CHAPTER XII
Figs and Thistles
Though Zephyr had not explained his plan of operations in detail, Firmstone found no difficulty in comprehending it. It was of prime importance to have the river watched by an absolutely trustworthy man, and Firmstone was in no danger of having an embarrassing number from whom to choose. A day or two of cold, cloudy weather was liable to occur at any time, and this, checking the melting of the snow, would lower the river to a point where it would be possible to search for, and to recover the safe.
It was with a feeling of relief that he tacitly confided the guarding of the river to Zephyr. While he offered no opposition to Zephyr's carrying out his scheme of having his mysterious disappearance reported, he was fully satisfied that it would not deceive Pierre for an instant. Firmstone, however, was deceived in another way. It was a case of harmless self-deception, the factors of which were wholly beyond his control. His reason assured him unmistakably that Hartwell would start at once for Colorado on learning of the loss of the bullion, and that the manager would be a hindrance in working out his plans, if indeed he did not upset them entirely.
Firmstone's confidence in his ability to emerge finally triumphant from his troubles came gradually to strengthen his hope into the belief that he would be let alone. A telegram could have reached him within a week after he had reported the loss, but none came. He was now awaiting a letter.
The bridge had been repaired, and travel resumed. A meagre account of the accident had been noted in the Denver, as well as in the local papers, but no hint was given that it was considered otherwise than as an event incidental to mountain travel. The miraculous escape of the driver was the sole item of interest. These facts gratified Firmstone exceedingly. Pierre was evidently satisfied that the cards were in his own hands to play when and as he would. He was apparently well content to sit in the game with Firmstone as his sole opponent. Firmstone was equally well content, if only —
There came the sharp click of the office gate. Inside the railing stood a slender man of medium height, slightly stooped forward. On his left arm hung a light overcoat. From a smooth face, with a mouth whose thin lips oscillated between assumed determination and cynical half-smiles, a pair of grey eyes twinkled with a humorously tolerant endurance of the frailties of his fellow-men.
"Well, how are you?" The gloved right hand shot out an accompaniment to his words.
Firmstone took the proffered hand.
"Nothing to complain of. This is something of a surprise." This was true in regard to one mental attitude, but not of another. Firmstone voiced his hopes, not his judgment.
"It shouldn't be." The eyes lost their twinkle as the mouth straightened to a line. "I'm afraid you hardly appreciate the gravity of the situation. The loss of $50,000 is serious, but it's no killing matter to a company with our resources. It's the conditions which make such losses possible."
"Yes." Firmstone spoke slowly. The twinkle was in his eyes now. "As I understand it, this is the first time conditions have made such a loss possible."
The significance of the words was lost on Hartwell. The possibility of a view-point other than his own never occurred to him.
"We will not discuss the matter now. I shall be here until I have straightened things out. I have brought my sister with me. Her physician ordered a change of air. Beatrice, allow me to introduce my superintendent, Mr. Firmstone."
A pink and white face, with a pair of frank, blue eyes, looked out from above a grey travelling suit, and acknowledged the curt introduction.
"I am very happy to meet you." Firmstone took the proffered hand in his own.
Miss Hartwell smiled. "Don't make any rash assertions. I am going to be here a long time. Where are you going, Arthur?" She turned to her brother, who, after fidgeting around, walked briskly across the room.
"I'll be back directly. I want to look after your room. Make yourself comfortable for a few minutes." Then addressing Firmstone, "I suppose our quarters upstairs are in order?"
"I think so. Here are the keys. Or will you allow me?"
"No, thanks. I'll attend to it." Hartwell took the keys and left the room.
Firmstone turned to Miss Hartwell.
"What kind of a trip did you have out?"
"Delightful! It was hot and dusty across the plains, but then I didn't mind. It was all so new and strange. I really had no conception of the size of our country before."
"And here, even, you are only a little more than half way across."
"I know, but it doesn't mean much to me."
"Does the altitude trouble you?"
"You mean Marshall Pass?"
"Yes. In part, but you know Denver is over five thousand feet. Some people find it very trying at first."
"Perhaps I might have found it so if I had stopped to think. But I had something else to think of. You know I had a ridiculous sensation, just as if I were going to fall off the world. Now you speak of it, I really think I did gasp occasionally." She looked up smilingly at Firmstone. "I suppose you are so accustomed to such sights that my enthusiasm seems a bore."
"Do you feel like gasping here?"
"No; why do you ask?"
"Because you are a thousand feet higher than at Marshall Pass, and here we are three thousand feet below the mine. You would not only have the fear of falling off from the world up there, but the danger of it as well."
Miss Hartwell looked from the office window to the great cliff that rose high above its steep, sloped talus.
