Scarlett of the Mounted Part 3

"Tut, tut, man; that's but a flea bite in the ocean, as one of our Irish philosophers remarked. There's a regularly organized band of thieves--aye, who don't stick at murder, either--that hold up stages, terrorize the whole community, and play the d.i.c.kens generally. The sc.u.m of all nationalities, their headquarters are across the boundary in Uncle Sam's domain, while their field of operations is the whole Northwest. The thing is to identify them, catch them redhanded in our precincts."

"A Herculaneum task, me lordship--Sergeant, I should say--and more, since that gintleman had only twelve impossibilities to conquer!"

"Och, Hercules! I'd sooner any day be a whole man than just half a G.o.d like Hercules! Any able-bodied son of Erin should be able to match Hercules, except in the snake-strangling trick, since divvle an example did Saint Patrick leave us to practice on."

"Thrue," a.s.sented Barney. "Many's the dhrink I've laid on it that the only snakes an Irishman is capable of behoulding is all in his own eye."

"Don't ye be looking for them that way on duty. Keep your vision for two-legged crawlers. There was a fellow here, just now, who, if faces are incriminating testimony, stands twenty times convicted in the dark, or I'm a duffer in face-palmistry."

"Why not begin with the rope's end, Sergeant?"

"No, no, man! We must even make haste slowly, as some old Roman of an Irishman remarked. I'll just wander on, as if looking for a job, and if any one inquires about me, give me what character ye please!"

"Faith, sorr, since fair play demands reciprocity on both sides, I'll d.a.m.n ye for a blockhead!"

"Go ahead," laughed Scarlett. Breaking off, he inquired: "Now who's this chee-charka coming up the trail?"

III

LUCKY DURANT

The lagging pace of the young man who was approaching, his weary stoop under a light pack he carried, miner-wise, upon his shoulders, confessed him all too surely the tenderfoot Scarlett had described him.

With a bewildered stare at the congeries of squalid tents and cabins that comprised the camp, he accosted Barney.

"Surely this can't be Lost Shoe Creek?" "Maybe it can't be, but that's phwat it does be, me lad!"

"It's so different from what I expected."

"Ye were antic.i.p.ating skysc.r.a.pers? In these parts we build downwards for gold--and both ways lead equally far from heaven, I'm thinking."

"Well, though not skysc.r.a.pers, I certainly had looked for something more imposing. Can you direct me to the office, or residence, of Mr. Matthew Durant?"

"Durant!" Involuntarily, Barney and Scarlett exchanged a glance of surprise.

"Office or residence, indade! 'Tis myself would like to be directed to the man," replied the former.

"Oh, but surely you know him!" cried the newcomer. "I mean Matthew Durant, owner of the wonderful Rainbow Mine!"

At this juncture the elderly man who had been spoken of by one of his brother prospectors as Lucky, came hurrying toward them from the tent, and addressed himself to Barney. "The Dominie has just announced that you have mail for one Matthew Durant, officer. I am he."

Before Barney could reply the young tenderfoot had darted forward with a threatening gesture. "You Durant, indeed, you miserable fraud! I know Mr. Durant well," he turned to Barney to explain. "I was employed in the New York bank where he keeps his daughter's account, and many is the chat I've had with him. Why, I've resigned my position and spent every penny I'd saved to come out here to beg him to put me in the way of making my fortune, as he has done, scooping gold out of the earth. The idea of this beggarly imposter pretending to be Durant, owner of the Rainbow Mine!"

A sad smile crossed the worn features of the claimant. "I must indeed be changed if Walter Pierce does not know me."

At the sound of his voice the young man started, but gazed at the unshorn face, the poverty-stricken figure, unconvinced.

"Ye have some means of identification, perhaps?" suggested Barney, in all good faith. "A strawberry mark, or a lock of your sainted mother's hair?"

Durant thought a moment. "No one here knows me by the name. But, wait! I have a picture of my daughter Evelyn, whom Walter will recognize. Evelyn will bear witness that I'm her own dear daddy." He felt in his breast, but not finding what he sought, gave a smothered cry. "Lost--my little Evie, have I lost you?"

"This is herself, I'm thinking!" Scarlett held out the miniature. "I found her on this spot, putting the wild roses to the blush."

"Thank you--thank you! Evie!" Durant covered the portrait with kisses.

"Which was to be proved," remarked Barney, conclusively, handing Durant his mail. "There's a thrifle av duty to pay on it, sorr."

Durant's expectant hand dropped to his side. "I--I'm rather down on my luck just now," he faltered.

