The Homesteaders Part 21

"Not a cent," said Gardiner. "As for where I come in, well, dealing with old friends like Riles and the Harrises, I considered that a secondary matter. I fancy that when they feel the profits in their pockets they will be disposed to be not only fair, but generous, and, of course, if I put up part of the money I will expect my share of profit. But I'm not asking for any a.s.surance; I'm just going to leave that to you."

"Well, that's decent, anyway," Harris agreed. "I haven't as much money as I expected, but if we can pull it through it may be all right yet. Of course, you remember that I haven't promised to put up a dollar unless I like the looks of the mine when I see it?" Harris still had qualms of hesitation about entering into a transaction so much out of his beaten path, and he took occasion from time to time to make sure that an avenue of retreat was still open.

"That's the understanding, exactly," Gardiner a.s.sured him. "You're the man with the money, and if you don't like it, don't pay."

Harris at once visited the bank, and returned shortly with the information that the amount, less a somewhat startling percentage for transmission and exchange, was already deposited to his credit.

"Then let us lose no more time," said Gardiner, with enthusiasm. "You will need a team and rig, and you better pack a couple of blankets and some grub. Make the stableman throw in a couple of saddles; you may have to ride the last part of the trip. Riles and I will make it the whole way on horseback." Gardiner then remembered that it would be necessary for him to go back to the ranch and change horses, but he described in detail the road they should take, and a.s.sured them they could not miss it. It was the main road up the river valley--up, and up--and if they drove hard they would reach that night a spot where an old, deserted cabin stood back in a clump of poplars. It would be a good place to spend the night, and Riles and Gardiner would meet them there, if, indeed, they did not overtake them on the road. Neither Harris nor Allan had any fear of a strange trail; they had been bred to a sense of direction and location all their lives, and were confident they would find no difficulty in reaching the rendezvous.

"Better make your own arrangements about the horses," Gardiner whispered as they left the room. "We can't be too careful to keep our business secret."

As they stood for a moment in the waiting-room it occurred to Allan that some shooting might be found in the mountains. "You haven't got a gun you could lend me, I suppose?" he said to Gardiner.

"What do you want a gun for?" Gardiner demanded brusquely.

"Might get a shot at a partridge, or something. No harm in having one along, is there?"

"Oh, no, but I don't expect you'll see anything to justify the trouble. Anyway, I haven't got one."

"There's a shot-gun here," said the hotel clerk, who had overheard the last remarks, "if that would suit you. A Cholly who was taking a short course in poker put it up a few days ago as a stand-off on his eat score. There's ten bones against it; if it's worth that to you, take it."

He handed the gun over the counter, and Allan examined it with interest. He recognized an English weapon of a value out of all proportion to the price asked.

"I'll take it," he said, and paid down the money. There was a momentary darkening of Gardiner's face which n.o.body noticed.

The little party then moved out to the street. Gardiner had regained his smooth manner, and gave some final directions about the road.

"Oh, we'll find it all right," said Allan, in high spirits, "and we'll beat you to the shanty unless you've some faster nags at home than any I see you driving. So long."

"So long," called Gardiner. "So long, and good luck."

"So long, an' good luck," repeated Riles. He was trying to play the game, but, as Gardiner often reminded him, he had no imagination. It would have been quite impossible for Riles, on his own initiative, to have thought of wishing the Harrises "good luck" on the journey they were about to commence...They were interesting types of villains--one, gentlemanly, suave, deep, and resourceful; the other, coa.r.s.e, shallow, slow-witted, and brutal. The offence of one against society was wholly intellectual; of the other, almost wholly physical. Gardiner fully appreciated the difference, and in his heart he felt a contempt and loathing toward Riles which he concealed only as a matter of policy. And he had worked out in his mind a little plan by which Riles, when his usefulness was ended, should be shuffled off without any share in the booty. At present he tolerated him because of necessity. There was work before them for which Riles was peculiarly qualified.

The Harrises went at once to a livery stable, where they arranged for a team and outfit. They then bought some cartridges for the gun, and a small handbag in which to carry the money.

