The One-Way Trail Part 57

The woman suddenly turned to Peter and buried her face against his rough flannel shirt, while the long-pent tears at last broke forth, and her body shook with sobs. Peter put his arm about her shoulders and patted her gently with his great rough hand.

"This thing is played right out, Doc," he said. "You've got the facts.

Let them be sufficient." He turned to the boys, and his great kindly face was lit with something like a derisive smile. "Do you want a hanging, lads?" he asked them. "Because, out of all this racket, it seems to me there's only one needs the rope, an' that's Smallbones."

He needed no other answer than the harsh laugh which greeted his words. He had done it purposely. He meant to clip Smallbones' wings for him, and, at the same time, put an end to the scene for Eve and his friend.

His success was ample. Doc Crombie walked straight up to Jim Thorpe and held out his hand.

"I'm sorry for things, Jim," he said, "but you can't rightly blame us.

Not even Smallbones."

Jim wrung his hand cordially, but silently. His eyes were still on Eve at Peter's side. The doctor saw his look and understood.

"Guess I'm gettin' right back to the city," he said. "And," he added, authoritatively, "I guess all you'se folks had best git busy that way, too." Then he turned sharply and walked over to his buckboard.

"Smallbones," he said, as he mounted to his seat, "you'll come right along in with me--an' bring that rope."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

GOLD

The gray of dawn had pa.s.sed. Now the rosy light of day was spreading its fresh beauty across the heavens, and gladdening the warming air, and painting afresh with generous brush the rolling, open world below.

Yes, the drab of dawn was past, and, as it was with all Nature about them, the rosy light of hope brushed lightly the weary hearts of those who had just pa.s.sed through the fiery trials of the furnace of despair.

There were three people only standing beneath the tree, under whose shadow a man's life so recently was to have been offered a sacrifice to human justice--two men and a woman. There was something else there, but life had pa.s.sed from it, and it lay there waiting, in the calm patience of the last, long sleep, to return to the clay from which it sprang.

Eve was kneeling beside the deformed body of her poor brother. Her tears were falling fast as she bent over the pale upturned face, even more beautiful still since Death had hugged him to its harsh bosom.

All the woman's pa.s.sionate love and regrets were pouring out over the unconscious clay. His cruelties, his weaknesses were forgotten, brushed away by an infinite love that had no power nor inclination to judge.

She loved him, and he was dead. He was gone beyond her ken; and for the moment in her grief she longed to be with him. In the midst of her tears she prayed--prayed for the poor weak soul, winging its way in the mysterious Beyond. She asked Him that his sins might be forgiven. She prayed Him that the great loving forbearance, so readily yielded to suffering humanity, might be shed upon that weak, benighted soul. She poured out all the longings of her simple woman's heart in a pa.s.sionate prayer that the Great Christ, who had shed His blood for all sinners, would stretch out His saving hand, and take her brother's erring spirit once again to His bosom.

The two men stood by in silence. Their heads were bowed in reverence.

They, too, felt something of the woman's grief.

But presently Peter Blunt raised his head. His kindly blue eyes were full of sympathy. He moved across the intervening gra.s.s, and laid a hand with infinite tenderness upon the woman's shoulder.

"We must take him with us," he said gently.

The woman started, and looked up through her tears.

"Take him? Take him?" she questioned, without understanding.

Peter nodded.

"We'll take him to--his new home."

Eve bowed her head and covered her eyes with her hands.

"He's yours, Eve," the man went on softly. "Shall I?"

The woman nodded silently and rose to her feet. Peter stooped and picked the boy up in his arms to carry him as he had carried him before. Then he moved off and Eve followed him.

Jim hesitated for a moment. It almost seemed as though he had no right to force himself upon the woman's grief. It seemed to him like sacrilege, and yet---- Finally he, too, joined in the silent procession.

They followed whither Peter chose to lead. There was no question. It was not a moment for question. The kindly heart dictated. It was only for the others to acquiesce. Peter, too, perhaps in lesser degree, had loved the boy. But then it was in his nature to love all suffering humanity. He had never had anything but kindness for Elia in life. Now that he was dead his feelings were no less.

So they trailed across the prairie--on, slowly and solemnly on. Their course was marked straight as an arrow's flight in Peter's mind. Nor did he pause till the mound of gravel beside his cutting was reached.

He stood at the brink of the shallow pit. There in its depths lay a broad, jagged, soil-stained ridge. Here and there on its rough surface patches of dazzling white, streaked with the more generous tints of deep red, and blue, and green, showed where the hard-driven pick had split the gold-bearing quartz.

Eve stared wonderingly down. Jim looked on in silent awe. He knew something of that which was in Peter's mind. Peter had found the deposits for which he had so long searched. Here--here was the great reef, round which the Indian stories had been woven.

He laid his burden on the edge of the pit. Then he clambered down into it. He signed to Jim, and the waiting man understood. He carefully pa.s.sed the boy's body to the man below.

Then he stood up, and Eve came to his side. Silently she rested one hand upon his shoulder, and together they watched the other at his work.

With the utmost tenderness Peter laid the boy down on his gravelly bed. They saw that the dead lad's face was turned so that its cheek rested against the cold, auriferous quartz. Then the man untied the silk scarf about his own neck and laid it over the waxen face. Then he stood up and stripped the shoring planks from the walls of the pit, and placed them a solid covering over the boy's body, resting them on two large stones, one at his head and one at his feet. Finally he tested their solidity, and climbed out of the grave.

Now he joined the others, and gazed silently down into the pit. For some moments he stood thus, until presently he glanced across at the eastern sky. A fiery line, like the light of a distant prairie fire, hovered upon the horizon. He knew it was the rising of the sun.

He turned to the still weeping woman.

"Little Eve," he said gently, pointing into the pit. "There's gold lies there. He wanted it, and--and I promised he should have it. Jim,"

he turned, and looked into the dark eyes of his friend, "that poor, weak, suffering lad saved you, because--because you'd been good to him. Well, old lad, I guess now that we've found some of the gold that lies here in Barnriff, we--we must be content. We mustn't take it with us, we mustn't rob those who need. We've found it, so we'll just cover it up again, and hope and pray that it may multiply and bear fruit.

Then we'll mark it with a headstone, so that others may know that this gold is to be found if folks will only seek long enough, and hard enough beneath the surface."

Jim nodded. He understood.

Then, as the great arc of the morning sun lifted above the horizon, both men picked up the shovels lying close by them, and buried forever the treasure Peter had found.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

ON, OVER THE ONE-WAY TRAIL

Eve's door was suddenly pushed open. She did not look up from her sewing-machine. She guessed who her visitor was.

"Sit down, Annie, dear," she said, cordially. "I'll be through with this in a moment."

Her visitor took the proffered chair and smiled, while the busy machine rattled down the last seam of the skirt on which the other was busy.

Eve was very good to look upon, as she bent over her work, and her visitor was well content to wait. Her slight figure was delightfully gracious; her pretty hair, loosely dressed, looked to have all the velvet softness and l.u.s.tre of spun silk. Her face was hidden, but the beautifully moulded outline of her cheek was visible. There was such a wholesome air of purpose in her att.i.tude that it was quite easy to imagine that the shadows of the past had long since faded from her gentle eyes, that youth had again conquered, now that those gray days had lightened to the rosy summer of peace.