The Claim Jumpers - Stewart Edward White
"Will you tell me the legend?"
"Not now; some time. We must go now, for it will soon be dark."
They wandered along the ridge toward Deerfoot Gulch in silence. She had
taken her sunbonnet off, and was enjoying the cool of the evening. He
carried the rifle over the crook of his arm, and watched her pensive
face. The poor little chipmunk lay stiffening in the cleft of the rock,
forgotten. The next morning a prying jay discovered him and carried him
away. He was only a little chipmunk after all--a very little
chipmunk--and nobody and nothing missed him in all the wide world, not
even his mate and his young, for mercifully grief in the animal world
is generally short-lived where tragedies are frequent. His life meant
little. His death----
At the dip of the gulch they paused.
"I live just down there," she said, "and now, good-night."
"Mayn't I take you home?"
"Remember your promise."
"Oh, very well."
She looked at him seriously. "I am going to ask you to do what I have
never asked any man before," she said slowly--"to meet me. I want you
to come to the rock to-morrow afternoon. I want to hear more about New
York."
"Of course I'll come," he agreed delightedly. "I feel as if I had known
you years already."
They said good-bye. She walked a few steps irresolutely down the
hillside, and then, with a sudden impulsive movement, returned. She
lifted her face gravely, searchingly to his.
"I like you," said she earnestly. "You have kind eyes," and was gone
down through the graceful alder saplings.
Bennington stood and watched the swaying of the leaf tops that marked
her progress until she emerged into the lower gulch. There she turned
and looked back toward the ridge, but apparently could not see him,
though he waved his hand. The next instant Jim Fay strolled into the
"park" from the direction of Lawton's cabin. Bennington saw her spring
to meet him, holding out both hands, and then the two strolled back
down the gulch talking earnestly, their heads close together.
Why should he care? "Mary, Mary, Mary!" he cried within himself as he
hurried home. And in remote burial grounds the ancient de Laneys on
both sides turned over in their lead-lined coffins.
CHAPTER VI
BENNINGTON AS A MAN OF BUSINESS
That evening Old Mizzou returned from town with a watery eye and a mind
that ran to horses.
"He is shore a fine cayuse," he asserted with extreme impressiveness.
"He is one of them broncs you jest _loves_. An' he's jes 's cheap! I
likes you a lot, sonny; I deems you as a face-card shore, an' ef any
one ever tries fer to climb yore hump, you jest calls on pore Old
Mizzou an' he mingles in them troubles immediate. You must have that
cayuse an' go scoutin' in th' hills, yo' shore must! Ol' man
Davidson'll do th' work fer ye, but ye shore must scout. 'Taint healthy
not t' git exercise on a cayuse. It shorely ain't! An' you must git t'
know these yar hills, you must. They is beautiful an' picturesque, and
is full of scenery. When you goes back East, you wants to know all
about 'em. I wouldn't hev you go back East without knowin' all about
'em for anythin' in the worl', I likes ye thet much!"
Old Mizzou paused to wipe away a sympathetic tear with a rather
uncertain hand.
"Y' wants to start right off too, thet's th' worst of it, so's t' see
'em all afore you goes, 'cause they is lots of hills and I'm 'feared
you won't stay long, sonny; I am that! I has my ideas these yar claims
is no good, I has fer a fact, and they won't need no one here long, and
then we'll lose ye, sonny, so you mus' shore hev that cayuse."
Old Mizzou rambled on in like fashion most of the evening, to
Bennington's great amusement, and, though next morning he was quite
himself again, he still clung to the idea that Bennington should
examine the pony.
"He is a fine bronc, fer shore," he claimed, "an' you'd better git
arter him afore some one else gits him."
As Bennington had for some time tentatively revolved in his mind the
desirability of something to ride, this struck him as being a good
idea. All Westerners had horses--in the books. So he abandoned
_Aliris: A Romance of all Time_, for the morning, and drove down to
Spanish Gulch with Old Mizzou.
He was mentally braced for devilment, but his arch-enemy, Fay, was not
in sight. To his surprise, he got to the post office quite without
molestation. There he was handed two letters. One was from his parents.
The other, his first business document, proved to be from the mining
capitalist. The latter he found to inclose separate drafts for various
amounts in favour of six men. Bishop wrote that the young man was to
hand these drafts to their owners, and to take receipts for the amounts
of each. He promised a further installment in a few weeks.
