Scarlett of the Mounted Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DARTER DON'T LOOK AS IF IT WAS SPELLED RIGHT,"

CRITICIZED BULLY.]

"Oh, I'll make that all right!" The Dandy put the letter in his breast and walked away.

"Ef yer don't may yer sizzle!" Nick called after him. Turning to Durant: "Pard, I'm grateful," he declared, with feeling. "Pard, the best wish I kin give ye is, may ye never need no one ter do the same by you."

"Thanks, Nick. That's all right." Durant looked about him, and seeing that Raish was out of earshot and Blenksoe not in sight, went closer to the Bully and his followers. "Friends, there's something I want to say to you," he began. "It's just this: You've all done me a kindness to my dying day I shan't forget. A fortnight ago, when my girl came into camp expecting to find me living in a diamond-encrusted palace, and I stood there so forlorn she didn't recognize me, a broken-hearted beggar, you who by one word might have p.r.i.c.ked the bubble and humiliated me before her and her before the world, by your silence protected her and me. It was the n.o.blest thing----" His voice broke; he wiped his eyes.

"Thet's all right, Lucky! Brace up, old man!" came from one and another of the group.

"Aye, but now I want you all to hear my good news!" cried Durant, detaining them as they were preparing to go back into the dining-tent to resume their interrupted feast. "_It has all come true!_ With so many grafters and claim-jumpers round I daren't be explicit, but I want you to know that my luck has turned for good and all. Oh, this time it's no pocket; it's the big strike of which I've always dreamed. I don't deserve it, some may think, after playing with my girl's credulity, yet for her sake I thank G.o.d with all my heart that I've won out! Till it's staked and recorded I know you'll all keep my secret--but, boys, every one of you is in it, the Rainbow Mine!"

The same wonderful delicacy that had marked their treatment of Evelyn did not fail her father. The Bully and his gang listened to this speech in respectful silence, at its conclusion crying, "Great! Good for you, old man! You done grand! Allus knew you'd git thar fer keeps! Sure!

Betcherlife! That's what!" with every evidence of conviction and spontaneous joy. But as he walked off, Durant laughed. He did not need to look back to know that fingers were being pointed after him, winks interchanged and foreheads tapped significantly, with comment that found food for mirth, even while it deplored: "Off his nut fer fair.

Balmy on the crumpet. Bats in his belfry. Qualifying for Queer Street.

Plumb crazy. Poor old Lucky!"

Well, let them think so, bless them, since another day would set them right and prove him all he claimed to be. And then nothing gold could procure would be too good for them, nothing--this rough crew, more beast than man, that had yet behaved like more than man to his deceived, defenceless girl.

That hour--its memory was seared upon his very soul--the hour of Evelyn's arrival in camp that had witnessed the deepest degradation, followed immediately by the crowning justification and triumph of his career. He visualized it now, as he walked: In the Klondike Delmonico's, in her role of Lady Bountiful, Evelyn was dispensing hospitality right and left. He alone, her father, dared not enter in. Crushed, crazed, he walked back to the spot where he had left young Pierce. Him he found still brooding beneath the huge pine, dazed, amid the ruin of his own air castles. Then for one bad moment Durant went really mad. Picking up the gun he had dropped when an irresistible force drew him to go watch the incoming stage, he turned its deadly charge against his fevered brain.

With a cry, Walter sprang forward, but not before old Blenksoe, who had been watching his a.s.sociate's actions curiously, seized him, capturing the gun. "No yer don't, blast yer!"

"Give it to me, Blenksoe! Of what use is my life to you?"

"Lucky you've been afore, and lucky you may be yet, and when the luck turns I'm in it, see?"

"Give it to me!" With a madman's fury, Durant leaped at the other's throat, only to be met by a blow that sent him reeling to the ground with such force that a young willow bush he clutched at was partially uprooted. For a few seconds he lay p.r.o.ne, foaming at the mouth and clawing the soil with frenzied impotency. Then of a sudden he paused, raised himself, face still downturned, and burst into insane laughter that made Pierce's blood run cold.

