Jessica Trent: Her Life On A Ranch Part 13

"But now Antonio has gone for a month, things will get straightened all out again. When he comes back I'll have that deed to show him, and once he gets it out of his vain head that he is owner and not my mother, he'll get sensible and good again, as he used to be. I wish I liked him better. That would make it easier for me to give up being 'captain'

when the time comes. What makes one love some people and not others, Wolfgang? You ought to know, you've lived a long time."

"The good G.o.d."

"He wouldn't make us dislike anybody. That can't be the right reason."

"Then I know not. Though I am getting old I'm not so wise, little one.

But--ought I? Ought I not?"

"What?"

"Now you hark me. This Ephraim--guess you what that Antonio said of him?"

"How should I? Yes, that's not the truth. But what he said was so dreadful I wouldn't even tell my mother."

"Ach! A child should tell the mother all things. Heed that. It is so we train our Otto."

Jessica laughed.

"Otto is no child. He is a grown man. He is bigger than you. You should not shame him by keeping him a boy always."

"Pst! girl! I would not he heard you, for my life."

"He'll not hear. Elsa is talking. But what did Antonio say about my old 'Forty-niner'?"

"That much went with that old man besides his boots."

"Of course. The feet that were in them, I suppose. Silly Wolfgang, to be so impressed by a sillier Antonio. The boys say his Spanish maxims have little sense in them. That proves it."

"This deed of yours. He said: 'Where Ephraim, the wicked, goes, goes their deed to the land.' And more."

"What more? The cruel, cruel man!"

"That it mattered not already. He would come back, the master. It was his, had always been. My friend--your father--well, it was not we who listened. Nor for once would Elsa make the cup of coffee she was asked.

Not a morsel got he here, save that the little boy ran after him and gave him his own bit swiebach lest he faint by the way. And that was the last word of Antonio Bernal."

Jessica's laughter was past. On her face there was a trouble it grieved her old friend to see, and he hastened to comfort her.

"If one goes, some are left already. Come now to one whose eyes will be cured by a sight of your pretty face."

"To Ephraim?"

"Even so."

He took her hand to lead her, like the tender babe he still considered her, and they pa.s.sed behind the cabin, toward the rickety shaft leading into the mine. At its very mouth stood old Stiffleg, and in her delight the girl gave him, too, one of her abounding hugs, which called a comment from the miner.

"Beasts or humans, all one to your lips. Well, no matter. It's nature.

Some are made that foolish way. As for me--old horses----"

"Wolfgang Winkler, shame! Now, sir, you'll wait till you ask before I kiss you again!"

"Then I ask right quick. Now! Eh? No? Well, before you go then, to prove you bear no malice; and because I'll show you a new vein I didn't show Antonio. Ach! He'll mine his own coal when once he comes--'the master'--as he said! And so I think, though I know not, will all the others say. Sobrante will not be Sobrante with us all gone. So?"

"You'll not be gone. It is my mother's."

"He is big and strong. He can plot evil, I believe."

Wolfgang spoke as if he were disclosing a mystery and not a fact well known to all who really knew the Senor Bernal.

"I will be stronger. He shall not hurt my mother. I will fight the world for her and for my brother!"

The miner had been arranging the rope upon the windla.s.s and now held the rude little car steady with his foot.

"Step in."

"Is he below? Down in the mine?"

"Already."

Jessica needed no second bidding, but leaped lightly into the car and Wolfgang followed her more cautiously. He knew that was a forbidden delight to her, for Mrs. Trent was nervously timid concerning such visits, but, like her, felt that the present circ.u.mstances justified the proceeding. Was not one below in the darkness, nursing a broken heart? And was not it the supreme business of each and all at Sobrante to comfort the sorrowing? How else had he and his been there, so happy and comfortable? So rich, also. Why, Elsa had----

"Lady Jess! Get Elsa to show you the buckskin bag! It has grown as fat as herself since you last saw it. The child will own the mine some day, believe me!"

Moved by the thought he swiftly lowered away, and as the car touched the bottom, the girl sprang out and ran calling in the narrow tunnel:

"Ephraim! My Ephraim! Where are you? I've come for you, I, Jessica!

It's a dreadful mistake. My mother--ah! here you are! Why down in this horrid hole, Ephraim Marsh? You're all shivering, it's so damp and dismal. For shame! To run away from your best friends and never give them a chance to tell you. Whoever wrote that note and sent you off from your own home, it never was my mother. Never! She said so, and it's almost broken her heart."

"It's quite broken mine," said the old frontiersman, sobbing in his relief at having been thus promptly sought and found by his beloved "lady." For he did not know it was quite by accident that she had stumbled on this trace of him, nor did anybody enlighten him. Whether she would have set him right or not she had no chance, for, at that instant, they heard a hoa.r.s.e cry at the mouth of the shaft and saw the car, their only means of ascent, moving swiftly out of reach.

"Heart of grace! Why that? Hark the woman! 'Tis the child! It is the little boy! Harm has befallen and I--the father--I below in the ground!"

In his alarm Wolfgang danced about the narrow s.p.a.ce and wrung his hands, gazing frantically up the shaft, catching hold of his companions and conducting himself altogether like one bereft of common sense. Which behavior was sufficient to restore Ephraim Marsh to his own self-command, and none too soon; for the anxious father had already begun to try the ascent by climbing up the timbered sides when, suddenly, as if propelled by some extraordinary force the car shot downward again. Before it really touched bottom the shrieks had become deafening, and when Elsa jumped out and rushed upon her husband, he clapped his hands to his ears and retreated as far as the chamber permitted.

"She has gone mad, already! The woman is dement! Hark, the clamor!"

Then he remembered his first fear and clutched his wife's arm, which promptly went around his neck and threatened him with suffocation.

"Well, well, I never had no wife, but if I'd had I wouldn't cared to have her choke me to death a-loving me, nor split my ears a-telling me of it," commented "Forty-niner," dryly.

At which Elsa's screams instantly ceased, and she turned her attention upon him.

"Where is it, thief? Give it up, this minute! How could you rob me of my hard-earned money? That was to buy the mine--and the vein runs deep--for my little boy, my child! 'Twas Antonio Bernal, the great man, told us already of the deed you stole! But I believed him not--I. Now, give me my money, my money--money!"

Overcome by her own violent emotion, rather than by any opposition of poor Ephraim's, her hands slid from his shoulders, which she had been shaking as if she would jingle the cash from his pockets, and her plump person settled limply against him for support.

"h.e.l.lo, here, woman! This is a drop too much! Take the creature, Winkler, and find out if you can what in misery ails her. She's clean out of her wits."