Gordon Keith Part 34

Wickersham looked her in the eyes.

Business was only a convenient excuse. Old Halbrook could have attended to the business; but he preferred to come himself. Possibly she could guess the reason? He looked handsome and sincere enough as he leant over and gazed in her face to have beguiled a wiser person than Phrony.

She, of course, had not the least idea.

Then he must tell her. To do this he found it necessary to sit on the sofa close to her. What he told her made her blush very rosy again, and stammer a little as she declared her disbelief in all he said, and was sure there were the prettiest girls in the world in New York, and that he had never thought of her a moment. And no, she would not listen to him--she did not believe a word he said; and--yes, of course, she was glad to see any old friend; and no, he should not go. He must stay with them. They expected him to do so.

So Ferdy sent to Ridgely for his bags, and spent several days at Squire Rawson's, and put in the best work he was capable of during that time.

He even had the satisfaction of seeing Phrony treat coldly and send away one or two country b.u.mpkins who rode up in all the bravery of long broad-cloth coats and kid gloves.

But if at the end of this time the young man could congratulate himself on success in one quarter, he knew that he was balked in the other.

Phrony Tripper was heels over head in love with him; but her grandfather, though easy and pliable enough to all outward seeming, was in a land-deal as dull as a ditcher. Wickersham spread out before him maps and plats showing that he owned surveys which overlapped those under which the old man claimed.

"Don't you see my patents are older than yours?"

"Looks so," said the old man, calmly. "But patents is somethin' like folks: they may be too old."

The young man tried another line.

The land was of no special value, he told him; he only wanted to quiet their t.i.tles, etc. But the squire not only refused to sell an acre at the prices offered him, he would place no other price whatever on it.

In fact, he did not want to sell. He had bought the land for mountain pasture, and he didn't know about these railroads and mines and such like. Phrony would have it after his death, and she could do what she wished with it after he was dead and gone.

"He is a fool!" thought Wickersham, and set Phrony to work on him; but the old fellow was obdurate. He kissed Phrony for her wheedling, but told her that women-folks didn't understand about business. So Wickersham had to leave without getting the lands.

The influx of strangers was so great now at Gumbolt that there was a stream of vehicles running between a point some miles beyond Eden, which the railroad had reached, and Gumbolt. Wagons, ambulances, and other vehicles of a nondescript character on good days crowded the road, filling the mountain pa.s.s with the cries and oaths of their drivers and the rumbling and rattling of their wheels, and filling Mr. Gilsey's soul with disgust. But the vehicle of honor was still "Gilsey's stage." It carried the mail and some of the express, had the best team in the mountains, and was known as the "reg'lar." On bad nights the road was a little less crowded. And it was a bad night that Ferdy Wickersham took for his journey to Gumbolt.

Keith had been elected marshal, but had appointed Dave Dennison his deputy, and on inclement nights Keith still occasionally relieved Tim Gilsey, for in such weather the old man was sometimes too stiff to climb up to his box.

"The way to know people," said the old driver to him, "is to travel on the road with 'em. There is many a man decent enough to pa.s.s for a church deacon; git him on the road, and you see he is a hog, and not of no improved breed at that. He wants to gobble everything": an observation that Keith had some opportunity to verify.

Terpsich.o.r.e appeared suddenly to have a good deal of business over in Eden, and had been on the stage several times of late when Keith was driving it, and almost always took the box-seat. This had occurred often enough for some of his acquaintances in Gumbolt to rally him about it.

"You will have to look out for Mr. Bluffy again," they said. "He's run J. Quincy off the track, and he's still in the ring. He's layin' low; but that's the time to watch a mountain cat. He's on your track."

Mr. Plume, who was always very friendly with Keith, declared that it was not Bluffy, but Keith, who had run him off the track. "It's a case where virtue has had its reward," he said to Keith. "You have overthrown more than your enemy, Orlando. You have captured the prize we were all trying for. Take the goods the G.o.ds provide, and while you live, live. The epicurean is the only true philosopher. Come over and have a c.o.c.ktail?