"Mad! Stark, starin' mad!" Blenksoe turned on his heel.

"There's a squirrel on yonder tree I could bring down for the dogs'

supper if you'd give me back my gun, Blenksoe," his laughter spent, Durant meekly suggested as he scrambled to a sitting posture.

"Fetch her with a stun," was the succinct reply, as, retaining his partner's weapon, Blenksoe re-entered the tent.

Acting on the suggestion, Durant gathered up a handful of clots, selecting them carefully, and with deliberate aim took long shots at the chattering creature on the bough.

"Sit here, beside me, close, Walter," in an undertone he bade the young clerk, who still was gazing at him in horrified bewilderment. "But don't start or show the slightest surprise at what I am going to say. Oh, tut, tut, lad, never fear!" For Pierce seemed disinclined to comply with his command. "I am not mad. That is all over, thank G.o.d! with all the struggle, the heartbreak. _The luck has turned_, do you hear? Yes, turned for good and all! Every clot that I am throwing contains gold!--careful!" For involuntarily Walter had given vent to an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of amazed incredulity. "Oh, I'm an old prospector, and I see indications, and read signs where these grafters pa.s.s them by. I've always believed in this locality, and now I'm justified. In uprooting that willow I unearthed a bonanza!" Pausing in his speech, he renewed his attempts on the squirrel's life, and then went on: "Yes, each dull handful of earth I throw is a priceless witness that beneath us, on this spot, lies the Rainbow Mine----" Breaking off, as he observed old Blenksoe watching him narrowly, he rose as if discouraged, with a sigh.

"My hand shakes. I'm no match to-day even for a squirrel. I'll have to give it up." Then, cleverly simulating the foolishly detailed actions of one who, having lost his grasp on the great things of life, clutches at the trivialities, he set about replanting the willow, stamping down the disordered earth about its roots, meanwhile in a pregnant undertone continuing his conversation with Walter.

The latter, so between them it was arranged, was to hang about the locality, watching for a chance, un.o.bserved, to pick up the valuable clots, and these he was to have exchanged for their cash value, for current expenses, at a bank so distant that their source could not be predicated with any degree of accuracy--a precaution that Durant deemed essential in a district where even officialdom was likely to be corrupted by the l.u.s.t for gold. He himself, meanwhile, would watch his opportunity, and disappear, without leaving a trace, from Lost Shoe Creek, as if madness had indeed possessed him, in order to throw Blenksoe off the scent and cause him also to move on, since, as Durant rightly conjectured, the pastmaster of graft would not be likely to remain in any spot which he thought Lucky had turned down. To-day Walter was to meet him here, return with him to the scene of his discovery, aid him in staking it, by stealth; journey to the nearest office where recording-books were opened, to file the claim with the necessary fee, while Durant himself would remain, defending the stakes, if need be, with his life. Once his rights legally safeguarded, all the world might know. Again Durant laughed in joyful antic.i.p.ation of his meeting with Evelyn, when confession and revelation would come in the same breath.

Then, impatiently, he looked up and down the trail, wondering at Pierce's delay on this day of days, when he heard a low moan among the bushes, and, turning, beheld the young man on whose co-operation such high hopes depended, lying, bedded in furs, upon a sled, swathed in bandages, pallid--a dying man.

"My G.o.d! Walter, my poor lad, what does this mean?" exclaimed Durant, in horrified accents.

Another moan was the only answer, but reading in the glazing eyes a wish to speak, Durant knelt down and bent so that his ear touched the stiff lips.

"What is it, Walter?"