Bennington felt very important. He looked the letter all over again,
and examined the envelope idly. The Spanish Gulch postmark bore date of
the day before.
"That's funny," said Bennington to himself. "I wonder why Mizzou didn't
bring it up with him last night?" Then he remembered the old man's
watery eye and laughed. "I guess I know," he thought.
The next thing was to find the men named in the letter. He did not know
them from Adam. Mizzou saw no difficulty, however, when the matter was
laid before him.
"They're in th' Straight Flush!" he asserted positively.
This was astounding. How should Old Mizzou know that?
"I don't exactly know," the old man explained this discrepancy, "but
they generally is!"
"Don't they ever work?"
"Work's purty slack," crawfished Davidson. "But I tells you I don't
_know_. We has to find out," and he shuffled away toward the saloon.
Anybody but Bennington would have suspected something. There was the
delayed letter, the supernatural knowledge of Old Mizzou, the absence
of Fay. Even the Easterner might have been puzzled to account for the
crowded condition of the Straight Flush at ten in the morning, if his
attention had not been quite fully occupied in posing before himself as
the man of business.
When Mizzou and his companion entered the room, the hum of talk died,
and every one turned expectantly in the direction of the newcomers.
"Gents," said Old Mizzou, "this is Mr. de Laney, th' new sup'rintendent
of th' Holy Smoke. Mr. de Laney, gents!"
There was a nodding of heads.
Every one looked eagerly expectant. The man behind the bar turned back
his cuffs. De Laney, feeling himself the centre of observation, grew
nervous. He drew from his pocket Bishop's letter, and read out the five
names. "I'd like to see those men," he said.
The men designated came forward. After a moment's conversation, the six
adjourned to the hotel, where paper and ink could be procured.
After their exit a silence fell, and the miners looked at each other
with ludicrous faces.
"An' he never asked us to take a drink!" exclaimed one sorrowfully.
"That settles it. It may not be fer th' good of th' camp, Jim Fay, but
I reckons it ain't much fer th' harm of it. I goes you."
"Me to," "and me," "and me," shouted other voices.
Fay leaped on the bar and spread his arms abroad.
"Speech! Speech!" they cried.
"Gentlemen of the great and glorious West!" he began. "It rejoices me
to observe this spirit animating your bosoms. Trampling down the finer
feelings that you all possess to such an unlimited degree, putting
aside all thought of merely material prosperity, you are now prepared,
at whatever cost, to ally yourselves with that higher poetic justice
which is above barter, above mere expediency, above even the ordinary
this-for-that fairness which often passes as justice among the effete
and unenlightened savages of the East. Gentlemen of the great and
glorious West, I congratulate you!"
The miners stood close around the bar. Every man's face bore a broad
grin. At this point they interrupted with howls and cat-calls of
applause. "Ain't he a _peach_!" said one to another, and composed
himself again to listen. At the conclusion of a long harangue they
yelled enthusiastically, and immediately began the more informal
discussion of what was evidently a popular proposition. When the five
who had been paid off returned, everybody had a drink, while the
newcomers were made acquainted with the subject. Old Mizzou, who had
listened silently but with a twinkle in his eye, went to hunt up
Bennington.
They examined the horse together. The owner named thirty dollars as his
price. Old Mizzou said this was cheap. It was not. Bennington agreed to
take the animal on trial for a day or two, so they hitched a lariat
around its neck and led it over to the wagon. After despatching a few
errands they returned to camp. Bennington got out his ledger and
journal and made entries importantly. Old Mizzou disappeared in the
direction of the corral, where he was joined presently by the man
Arthur.
CHAPTER VII
THE MEETING AT THE ROCK
On his way to keep the appointment of the afternoon, Bennington de
Laney discovered within himself a new psychological experience. He
found that, since the evening before, he had been observing things
about him for the purpose of detailing them to his new friend. Little
beauties of nature--as when a strange bird shone for an instant in
vivid contrast to the mountain laurel near his window; an unusual
effect of pine silhouettes near the sky; a weird, semi-poetic
suggestion of one of Poe's stories implied in a contorted shadow cast
by a gnarled little oak in the light of the moon--these he had noticed
and remembered, and was now eager to tell his companion, with full
assurance of her sympathy and understanding. Three days earlier he
would have passed them by.