"I told Arthur that I was going to see everything and climb everything out here, but I will think about it first."
"I would suggest your seeing about it first. Perhaps that will be enough."
Hartwell bustled into the room with a preoccupied air. "Sorry to have kept you waiting so long."
Miss Hartwell followed her brother from the room and up the stairs.
"Make yourself as comfortable as you can, Beatrice. I gave you full warning as to what you might expect out here. You will have to look out for yourself now. I shall be very busy; I can see that with half an eye."
"I think if Mr. Firmstone is one half as efficient as he is agreeable you are borrowing trouble on a very small margin." Miss Hartwell spoke with decided emphasis.
"Smooth speech and agreeable manners go farther with women than they do in business," Hartwell snapped out.
"I hope you have a good business equipment to console yourself with."
Hartwell made no reply to his sister, but busied himself unstrapping her trunk.
"Dress for supper as soon as you can. You have an hour," he added, looking at his watch.
Hartwell did not find Firmstone on re-entering the office. He seated himself at the desk and began looking over files of reports of mine and mill. Their order and completeness should have pleased him, but, from the frown on his face, they evidently did not.
Firmstone, meanwhile, had gone to the cook-house to warn Bennie of his coming guests, and to advise the garnishing of the table with the whitest linen and the choicest viands which his stores could afford.
"What sort of a crowd are they?" Bennie inquired.
"You'll be able to answer your own question in a little while. That will save you the trouble of changing your mind."
"'Tis no trouble at all, sir! It's a damned poor lobster that doesn't know what to do when his shell pinches!"
Firmstone, laughing, went to the mill for a tour of inspection before the supper hour. Entering the office a little later, he found Hartwell at his desk.
"Well," he asked, "how do you find things?"
Hartwell's eyes were intrenched in a series of absorbed wrinkles that threw out supporting works across a puckered forehead.
"It's too soon to speak in detail. I propose to inform myself generally before doing that."
"That's an excellent plan."
Hartwell looked up sharply. Firmstone's eyes seemed to neutralise the emphasis of his words.
"Supper is ready when you are. Will Miss Hartwell be down soon?"
Miss Hartwell rustled into the room, and her brother led the way to the cook-house.
Bennie had heeded Firmstone's words. Perhaps there was a lack of delicate taste in the assortment of colours, but scarlet-pinks, deep red primroses, azure columbines, and bright yellow mountain sunflowers glared at each other, each striving to outreach its fellow above a matted bed of mossy phlox. Hartwell prided himself, among other things, on a correct eye.
"There's a colour scheme for you, Beatrice; you can think of it in your next study."
Bennie was standing by in much the same attitude as a suspicious bumble-bee.
"Mention your opinion in your prayers, Mr. Hartwell, not to me. They're as God grew them. I took them in with one sweep of my fist."
Miss Hartwell's eyes danced from Firmstone to Bennie.
"Your cook has got me this time, Firmstone." Hartwell grinned his appreciation of Bennie's retort.
They seated themselves, and Bennie began serving the soup. Hartwell was the last. Bennie handed his plate across the table. They were a little cramped for room, and Bennie was saving steps.
"It's a pity you don't have a little more room here, Bennie, so you could shine as a waiter."
"Good grub takes the shortest cut to a hungry man with no remarks on style. There's only one trail when they meet."
Hartwell's manner showed a slight resentment that he was trying to conceal. "This soup is excellent. It's rather highly seasoned" – he looked slyly at Bennie – "but then there's no rose without its thorns."
"True for you. But there's a hell of a lot of thorns with the roses, I take note. Beg pardon, Miss!"
Miss Hartwell laughed. "You have had excellent success in growing them together, Bennie."
"Thank you, Miss!" Bennie was flushed with pleasure. "I've heard tell that there were roses without thorns, but you're the first of the kind I've seen."
Bennie had ideas of duty, even to undeserving objects. Consequently, Hartwell's needs were as carefully attended to as his sister's or Firmstone's, but in spite of all duty there is a graciousness of manner that is only to be had by a payment in kind. Bennie paraded his duty as ostentatiously as his pleasure, and with the same lack of words. Hartwell noted, and kept silence.
Hartwell looked across to the table which Bennie was preparing for the mill crew.
"Do you supply the men as liberally as you do your own table, Firmstone?"
"Just the same."
"Don't think I want to restrict you, Firmstone. I want you to have the best you can get, but it strikes me as a little extravagant for the men."
Bennie considered himself invaded.
"The men pay for their extravagance, sir."
"A dollar a day only, with no risks," Hartwell tendered, rather stiffly.
"I'll trade my wages for your profits," retorted Bennie, "and give you a commission, and I'll bind myself to feed them no more hash than I do now!"