"The samples," the young man at last managed to articulate. "The mine----"

"Aye, the mine--the samples!" cried Durant, with frantic eagerness. But Walter's confession never reached the man he had betrayed. A sudden darkness came over Durant. He struggled, but his grasp was pinioned from behind. He tried to cry aloud, but his voice was m.u.f.fled. Swift, treacherous hands seized him, gagged him, bound him fast, bore him off, blind, mute, a prisoner!

XI

AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE

With an effort regaining the composure unwontedly ruffled by Scarlett's audacious response to her challenge as to an Irishman's method of love-making, while adjusting hat and hair, whose order, as she blushingly was conscious, had suffered from the same cause, Evelyn hurried toward the fir-encircled spot where she saw Dandy Raish awaiting her.

A fellow-pa.s.senger aboard the boat that had brought her party up the Alaskan coast, Travers had lost no chance to ingratiate himself with Evelyn by rendering her all manner of un.o.btrusive service, so that his letter, requesting this appointment, at an out-of-the-way place under conditions of absolute secrecy, while exciting her curiosity, caused her no alarm. The matter to which he had mysteriously alluded, as of supreme importance to herself and her father, she had a.s.sumed to refer to Durant's vast mining interests. She took it for granted that the obliging Mr. Travers was bearer of a remittance that would enable her to defy Scarlett's absurd advice in favor of roughing it, and enable her to resume her wonted style of luxurious living.

To escape awkward questions, she had decided to turn the expedition into a day's outing that should include Sarah and her young companions, thus giving her meeting with Travers the appearance of chance. Scarlett's unforeseen presence on the scene only added a piquancy to the occasion, in her eyes, since she thought it might furnish her with an opportunity to put down that estimable but altogether too masterful young man. That the opportunity would land her in the young man's arms was something she had not reckoned with.

As Travers watched her speeding toward him with glowing cheeks and eyes, a lovely picture of blossoming young womanhood between the wintry ground and summer sky, something leaped to life in the Dandy's breast that made it a hard task for him to greet her with the grave impersonal politeness it was his policy to a.s.sume, and determined him more than ever to cut out "that blasted Scarlett."

After formal salutations had been exchanged, he remarked: "I think I saw you speaking with some one in uniform, Miss Durant. I trust it was not a member of the Mounted Police?"

"It was Sergeant Scarlett."

"Good heavens! Scarlett, of all men! May I hope you did not mention our appointment to him?"

"My appointments are my own affair, Mr. Travers. Please let us get to the matter in hand without delay. What is it you have to say to me?"

"I am more anxious than you possibly can be for haste, since to you the matter is but one of temporary inconvenience, while to carry it through I am risking my very life. But before we go any further I must have your sacred promise that what I say is in inviolable confidence."

"Confidences between you and me, Mr. Travers! Aren't you making too much of what is probably some ordinary business matter; taking rather an undue advantage of my complaisance in granting you this interview?"

"Miss Durant, you wrong me. I tell you that in seeking you I have nothing to gain, everything to lose; life, honor, everything! I am running this tremendous risk--not, as you think, because you are a woman, young, rich, beautiful; but because I owe a debt of grat.i.tude, that only life could pay, to your dear father."

"My dear father! You come from him? Then he knows of my arrival! Why isn't he here himself to welcome me?" Evelyn's questions came rushing eagerly.

"Miss Durant, he cannot come. He is a prisoner."

"A prisoner! What do you mean?" she faltered.

"A captive, rather; held by a gang of desperados for ransom."

"G.o.d in heaven!" Evelyn went white. "My daddy!"

"You are faint!" Raish went to her side, supporting her.

"No, no! Thanks, I am all right." Evelyn drew away. "But your pledge of secrecy--why, it is preposterous! Every one should be told. The alarm given--rewards offered--the country roused!" She moved forward as she spoke.

"No, no! Not as you value his life!" Raish held her back. "Listen. One incautious word, and your father is a dead man. There are spies about us--everywhere. That is why I got you to meet me here--Miss Durant, believe me, by raising the hue and cry you will sound your father's death-knell."