But stranger still was his discovery that he had _always_ noticed such
things, and had remembered them. Observations of the sort had
heretofore been quite unconscious. Without knowing it he had always
been a Nature lover, one who appreciated the poetry of her moods, one
who saw the beauty of her smiles, or, what is more rare, the greater
beauty of her frown. The influence had entered into his being, but had
lain neglected. Now it stole forth as the odour of a dried balsam bough
steals from the corner of a loft whither it has been thrown carelessly.
It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it.
He did so. After a little he told her about _Aliris: A Romance of all
Time_, in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main
idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her. He
was very young, you see, and very inexperienced; he threw himself
generously, without reserve, on this girl's sympathies in a manner of
which, assuredly, he should have been quite ashamed. Only the very
young are not ashamed.
The girl listened, at first half amused. Then she was touched, for she
saw that it was sincere, and youthful, and indicative of clear faith
in what is beautiful, and in fine ideals of what is fitting. Perhaps,
dimly, she perceived that this is good stuff of which to make a man,
provided it springs from immaturity, and not from the sentimentalism of
degeneracy. The loss of it is a price we pay for wisdom. Some think the
price too high.
As he talked on in this moonshiny way, really believing his ridiculous
abstractions the most important things in the world, gradually she too
became young. She listened with parted lips, and in her great eyes the
soul rose and rose within, clearing away the surface moods as twilight
clears the land of everything but peace.
He was telling of the East again with a certain felicity of
expression--have we not said he had the gift of words?--and an abandon
of sentiment which showed how thoroughly he confided in the sympathy of
his listener. When we are young we are apt to confide in the sympathy
of every listener, and so we make fools of ourselves, and it takes us a
long time to live down our reputations. As we grow older, we believe
less and less in its reality. Perhaps by and by we do not trust to
anybody's sympathy, not even our own.
"We have an old country place," he was saying; "it belonged to my
grandfather. My grandfather came by it when the little town was very
small indeed, so he built an old-fashioned stone house and surrounded
it with large grounds." He was seeing the stone house and the large
grounds with that new inner observation which he had just discovered,
and he was trying to the best of his ability to tell what he saw. After
a little he spoke more rhythmically. Many might have thought he spoke
sentimentally, because with feeling; but in reality he was merely
trying with great earnestness for expression. A jarring word would have
brought him back to his everyday mood, but for the time being he was
wrapt in what he saw. This is a condition which all writers, and some
lovers, will recognise. "Now the place is empty--except in
summer--except that we have an old woman who lives tucked away in one
corner of it. I lived there one summer just after I finished college.
Outside my window there was an apple tree that just brushed against
the ledge; there were rose vines, the climbing sort, on the wall; and
then, too, there was a hickory tree that towered 'way over the roof. In
the front yard is what is known all over town as the 'big tree,' a
silver maple, at least twice as tall as the house. It is so broad that
its shade falls over the whole front of the place. In the back is an
orchard of old apple trees, and trellises of big blue grapes. On one
side is a broad lawn, at the back of which is one of the good
old-fashioned flower gardens that does one good to look at. There are
little pink primroses dotting the sod, sweet-william, lavender,
nasturtiums, sweet peas, hollyhocks, bachelor's buttons, portulaca, and
a row of tall sunflowers, the delight of a sleepy colony of hens. I
learned all the flowers that summer." He clasped his hands comfortably
back of his head and looked at her. She was gazing out over the Bad
Lands to the East. "In the very centre, as a sort of protecting nurse
to all the littler flowers," he went on, "is a big lilac bush, and
there the bees and humming birds are thick on a warm spring day. There
are plenty of birds too, but I didn't know so many of them. They
nested everywhere--in the 'big tree,' the orchard, the evergreens, the
hedges, and in the long row of maple trees with trunks as big as a
barrel and limbs that touch across the street."
"It must be beautiful!" said the girl quietly without looking around.
Then he began to "suppose." This, as every woman knows, is dangerous
business.
"It _was_ beautiful," said he. "I can't tell you about it. The words
don't seem to fit some way. I wish you could see it for yourself. I
know you'd enjoy it. I always wanted some one with me to enjoy it too.