The company rose from the table. For the benefit of Miss Hartwell and Firmstone, Bennie moved across the room with the dignity of a drum-major, and, opening the door, bowed his guests from his presence.
CHAPTER XIII
The Stork and the Cranes
In spite of Élise's declaration that she would see him again, Firmstone dropped her from his mind long before he reached his office. She had been an unexpected though not an unpleasant, incident; but he had regarded her as only an incident, after all. Her beauty and vivacity created an ephemeral interest; yet there were many reasons why it promised to be only ephemeral. The Blue Goose was a gambling, drinking resort, a den of iniquity which Firmstone loathed, a thing which, in spite of all, thrust itself forward to be taken into account. How much worse than a den of thieves and a centre of insurrection it was he had never stated to himself. He, however, would have had no hesitancy in completing the attributes of the place had he been asked. The fact that the ægis of marriage vows spread its protecting mantle over the proprietor, and its shadow over the permanent residents, would never have caused a wavering doubt, or certified to the moral respectability of the contracting parties. Firmstone was not the first to ask if any good thing could come out of Nazareth, or if untarnished purity could dwell in the tents of the Nazarenes. It occasionally happens that a stork is caught among cranes and, even innocent, is compelled to share the fate of its guilty, though accidental, associates.
Thus it happened that when Élise, for the second time, met Firmstone at the falls he hardly concealed his annoyance. Élise was quick to detect the emotion, though innocence prevented her assigning it its true source. There was a questioning pain in the large, clear eyes lifted to Firmstone's.
The look of annoyance on Firmstone's face melted. He spoke even more pleasantly than he felt.
"Well, what I can do for you this time?"
"You can go away from my place and stay away!" Élise flashed out.
Firmstone's smile broadened.
"I didn't know I was a trespasser."
"Well, you are! I had this place before you came, and I'm likely to have it after you are gone!" The eyes were snapping.
"You play Cassandra well." Firmstone was purposely tantalising. He was forgetting the cranes, nor was he displeased that the stork had other weapons than innocence.
Élise's manner changed.
"Who is Cassandra?"
The eager, hungry look of the changing eyes smote Firmstone. The bantering smile disappeared. It occurred to him that Élise might be outdoing her prototype.
"She was a very beautiful lady who prophesied disagreeable things that no one believed."
Élise ignored the emphasis which Firmstone unconsciously placed on beautiful. She grew thoughtful, endeavouring to grasp his analogy.
"I think," she said, slowly, "I'm no Cassandra." She looked sharply at Firmstone. "Daddy says you're going; Mo-reeson says you're going, and they put their chips on the right number pretty often."
Firmstone laughed lightly.
"Oh, well, it isn't for daddy and Morrison to say whether I'm to go or not."
"Who's this Mr. Hartwell?" Élise asked, abruptly.
"He's the man who can say."
"Then you are up against it!" Élise spoke with decision. There was a suggestion of regret in her eyes.
"These things be with the gods." Firmstone was half-conscious of a lack of dignity in seeming to be interested in personal matters, not intended for his immediate knowledge. Several times he had decided to end the episode, but the mobile face and speaking eyes, the half-childish innocence and unconscious grace restrained him.
"I don't believe it." Élise looked gravely judicial.
"Why not?"
"Because God knows what he's about. Mr. Hartwell doesn't; he is only awfully sure he does."
Firmstone chuckled softly over the unerring estimate which Élise had made. He began gathering up the reins, preparatory to resuming his way. Élise paid no attention to his motions.
"Don't you want to see my garden?" she asked.
"Is that an invitation?"
"Yes."
"You are sure I'll not trespass?"
Élise looked up at him.
"That's not fair. I was mad when I said that."
She turned and hurriedly pushed through the matted bushes that grew beside the stream. There was a kind of nervous restlessness which Firmstone did not recall at their former meeting. They emerged from the bushes into a large arena bare of trees. It was completely hidden from the trail by a semicircle of tall spruces which, sweeping from the cliff on either side of the fall, bent in graceful curves to meet at the margin of the dividing brook. Moss-grown boulders, marked into miniature islands by cleaving threads of clear, cold water, were half hidden by the deep pink primroses, serried-massed about them. Creamy cups of marshmallows, lifted above the succulent green of fringing leaves, hid the threading lines of gliding water. On the outer border clustered tufts of delicate azure floated in the thin, pure air, veiling modest gentians. Moss and primrose, leaf and branch held forth jewelled fingers that sparkled in the light, while overhead the slanting sunbeams broke in iridescent bands against the beaten spray of the falling water. The air, surcharged with blending colours, spoke softly sibilant of visions beyond the power of words, of exaltation born not of the flesh, of opening gates with wider vistas into which only the pure in heart can enter. The girl stood with dreamy eyes, half-parted lips, an unconscious pose in perfect harmony with her surroundings.
