The One-Way Trail Part 8

"No luck," he said. "McLagan's 'bout forty, never sick. Only chance 'accident on ranch.'"

The two men looked blankly at each other.

"Wot set you thinkin'?" inquired the butcher at last.

"Jest nuthin' o' consequence. Thorpe sed as he was givin' a party to a dead friend. He'd got a bottle o' whiskey."

"Ah!" murmured Gay, with an air of relief, returning his note-book to his pocket. "That clears things. He's speakin' metaphoric. I'll git goin', kind o' busy. I ain't sent out the day's meat yet, an' I got to design a grave fixin' fer Restless's last kid. Y'see it's a gratis job, I guess, Restless bein' my pardner, as you might say. So long."

Jim reached Peter Blunt's hut as the carpenter was leaving it. Peter was at the door, and smiled a genial welcome. He and Jim were excellent friends. They were both men who thought. They both possessed a wide knowledge of things which were beyond the focus of the Barnriff people, and consequently they interested each other.

"Howdy, Jim," the giant called to him, as he drew up beside the carpenter.

Jim returned his greeting.

"I'll come along, Peter," he said. "Guess I need a word with Restless first."

"Right-ho."

Jim turned to the man at his side.

"I won't need those buildings," he said briefly.

"But I ordered----"

Jim cut him short.

"I'll pay you anything I owe you. You can let me know how much."

He pa.s.sed on to the hut without waiting for a reply. He had no intention of arguing anything concerning his future plans with Restless.

If the carpenter stood to lose he would see him right--well, there was nothing more about it that concerned him.

Peter was inside his hut examining a litter of auriferous soil on his table when Jim entered. This man's home possessed an unique interior.

It was such as one would hardly have expected in a bachelor in Barnriff. There were none of the usual impedimenta of a prairie man's abode, there was no untidiness, no dirt, no makeshift. Yet like the man himself the place was simple and unpretentious.

There were other signs of the man in it, too. There was a large plain wooden bookcase filled to overflowing with a choice collection of reading matter. There were rows of cla.s.sics in several languages, there was modern fiction of the better kind, there were many volumes of cla.s.sical verse. In short it was the collection of a student, and might well have been a worthy addition to many a more elaborate library.

There were, besides this, several excellent pictures in water-color on the walls, and the absence of all tawdry decoration was conspicuous.

Even the bed, the chair, and the table, plain enough, goodness knows, had an air of belonging to a man of unusual personality.

It would be impossible to describe adequately the manner in which the character of Peter Blunt peeped out at one from every corner of his home, nevertheless it did impress itself upon his every visitor. And its peculiar quality affected all alike. There was a strangely gentle strength about the man that had a way of silencing the most boisterously inclined. He had a quiet humor, too, that was often far too subtle for the cruder minds of Barnriff. But most of all his sympathy was a thing that left no room for self in his thoughts. No one attempted undue familiarity with him; not that he would have been likely to actively resent it, but simply, in his presence n.o.body had any inclination that way. n.o.body could have been more a part of the Barnriff community than Peter Blunt, and yet n.o.body could have been more apart from it.

Peter did not even look up from his labors when his visitor flung himself into the vacant chair. He silently went on with his examination of first one fragment of quartz and then another. And the man in the chair watched him with moody, introspective eyes. It was a long time before either spoke, and when, at last, the silence was broken, it was by Peter's deep mellow voice.

"I'm looking for gold in a heap of dirt, Jim," he said, without lifting his eyes. "It's hard to find, there's such a pile of the--dirt."

"Why don't you wash it?"

"Yes, I s'pose I ought to," Peter allowed.

Then he glanced over, and his mild eyes focused themselves on the bottle protruding from Jim's pocket. For some moments he contemplated it, and then he looked up into his friend's face.

"How's the 'AZ's'?" he inquired casually.

"Oh, all right."

"In for a--vacation?"

Jim stirred uneasily. There was a directness about the other's manner that was disconcerting. He laughed mirthlessly, and shifted his position so that his bottle of whiskey was concealed.

"No," he said. "I'm getting back--sometime to-night."

"Ah." Then Peter went on after a pause: "I'm glad things are going well for you. Restless told me he'd got an order from you for some buildings on your _own_ land."

Jim turned his eyes in the direction of the doorway and found them gazing upon Eve Marsham's little home beyond it. As Peter offered no further comment he was finally forced to reply.

"I've--I've just canceled that order."

"Eh?"

Jim turned on him irritably.

"Confound it, Peter, you heard what I said. I've canceled that order.

Do you get it now?"

The large man nodded. The brains behind his mild eyes were working swiftly, shrewdly.

"Will's in town. Been in since yesterday morning," he said after a while. "Seen him?"

Jim suddenly sprang from his seat, the moody fire of his dark eyes blazing furiously.

"Seen him! Seen him!" he cried, with a sudden letting loose of all the bitterness and smouldering pa.s.sion which had been so long pent up.

"Seen him? I should say I have. I've seen him as he really is. I've seen----"

He broke off and began to pace the room. Peter was still at the table.

His hands were still raking at the pile of dirt. His face was quite unmoved at the other's evident pa.s.sion; only his eyes displayed his interest.

"G.o.d! but the thought of him sets me crazy," Jim went on furiously.

Then he paused, and stood confronting the other. "Peter, I came in here without knowing why on earth I came. I came because something forced me, I s'pose. Now I know what made me come. I've got to get it off my chest, and you've got to listen to it."

Peter's smile was the gentlest thing imaginable.

"Guess that's easy," he said. "I knew there was something you'd got that wasn't good for you to hold. Sort of fancied you'd like to get rid of it--here."

The calm sincerity of the man was convincing. Jim felt its effect without appreciation, for the hot blood of bitterness still drove him.

His wrongs were still heavy upon him, water-logging his better sense, and leaving it rudderless.

He hesitated. It was not that he did not know how to begin. It was not that he had any doubts in his mind. Just for a second he wondered at the strange influence which was forcing his story from him. It puzzled him--it almost angered him. And something of this anger appeared in his manner and tone when he spoke.