Suppose some way we were placed so we could watch the year go by in
those deep windows. First there is the spring and the birds and the
flowers, all of which I've been talking about. Then there is the
summer, when the shades are drawn, when the shadows of the roses wave
slowly across the curtains, when the air outside quivers with heat, and
the air inside tastes like a draught of cool water. All the bird songs
are stilled except that one little fellow still warbles, swaying in
the breeze on the tiptop of the 'big tree,' his notes sliding down the
long sunbeams like beads on a golden thread. Then we would read
together, in the half-darkened 'parlour,' something not very deep, but
beautiful, like Hawthorne's stories; or we would together seek for
these perfect lines of poetry which haunt the memory. In the evening we
would go out to hear the crickets and the tree toads, to see the night
breeze toss the leaves across the calm face of the moon, to be silenced
in spirit by the peace of the stars. Then the autumn would come. We
would taste the 'Concords' and the little red grapes and the big red
grapes. We would take our choice of the yellow sweetings, the hard
white snow apples, or the little red-cheeked fellows from the west
tree. And then, of course, there are the russets! Then there are the
pears, and all the hickory nuts which rattle down on us every time the
wind blows. The leaves are everywhere. We would rake them up into big
piles, and jump into them, and 'swish' about in them. How bracing the
air is! How silvery the sun! How red your cheeks would get! And think
of the bonfires!"
"And in winter?" murmured the girl. Her eyes were shining.
"In the winter the wind would howl through the 'big tree,' and
everything would be bleak and cold out doors. We would be inside, of
course, and we would sit on the fur rug in front of the fireplace,
while the evening passed by, watching the 'geese in the chimney' flying
slowly away."
"'Suppose' some more," she begged dreamily. "I love it. It rests me."
She clasped her hands back of her head and closed her eyes.
The young man looked quietly about him.
"This is a wild and beautiful country," said he, "but it lacks
something. I think it is the soul. The little wood lots of the East
have so much of it." He paused in surprise at his own thoughts. His
only experiences in the woods East had been when out picnicking, or
berrying, and he had never noticed these things. "I don't know as I
ever thought of it there," he went on slowly, as though trying to be
honest with her, "but here it comes to me somehow or another." A little
fly-catcher shot up from the frond below, poised a moment, and dropped
back with closed wings.
"Do you know the birds?" she asked.
"I'm afraid not," he admitted; "I don't really _know_ much about
Nature, but I love it, and I'm going to learn more. I know only the
very common birds, and one other. Did you ever hear the hermit thrush
sing?"
"Never."
"Oh!" he cried in sudden enthusiasm, "then there is another 'suppose'
for us, the best of all."
"I love the dear old house!" she objected doubtfully.
"But the hermit thrush is better. The old country minister took me to
hear him one Sunday afternoon and I shall never forget it."
She glanced at his animated face through half-closed eyes.
"Tell me," she urged softly.
"'Suppose' we were back East," he began, "and in the country, just
about this time of year. We would wait until the afternoon--why! just
about this time, when the sun is getting low. We would push through the
bushes at the edge of the woods where the little tinkling birds sing in
the fence corners, and would enter the deep high woods where the trees
are tall and still. The moss is thick and soft in there, and there are
little pools lying calm and dark, and there is a kind of a _hush_ in
the air--not silence, you know, but like when a big crowd of people are
keeping still. And then we would walk very carefully, and speak low,
and we would sit by the side of a fallen log and wait. After a while
the thrush would sing, a deep note, with a thrill in it, like a bell
slow and solemn. When you hear it you too feel a thrill as though you
had heard a great and noble thought. Why, it is almost _holy_!"
He turned to the girl. She was looking at him.
"Why, hullo!" he exclaimed, "what's the matter?"
Her eyes were brimming with tears.
"Nothing," she said. "I never heard a man talk as you have been
talking, that is all. The rest of them are cynical and hard and cold.
They would be ashamed to say the things you have said. No, no!" she
cried, laying her hand on his arm as he made a little uneasy movement,
"do not misunderstand me. I like it. I love it. It does me good. I had
lost faith. It is not nice to know the other kind--well."
"You speak bitterly," he expostulated.
She laughed. "It is a common experience enough. Pray that you may never
know it. I began as a little child, loving and trusting every one, and
giving my full free heart and confidence to every one who offered his
best to me. All I can say is, that I am thankful for you that you have
escaped the suffering such blind trust leads to."
She laughed again, bitterly, and threw her arms out.
"I suppose I shall go on trusting people forever. It's in my nature,
and I can't help it."
"I hope you will feel you can trust me," said he, troubled at this
passion so much beyond his experience. "I would do anything for you."
"Do! do!" she cried with contempt. "Yes. Any number of people will _do_
anything for me. I want some one to _be_ for me!"