While Barney hesitated between conscience and good will, Scarlett whispered in his ear. "Good!" he then exclaimed. "The Sergeant will settle it, Misther Durant. I mean," he corrected himself as Scarlett kicked his leg, "it is already settled. Me man here," he indicated his superior, "a great blockhead ordinarily, but with lucid intervals, reminds me that the duty was prepaid beforehand in advance."

When the soldiers had moved away, Walter Pierce found his voice. "Then you are Durant. But where, where, where is the wonderful Rainbow Mine?"

"Where it always has been--in the clouds!"

"Good heavens, do you mean to say it is all a fraud?"

"Less that than a fiction," amended the older man. "Sit here and I'll tell you all about it." He sank wearily on the ground, leaning against a huge pine tree, and when Walter had placed himself beside him, began his strange tale. "Oh, the money has been no fraud, as your bank can testify. I'm an old miner--a born prospector, with a nose for gold--and I've always had streaks of luck; I've always made my pile, in California, Colorado, and up here in Canada. But it has only been a rich pocket here and there. I've never managed to develop a proposition into a paying claim, or a paying claim into an exhaustless mine. But whenever I've had a big clean-up I've blown it all in, as your born miner invariably does, trusting to luck for the morrow. Some miners blow it in on cards, drink--on worthless properties--but I've had only one extravagance--my daughter. My wife always had vast ambitions, and when the wife died she pa.s.sed them on to me for our only child. To educate Evelyn, to have her brought up a flower of civilization, that always has been my dream, as I have roughed it in camps or tramped over glaciers, through forests, sleeping under the stars. And so I sent the little one to school in 'Frisco, Chicago, New York, with a European polishing off.

And somehow, the further East she traveled the grander her notions grew--and as for myself, on my flying visits to her I took pride in seeing my girl hold her own with the daughters of oil, beef and railways trusts, and then with the daughters of princes of the Old World. And the luck held out. However grand Evie's whims, I always had the stuff to back her--and I always lived in hopes that any turn of the pick and shovel would yield me, not merely a rich clean-up, but the inexhaustible fortune that is every miner's dream. And so, between what Evie took for granted and what I told her, half in jest, there grew up this fable of the Rainbow Mine. But this season--I suppose it is my punishment for my deception--the luck has turned clean against me. The gold is here in the earth, as it always has been--but I've lost my knack of finding it. The old earth no longer trusts me with her secrets." He groaned, covering his face with his rough, knotted hands for a minute, during which young Pierce exclaimed, bitterly:

"Then what is to become of me?"

"Ah, well!" Recovering composure, Durant rose. "It won't do to loaf. I'm sorry for your disappointment, Walter. And the worst is, I can't do much for you; can't show you any hospitality. In order to maintain life till the luck turns, I am sharing the outfit of a chap named Blenksoe. That's he, yon." He indicated a man of evil aspect, who was lounging at the entrance of a rude hut nearby. "Blenksoe is grub-staking me through a superst.i.tion about my luck. But Blenksoe is a bad lot. You must not have anything to do with him."

"But what in the world am I to do?" cried Pierce. "I tell you, I am penniless--penniless!"

"You must work," Durant admonished. "You must get employment on a lay--that is, you must induce some one to let you help work his claim on shares. I'll teach you the trick of panning gold."

"But if gold-dust can be taken out by the dish-pan," cried Walter, with bulging eyes, "why should any one go poor?"

"You young fool! First you have to find in which patch out of desert areas of mud and cobblestone the gold-dust hides. And then you have to pay the Government for the privilege of staking, working it. Look along the banks of this creek. As far as eye can see every inch of pay-dirt is claimed, staked, defended, not only by law, but by miners' justice, with a shooting-iron. In a mining camp human life ain't worth a d.a.m.n, as you'll find if you trespa.s.s on another man's claim, or if he should take a fancy to yours. Just be content if, for the present, by working eighteen hours of daylight during the twenty-four, during the short summer, you can pay your way."

"Good heavens!" again cried Pierce. "Then are the stories of gold all a fable? Surely many fortunes are made up here?"

"Surely," replied Durant, "and lost here, too. Every Klondike camp is the garden for a score of fortunes, and the graveyard of a thousand hopes. Well, I must go get pick and shovel." He moved toward his tent.

"I must go out on the hills, prospecting. Thank G.o.d, I left my girl a tidy sum in the bank--and before that is spent her daddy will have found her Rainbow Mine--or will die like a trail-dog in the traces!"

"I ought to tell you----" Walter detained him. "That money--Miss Durant has drawn it, every penny."

"Eh!" exclaimed Durant. "Are you sure?"

"It was that which set me thinking about coming up here myself. I heard her telling the cashier. You haven't paid her a visit for three years; accordingly, she intends coming to visit you as a surprise."

"A surprise! My G.o.d!" gasped the unhappy man.