When Harris presented himself at the bank wicket and asked for the full amount to his credit in cash, the sallow-faced teller turned a trifle paler still and slipped into the manager's office. A moment later the manager himself appeared before them.

"That's a pretty heavy order on a country bank, Mr. Harris. Of course we could give it to you in exchange, but to pay twenty thousand dollars or thereabouts in bills will drain us to almost our last dollar. Can't you use a marked cheque, or a draft on a Calgary bank?"

"Well, no," Harris said; "I'm afraid we can't."

"A marked cheque is as good as bills," the banker argued, "and much easier to carry, not to speak of being safer," he added, as an afterthought. "Travelling with that amount of money on you is a sort of defiance of natural law, especially with the country full of strangers, as it is at present." The banker looked from the powerful frame of the farmer to the equally powerful frame of the farmer's son, and his eye fell on the gun which the latter carried under his arm. "But, I guess," he continued with a laugh, "there isn't much danger on that score."

"Nothin' t' speak of," said Harris. "And while I don't want t' break your bank, I do want t' get that money, and t' get it in bills, or part of it in gold an' silver would do. The fact is, I don't mind tellin' you I've a deal on, an' I've undertaken t' put up this money in cash--to-night."

The banker ruminated for a few minutes. Experience had told him that with a certain cla.s.s of men money in bills was more valuable than money in a cheque or draft. The very bulk of the currency seemed to impress them. He had seen an old-timer refuse a twelve-hundred-dollar marked cheque for his property, and yet surrender greedily at the sight of a thousand one-dollar bills piled on a table before him.

This was a trait of human nature found in many persons unaccustomed to the handling of considerable sums of money, and sharp traders considered it good business to take advantage of it. The banker thought he understood why Harris wanted all the money in bills, although the sum was larger than he had ever seen handled in that way before.

A young man emerged from somewhere and locked the front door of the bank.

"It's closing time now," said the teller, addressing the manager. "We have enough cash on hand to pay this gentleman, and we can wire for more bills, which will reach us in time for to-morrow's business."

"Pay it, then," said the manager. "Mr. Harris has a right to his money in that form if he wants it. But," he added, turning to Harris, "I'd advise you to keep both eyes on it until your transaction is completed."

The counting of the money was a bigger task than either Harris or Allan had thought, but at last it was completed, and they were ready for the road. The banker looked after their buggy as it faded out of sight up the river road.

"Hang me if I like that!" he said to himself.

The long drive up the valley in the warm August afternoon was an experience for the soul of painter or poet. Even John and Allan Harris, schooled as they were in the religion of material things, felt something within them responding to the air, and the sunlight, and the dark green banks of trees, and the sound of rushing water, and the purple-blue mountains heaving and receding before them. The sweat trickled in narrow tongues down the backs of their horses, reminding them that the ascent was much steeper than it appeared. As they topped each new ridge they looked expectantly forward to a greater revelation of the mountains, but this was constantly denied by ever-recurring successions of ridges still ahead. The long, smooth swell of the plain gradually gave way to the more abrupt formations of the foothills, and here and there in their rounded domes protruded great warts of green-grey rock where the winds of ages had whipped the sand down into the valleys. Little cl.u.s.ters of green poplars, like vast goatees, nestled on the northern chin of the hills across the valley, where the Chinook had failed to spread its balmy winter-blight among them; here and there were glimpses of thousands of cattle feeding on the brown ranges. The sun, like a bubble of molten gold blown from the bowl of heaven, hung very close in a steel-bright, cloudless sky. Lower it fell, and lower, until a fang of rock two miles high pierced its under-edge, and sent a flood of fire pouring in a thin, bright border along the crest of the Rockies.

The travellers stopped their horses on a ridge to watch the marvellous transformation; light before them, light behind them, at their feet the shadows creeping up the mountain sides, and the valley beneath transformed as by some fairy wand into a sea of amber.