"I'm so sorry!" he said simply, but with great feeling.
"Don't pity me, don't believe in me!" she cried suddenly in a passion.
"I am not worth it. I am cruel and hard and cold, and I'll never care
for anybody in any way. My nature has been hardened. I _can't_ be good.
I can't care for people. I _can't_ think of giving way to it. It
frightens me."
She burst into sudden tears and sobbed convulsively. In a moment she
became calm. Then she took her hands from her eyes and smiled. In the
distress of his sympathy Bennington thought he had never seen anything
more beautiful than this breaking forth of the light.
"You must think I am a very peculiar young person," she said, "but I
told you I was a mystery. I am a little tired to-day, that's all."
The conversation took a lighter tone and ran on the subject of the new
horse. She was much interested, inquiring of his colour, his size, his
gaits, whether he had been tried.
"I'll tell you what we will do," she suggested; "we'll go on an
expedition some day. I have a pony too. We will fill up our saddlebags
and cook our own dinner. I know a nice little place over toward Blue
Lead."
"I've one suggestion to add," put in Bennington, "and that is, that we
go to-morrow."
She looked a trifle doubtful.
"I don't know. Aren't we seeing a good deal of each other?"
"Oh, if it is going to bore you, by all means put it off!" cried
Bennington in genuine alarm.
She laughed contentedly over his way of looking at it. "I'm not tired
then, so please you; and when I am, I'll let you know. To-morrow it
is."
"Shall I come after you? What time shall I start?"
"No, I'd rather meet you somewhere. Let's see. You watch for me, and
I'll ride by in the lower gulch about nine o'clock."
"Very well. By the way, the band's going to practise in town to-night.
Don't you want to go?"
"I'd like to, but I promised Jim I'd go with him."
"Jim?"
"Jim Fay."
Bennington felt this as a discordant note.
"Do you know him very well?" he asked jealously.
"He's my best friend. I like him very much. He is a fine fellow. You
must meet him."
"I've met him," said Bennington shortly.
"Now you must go," she commanded, after a pause. "I want to stay here
for a while." "No," as he opened his mouth to object. "I mean it!
Please be good!"
After he had gone she sat still until sundown. Once she shook her
shoulders impatiently. "It is _silly_!" she assured herself. As before,
the shadow of Harney crept out to the horizon's edge. There it
stopped. Twilight fell.
"No Spirit Mountain to-night," she murmured wistfully at last. "Almost
do I believe in the old legend."
CHAPTER VIII
AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT
After supper that night Bennington found himself unaccountably alone in
camp. Old Mizzou had wandered off up the gulch. Arthur had wandered off
down the gulch. The woman had locked herself in her cabin.
So, having nothing else to do, he got out the manuscript of _Aliris: A
Romance of all Time_, and read it through carefully from the beginning.
To his surprise he found it very poor. Its language was felicitous in
some spots, but stilted in most; the erudition was pedantic, and
dragged in by the ears; the action was idiotic; and the proportions
were padded until they no longer existed as proportions. He was
astounded. He began to see that he had misconceived the whole treatment
of it. It would have to be written all over again, with the love story
as the ruling _motif_. He felt very capable of doing the love story.
He drew some paper toward him and began to write.
You see he was already developing. Every time a writer is made to
appreciate that his work is poor he has taken a step in advance of it.
Although he did not know that was the reason of it, Bennington
perceived the deficiencies of _Aliris_, because he had promised to read
it to the girl. He saw it through her eyes.
The young man became absorbed in redescribing the heroine with violet
eyes. A sudden slamming of the door behind him brought him, startled,
to his feet. He laughed, and was about to sit down again, but noticed
that the door had remained open. He arose to shut it. Over the trunks
of the nearer pines played a strange flickering light, throwing them
now into relief, now into shadow. "Strange!" murmured Bennington to
himself, and stepped outside to investigate. As he crossed the sill he
was seized on either side.
He cried out and struggled blindly, but was held as in a vice. His
captors, whom he dimly perceived to be large men in masks, whirled him
sharply to the left, and he found himself face to face with a third
man, also masked. Beyond him were a score or so more, some of whom bore
pine torches, which, partly blazing and partly smoking, served to cast
the weird light he had seen flickering on the tree trunks. Perfect
silence reigned. The man with whom Bennington was fronted eyed him
gravely through the holes in his mask.