to neutralise his every effort in their behalf. He recalled the words of an old and successful mine manager:
"You've got a hard row of corn. When you tackle a mine you've got to make up your mind to have everyone against you, from the cook-house flunkey to the president of the company, and the company is the hardest crowd to buck against."
Firmstone's face grew hard. The fight was on, and he was in it to win. That was what he was going to do.
Zephyr, meantime, had gone to the cook-house. He found Bennie in his room.
"How's Jim?" he asked.
"Sleeping. That's good for him. He'll pull out all right. Get on to anything at the bridge?" Bennie was at sharp attention.
"Nothing to get on to, Julius Benjamin. The bridge is gone. So's everything else. It's only a matter of time when Goggles will be gone, too. This last will fix him with the company." Zephyr glanced slyly at Bennie with the last words. "The jig is up. The fiddle's broke its last string, and I'm going, too."
Bennie's eyes were flaming.
"Take shame to yourself for those words, you white-livered frog-spawn, with a speck in the middle for the black heart of you! You're going? Well, here's the bones of my fist and the toe of my boot, to speed you!"
"You'll have to put me up some grub, Benjamin."
"Grub! It's grub, is it? I'll give you none. Stay here a bit and I'll grub you to more purpose. I'll put grit in your craw and bones in your back, and a sup of glue, till you can stand straight and stick to your friends. Lacking understanding that God never gave you, I'll point them out to you!"
Zephyr's eyes had a twinkle that Bennie's indignation overlooked.
"The Lord never passed you by on the other side, Julius. He put a heavy charge in your bell-muzzle. You're bound to hit something when you go off. If He'd only put a time-fuse on your action, 'twould have only perfect. Not just yet, Julius Benjamin!" Zephyr languidly lifted a detaining hand as Bennie started to interrupt. "I'm going a long journey for an uncertain time. This is for the public. But, Julius, if you'll take a walk in the gloaming each day, and leave an edible bundle in the clump of spruces above the Devil's Elbow you'll find it mysteriously disappears. From which you may infer that I'm travelling in a circle with a small radius. And say, Julius, heave over some of your wind ballast and even up with discretion. You're to take a minor part in a play, with Goggles and me as stars."
"It's lean ore you're working in your wind-mill. Just what does it assay?" Bennie was yet a little suspicious.
"For a man of abundant figures, Julius, you have a surprising appetite for ungarnished speech. But here's to you! The safe's in the river. There's fifty thousand in bullion in the safe that's in the river. The Blue Goose crowd is after the bullion that's in the safe that's in the river. Say, Julius Benjamin, this is hard sledding. It's the story of the House that Jack Built, adapted to present circumstances. I'm going to hang out in the cañon till the river goes down, or till I bag some of the goslings from the Blue Goose. Your part is to work whom it may concern into the belief that I've lit out for my health, and meantime to play raven to my Elijah. Are you on?"
"Yes, I'm on," growled Bennie. "On to more than you'll ever be. You have to empty the gab from your head to leave room for your wits."