No? Do you happen to have a dollar about your old clothes? I have not forgotten that I owe you a little account; but you are the only man of soul in this--Gehenna except myself, and I'd rather owe you ten dollars than any other man living."

Keith's manner more than his words shut up most of his teasers. Nothing would shut up J. Quincy Plume.

Keith always treated Terpsich.o.r.e with all the politeness he would have shown to any lady. He knew that she was now his friend, and he had conceived a sincere liking for her. She was shy and very quiet when a pa.s.senger on his stage, ready to do anything he asked, obedient to any suggestion he gave her.

It happened that, the night Wickersham chose for his trip to Gumbolt, Keith had relieved old Gilsey, and he found her at the Eden end of the route among his pa.s.sengers. She had just arrived from Gumbolt by another vehicle and was now going straight back. As Keith came around, the young woman was evidently preparing to take the box-seat. He was conscious of a feeling of embarra.s.sment, which was not diminished by the fact that Jake Dennison, his old pupil, was also going over. Jake as well as Dave was now living at Gumbolt. Jake was in all the splendor of a black coat and a gilded watch-chain, for he had been down to the Ridge to see Miss Euphronia Tripper.

It had been a misty day, and toward evening the mist had changed into a drizzle.

Keith said to Terpsich.o.r.e, with some annoyance:

"You had better go inside. It's going to be a bad night."

A slight change came over her face, and she hesitated. But when he insisted, she said quietly, "Very well."

As the pa.s.sengers were about to take their seats in the coach, a young man enveloped in a heavy ulster came hurriedly out of the hotel, followed by a servant with several bags in his hands, and pushed hastily into the group, who were preparing to enter the coach in a more leisurely fashion. His hat partly concealed his face, but something about him called up memories to Keith that were not wholly pleasant.

When he reached the coach door Jake Dennison and another man were just on the point of helping in one of the women. The young man squeezed in between them.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

The two men stood aside at the polite tone, and the other stepped into the stage and took the back seat, where he proceeded to make himself comfortable in a corner. This, perhaps, might have pa.s.sed but for the presence of the women. Woman at this mountain Eden was at a premium, as she was in the first.

Jake Dennison and his friend both a.s.serted promptly that there was no trouble about three of the ladies getting back seats, and Jake, putting his head in at the door, said briefly:

"Young man, there are several ladies out here. You will have to give up that seat."

As there was no response to this, he put his head in again.

"Didn't you hear? I say there are some ladies out here. You will have to take another seat."

To this the occupant of the stage replied that he had paid for his seat; but there were plenty of other seats that they could have. This was repeated on the outside, and thereupon one of the women said she supposed they would have to take one of the other seats.

Women do not know the power of surrender. This surrender had no sooner been made than every man outside was her champion.

"You will ride on that back seat to Gumbolt to-night, or I'll ride in Jim Digger's hea.r.s.e. I am layin' for him anyhow." The voice was Jake Dennison's.

"And I'll ride with him. Stand aside, Jake, and let me git in there.

I'll yank him out," said his friend.

But Jake was not prepared to yield to any one the honor of "yanking."

Jake had just been down to Squire Rawson's, and this young man was none other than Mr. Ferdy Wickersham. He had been there, too.

Jake had left with vengeance in his heart, and this was his opportunity.

He was just entering the stage head foremost, when the occupant of the coveted seat decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and announced that he would give up the seat, thereby saving Keith the necessity of intervening, which he was about to do.

The ejected tenant was so disgruntled that he got out of the stage, and, without taking any further notice of the occupants, called up to know if there was a seat outside.

"Yes. Let me give you a hand," said Gordon, leaning down and helping him up. "How are you?"

Wickersham looked at him quickly as he reached the boot.

"h.e.l.lo! You here?" The rest of his sentence was a malediction on the barbarians in the coach below and a general consignment of them all to a much warmer place than the boot of the Gumbolt stage.

"What are you doing here?" Wickersham asked.

"I am driving the stage."

"Regularly?" There was something in the tone and look that made Keith wish to say no, but he said doggedly: