The One-Way Trail Part 19

"Good, laddie," Peter replied, approving his obvious reasoning. "I'm working on those old Indian yarns, and, according to them, Barnriff must be set right on a mighty rich gold mine."

The calm eyes of the boy brightened. Barnriff on a gold mine!

"An' when you find it?"

Peter's eyes dropped before the other's inquiring gaze. That was the question always before him, but it did not apply to material gold. And when he should find it, what then? Simply his quest would have closed at another chapter. His work for the moment would be finished; and he would once more have to set out on a fresh quest to appease his restless soul. He shook his head.

"We haven't found it yet," he said.

"But when you do?" the boy persisted.

Peter handed him his plate and his coffee, and sat down to his own breakfast. But the boy insisted on an answer.

"Yes?"

"Well, laddie, it's kind of tough answering that. I can't rightly tell you."

"But a gold mine. Gee! You'll be like a Noo York millionaire, with dollars an' dollars to blow in at the saloon."

Again Peter shook his head. His face seemed suddenly to have grown old. His eyes seemed to lack their wonted l.u.s.tre. He sighed.

"I don't want the dollars," he said. "I've got dollars enough; so many that I hate 'em."

Elia gaped at him.

"You got dollars in heaps?" he almost gasped. "Then why are you lookin' for more?"

Peter buried his face in a large pannikin of coffee, and when it emerged the questioning eyes were still upon him.

"Folks guess you're cranked on gold, an' need it bad," the puzzled boy went on. "They reckon you're foolish, too, allus lookin' around where you don't need, 'cause there ain't any there. I've heerd fellers say you're crazy."

Peter laughed right out.

"Maybe they're right," he said, lighting his pipe.

But Elia shook his head shrewdly.

"You ain't crazy. I'd sure know it. Same as I know when a feller's bad--like Will Henderson. But say, Peter," he went on persuasively, "I'd be real glad fer you to tell me 'bout that gold. What you'd do, an' why? I'm real quick understanding things. It kind o' seems to me you're good. You don't never scare me like most folks. I can't see right why----"

"Here, laddie"--Peter leaned his head back on his two locked hands, and propped himself against the pack saddle--"don't you worry your head with those things. But I'll tell you something, if you're quick understanding. Maybe, if other folks heard it--grown folks--they'd sure say I was crazy. But you're right, I'm not crazy, only--only maybe tired of things a bit. It's not gold I'm looking for--that is, in a way. I'm looking for something that all the gold in the world can't buy."

His tone became reflective. He was talking to the boy, but his thoughts seemed suddenly to have drifted miles away, lost in a contemplation of something which belonged to the soul in him alone. He was like a man who sees a picture in his mind which absorbs his whole attention, and drifts him into channels of thought which belong to his solitary moments.

"I'm looking for it day in day out, weeks and years. Sometimes I think I find it, and then it's gone again. Sometimes I think it don't exist; then again I'm sure it does. Yes, there've been moments when I know I've found it, but it gets out of my hand so quick I can't rightly believe I've ever had it. I go on looking, on and on, and I'll go on to my dying day, I s'pose. Other folks are doing much the same, I guess, but they don't know they're doing it, and they're the luckier for it. What's the use, anyway--and yet, I s'pose, we must all work out our little share in the scheme of things. Seems to me we've all got our little 'piece' to say, all got our little bit to do. And we've just got to go on doing it to the end. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's so mighty easy it sets you wondering. Ah, psha!"

Then he roused out of his mood, and addressed himself more definitely to the boy.

"You see, laddie, I don't belong to this country. But I stay right here till I've searched all I know, and so done my 'piece.' Then I'll up stakes and move on. You see, it's no use going back where I belong, because what I'm looking for don't exist there. Maybe I'll never find what I'm looking for--that is to keep and hold it. Maybe, as I say, I'll get it in driblets, and it'll fly away again. It don't much matter. Meanwhile I find gold--in those places folks don't guess it's any use looking. Do you get my meaning?"

The quizzical smile that accompanied his final question was very gentle, and revealed something of the soul of the man.

Elia didn't answer for some moments. He was trying to straighten out the threads of light which his twisted mind perceived. Finally he shook his head. And when he spoke his words showed only too plainly how little he was interested in the other's meaning, and how much his cupidity was stirred.

"And that gold--in Barnriff? When you've found it?"

Peter laughed to think that he had expected the boy to understand him.

How could he--at his age?

"I'll give it to you, laddie--all of it."

"Gee!"

Elia's cold eyes lit with sudden greed.

"But you'd best say nothing to the folks," Peter added slyly. "Don't let 'em know we're looking for anything."

"Sure," cried the boy quickly, with a cunning painful to behold.

"They'd steal it. Will Henderson would."

Peter thought for a moment, and relit his pipe, which had gone out while he was talking.

"You don't like Will, laddie," he said presently, and so blundered into the midst of the boy's greedy reverie.

"I hate him!"

Any joy that the thought of the promised gold might have given him suddenly died out of the dwarf's vindictive heart, and in its place was a raging storm of hatred. Such savage pa.s.sion was his dominating feature. At the best there was little that was gentle in him.

"You hate him because of that night--about the chickens?"

But no answer was forthcoming. Peter waited, and then went on.

"There's something else, eh?"

But the eyes of the boy were fixed upon the now smouldering fire, nor could the other draw them. So he went on.

"Will's your sister's husband now. Sort of your--brother. Your sister's been desperate good to you. You've had everything she could give you, and mind, she's had to work for it--hard. She loves you so bad, she'd hate to see you hurt your little finger--she's mighty good to you. Gee, I wish I had such a sister. Well, now she's got a husband, and she loves him bad, too. I was wondering if you'd ever thought how bad she'd feel if she knew you two were at loggerheads?

You've never thought, have you? Say, laddie, it would break her up the back. It would surely. She'd feel she'd done you a harm--and that in itself is sufficient--and she'd feel she was upsetting Will. And between the two she'd be most unhappy. Say, can't you like him? Can't you make up your mind to get on with him right when he comes back?

Can't you, laddie?"

The boy's eyes suddenly lifted from the fire, and the storm was still in them.

"I hate him!" he snarled like a fierce beast.

"I'm sorry--real sorry."

"Don't you go fer to be sorry," cried the boy, with that strange quickening of all that was evil in him. "I tell you Will's bad. He's bad, an' he sure don't need to be, 'cause it's in him to be good. He ain't like me, I guess. I'm bad 'cause I'm made bad. I don't never think good. I can't. I hate--hate--allus hate. That's how I'm made, see? Will ain't like that. He's made good, but he's bad because he'd rather be bad. He's married my sister because she's a fool, an' can't see where Jim Thorpe's a better man. Jim Thorpe wanted to marry her.

He never said, but I can see. An' she'd have married him, on'y fer Will comin' along. She was kind o' struck on Jim like, an' then Will b.u.t.ts in, an' he's younger, an' better lookin', an' so she marries him. An'--an' I hate him!"