Allan breathed deeply of the high, clear air, and in his eye was something which revealed that the light without had some way struck to new life the slumbering light within. He had no words of expression--no means of conveying his emotion; but he thought of his mother and Beulah--Beulah, who had so often protested against the subst.i.tution of existence for life. He had never had much patience with her queer notions, but now, in this moment when he knew that in some strange way he had invaded the borderland of the Infinite, Beulah stood up before his eyes--Beulah, his sister, resolute, defiant, reaching out, demanding life, life! He turned to his father, but was silenced by the sight of a line of moisture crawling slowly down the weather-beaten cheek. John Harris was driving again the pioneer trail from Emerson; at his side was Mary, young, beautiful, and trusting, and before them lay life...And they had not found that life...He made a dry sound in his throat, and the horses moved on.

Darkness settled about them. One or two stars came out. The poplars took on the colour of the spruce; the river fretted more noisily in its rocky channel. A thin ribbon of cloud lay across the mountains, and a breeze of wonderful mellowness came down through the pa.s.ses.

At length, just as they were thinking of pitching camp for the night, Allan espied a deserted cabin in a cl.u.s.ter of trees by the side of the road. They turned into the wood and unhitched the horses.

The building was some old prospector's shack, long unoccupied save for occasional hunter or rancher, and the mult.i.tude of gophers that had burrowed under its rotting sills. The gla.s.s was gone from a single window looking out upon the road; the door had fallen from its hinges; the floor had been broken down in spots by the hoofs of wandering cattle. A match revealed a lantern hanging on the wall, and a few cooking utensils, safe from all marauders under the unwritten law of the new land.

The two men first made their horses comfortable, and then cooked some supper on a little fire at the door of the shack. Harris was tired, so they cleared a s.p.a.ce in the corner furthest from the door, and spread their blankets there. Harris lay down to rest, the precious bag of money by his side.

"You might as well drop off for a nap," Allan suggested. "They must have been delayed, and may not make it to-night at all. We're here for the night, and you may as well rest if you can. I won't turn in myself until you waken."

"I believe I'll do as you say," his father agreed. "Keep a keen ear an' don't leave the building without wakin' me."

Allan looked out at different times for Gardiner and Riles, but there seemed no sound in all the world save the rushing of water. A cold draught crept along the floor...He fancied his father had fallen into a nap...The night chill deepened, and at length Allan hung a blanket as best he could across the open door. His gun gave him a sense of companionship, and he took it in his hands and sat down beside his father...It was very lean and graceful in his fingers.

While the banker worked in his garden in the long August evening the thought of the two men with a bag full of money kept recurring and recurring in his mind, and smothering the natural pride he felt in his abounding cabbages. True, it was no business of his, but still he could not feel entirely at ease. As he bent over his hoe he heard hoofs clatter in the street, and, looking up, saw the erect form of Sergeant Grey on his well-groomed Government horse. At a signal from the banker the policeman drew up beside the fence.

They talked in low voices for ten minutes. "It may be a wild-goose chase," said the sergeant at last, "but it's worth a try." Half an hour later his horse was swinging in his long, steady stride up the road by the winding river.

CHAPTER XVI

THE HONOUR OF THIEVES

Gardiner and Riles rode only a short distance out of town, then turned their horses into the deep bush, and waited. The afternoon wore on heavily, and the goad of suspense hounded them sorely, but there was nothing to do but wait. It would be a fool's trip, as Gardiner said, to go hunting unless they were a.s.sured of game.

But at last the Harrises' team and buggy milled by. When it had secured a good lead the two hors.e.m.e.n emerged from their covering and took a cross road to Gardiner's ranch.

"We better eat," said Gardiner, and busied himself with starting a fire. "Of course, the cook's out. Fishing, I guess," he continued, as he noticed that Travers' fishing rod was gone from the wall. "Perhaps it's just as well. He might be asking questions."

Riles ate his meal in haste and silence. He was taciturn, moody, and excitable, and made no response to Gardiner's attempts to open conversation upon trivial subjects.

"Upon my soul," said Gardiner at last, "you don't seem any more than enthusiastic. One would think you were going to a funeral, instead of a--a division of profits."