As Firmstone stood silently regarding the scene before him he was conscious of a growing regret, almost repentance, for the annoyance that he had felt at this second meeting. Yet he was right in harbouring the annoyance. He felt no vulgar pride in that at their first meeting he had unconsciously turned the girl's open hostility to admiration, or at least to tolerance of himself. But she belonged to the Blue Goose, and between the Blue Goose and the Rainbow Company there was open war. Suppose that in him Élise did find a pleasure for which she looked in vain among her associates; a stimulant to her better nature that hitherto had been denied her? That was no protection to her. Even her unconscious innocence was a weapon of attack rather than a shield of defence. She and she alone would be the one to suffer. For this reason Firmstone had put her from his mind after their first meeting, and for this reason he had felt annoyance when she had again placed herself in his path. But this second meeting had shown another stronger side in the girl before him. That deep in her nature was an instinct of right which her surroundings had not dwarfed. That this instinct was not to be daunted by fear of consequences. She had evidently come to warn him of personal danger to himself. This act carried danger – danger to her, and yet she apparently had not hesitated. Perhaps she did not realise the danger, but was he to hold it of less value on that account? Was he to accept what she gave him, and then through fear of malicious tongues abandon her to her fate without a thought? The idea was revolting, but what could he do? His lips set hard. There must be a way, and he would find it, however difficult. In some way she should have a chance. This chance must take one of two forms: to leave her in her present surroundings, and counteract their tendencies by other influences, or, in some way, to remove her from the Blue Goose.
Firmstone was deeply moved. He felt that his course of action must be shaped by the calmest judgment, if Élise were to be rescued from her surroundings. He must act quickly, intelligently. If he had known of her real parentage he would have had no hesitancy. But he did not know. What he saw was Élise, the daughter of Pierre and Madame. To him they were her parents. Whatever opportunities he offered her, however much she might desire to avail herself of them, they could forbid; and he would be helpless. Élise was under age; she was Pierre's, to do with as he would. This was statute law. Firmstone rebelled against it instinctively; but it was hopeless. He knew Pierre, knew his greed for gold, his lack of scruple as to methods of acquiring it. He did not know Pierre's love for Élise; it would not have weighed with him had he known. For he was familiar with Pierre's class. Therefore he knew that Pierre would rather see Élise dead than in a station in life superior to his own, where she would either despise him or be ashamed of him. It was useless to appeal to Pierre on the ground of benefit to Élise. This demanded unselfish sacrifice, and Pierre was selfish.
Firmstone tried another opening, and was confronted with another danger. If Pierre suspected that efforts were being made to weaken his hold on Élise there was one step that he could take which would forever thwart Firmstone's purpose. He had threatened to take this step. Firmstone's pulses quickened for a moment, then calmed. His course was clear. The law that declared her a minor gave her yet a minor's rights. She could not be compelled to marry against her own wishes. Élise must be saved through herself. At once he would set in motion influences that would make her present associates repugnant to her. The strength of mind, the hunger of soul, these elements that made her worth saving should be the means of her salvation. Should Pierre attempt to compel her marriage, even Firmstone could defeat him. Persuasion was all that was left to Pierre. Against Pierre's influence he pitted his own.
"Where is Zephyr?" Élise broke the silence.
"Why do you ask?" The Blue Goose was in the ascendant. Firmstone was casting about for time. The question had come from an unexpected direction.
"Because he is in danger, and so are you."
"In danger?" Firmstone did not try to conceal his surprise.
"Yes." Élise made a slightly impatient gesture. "It's about the stage. They will kill him. You, too. I don't know why."
"They? Who are they?"
"Morrison and Daddy."
"Did they know you would meet me to-day?"
"I don't know, and I don't care."
"You came to warn me?"
"Yes."
Firmstone stretched out his hand and took hers.
"I cannot tell you how much I thank you. But don't take this risk again. You must not. I will be on my guard, and I'll look out for Zephyr, too." He laid his other hand on hers.
At the touch, Élise looked up with hotly flaming cheeks, snatching her hand from his clasp. Into his eyes her own darted. Then they softened and drooped. Her hand reached for his.
"I don't care. I can take care of myself. If I can't, it doesn't matter." Her voice said more than words.
"If you are ever in trouble you will let me know?" Firmstone's hand crushed the little fingers in a tightening grasp.
"Zephyr will help me."
Firmstone turned to go.
"I cannot express my thanks in words. In another way I can, and I will."