The Spoilers Part 14

"I met a feller this mornin' that's workin' on the Midas," the old man resumed. "He came in town fer a pair of gum boots, an' he says they've run into awful rich ground--so rich that they have to clean up every morning when the night shift goes off 'cause the riffles clog with gold."

"Think of it!" Glenister growled. "If we had even a part of one of those clean-ups we could send Wheaton outside."

In the midst of his bitterness a thought struck him. He made as though to speak, then closed his mouth; but his partner's eyes were on him, filled with a suppressed but growing fire. Dextry lowered his voice cautiously:

"There'll be twenty thousand dollars in them sluices to-night at midnight."

Glenister stared back while his pulse pounded at something that lay in the other's words.

"It belongs to us," the young man said. "There wouldn't be anything wrong about it, would there?"

Dextry sneered. "Wrong! Right! Them is fine an' soundin' t.i.tles in a mess like this. What do they mean? I tell you, at midnight to- night Alec McNamara will have twenty thousand dollars of our money--"

"G.o.d! What would happen if they caught us?" whispered the younger, following out his thought. "They'd never let us get off the claim alive. He couldn't find a better excuse to shoot us down and get rid of us. If we came up before this Judge for trial, we'd go to Sitka for twenty years."

"Sure! But it's our only chance. I'd ruther die on the Midas in a fair fight than set here bitin' my hangnails. I'm growin' old and I won't never make another strike. As to bein' caught--them's our chances. I won't be took alive--I promise you that--and before I go I'll get my satisfy. Castin' things up, that's about all a man gets in this vale of tears, jest satisfaction of one kind or another. It'll be a fight in the open, under the stars, with the clean, wet moss to lie down on, and not a sc.r.a.ppin'-match of freak phrases and law-books inside of a stinkin' court-room. The cards is shuffled and in the box, pardner, and the game is started. If we're due to win, we'll win. If we're due to lose, we'll lose.

These things is all figgered out a thousand years back. Come on, boy. Are you game?"

"Am I game?" Glenister's nostrils dilated and his voice rose a tone. "Am I game? I'm with you till the big cash-in, and Lord have mercy on any man that blocks our game to-night."

"We'll need another hand to help us," said Dextry. "Who can we get?"

At that moment, as though in answer, the door opened with the scant ceremony that friends of the frontier are wont to observe, admitting the attenuated, flapping, dome-crowned figure of Slapjack Simms, and Dextry fell upon him with the hunger of a wolf.

It was midnight and over the dark walls of the valley peered a mult.i.tude of stars, while away on the southern horizon there glowed a subdued effulgence as though from hidden fires beneath the Gold G.o.d's caldron, or as though the phosph.o.r.escence of Bering had spread upward into the skies. Although each night grew longer, it was not yet necessary to light the men at work in the cuts.

There were perhaps two hours in which it was difficult to see at a distance, but the dawn came early, hence no provision had been made for torches.

Five minutes before the hour the night-shift boss lowered the gates in the dam, and, as the rush from the sluices subsided, his men quit work and climbed the bluff to the mess tent. The dwellings of the Midas, as has already been explained, sat back from the creek at a distance of a city block, the workings being thus partially hidden under the brow of the steep bank.

It is customary to leave a watchman in the pit during the noon and midnight hours, not only to see that strangers preserve a neutral att.i.tude, but also to watch the waste-gates and water supply. The night man of the Midas had been warned of his responsibility, and, knowing that much gold lay in his keeping, was disposed to gaze on the curious-minded with the sourness of suspicion. Therefore, as a man leading a pack-horse approached out of the gloom of the creek- trail, his eyes were on him from the moment he appeared. The road wound along the gravel of the bars and pa.s.sed in proximity to the flumes. However, the wayfarer paid no attention to them, and the watchman detected an explanatory weariness in his slow gait.

"Some prospector getting in from a trip," he thought.

The stranger stopped, scratched a match, and, as he undertook to light his pipe, the observer caught the mahogany shine of a negro's face. The match sputtered out and then came impatient blasphemy as he searched for another.

"Evenin', sah! You-all oblige me with a match?"

He addressed the watcher on the bank above, and, without waiting a reply, began to climb upward.

No smoker on the trail will deny the luxury of a light to the most humble, so as the negro gained his level the man reached forth to accommodate him. Without warning, the black man leaped forward with the ferocity of an animal and struck the other a fearful blow. The watchman sank with a faint, startled cry, and the African dragged him out of sight over the brow of the bank, where he rapidly tied him hand and foot, stuffing a gag into his mouth.

At the same moment two other figures rounded the bend below and approached. They were mounted and leading a third saddle-horse, as well as other pack-animals. Reaching the workings, they dismounted. Then began a strange procedure, for one man clambered upon the sluices and, with a pick, ripped out the riffles. This was a matter of only a few seconds; then, seizing a shovel, he transferred the concentrates which lay in the bottom of the boxes into canvas sacks which his companion held. As each bag was filled, it was tied and dumped into the cut. They treated but four boxes in this way, leaving the lower two-thirds of the flume untouched, for Anvil Creek gold is coa.r.s.e and the heart of the clean-up lies where it is thrown in. Gathering the sacks together, they lashed them upon the pack-animals, then mounted the second string of sluices and began as before. Throughout it all they worked with feverish haste and in unbroken silence, every moment flashing quick glances at the figure of the lookout who stood on the crest above, half dimmed in the shadow of a willow clump.

Judging by their rapidity and sureness, they were expert miners.

From the tent came the voices of the night shift at table, and the faint rattle of dishes, while the canvas walls glowed from the lights within like great fire-flies hidden in the gra.s.s. The foreman, finishing his meal, appeared at the door of the mess tent, and, pausing to accustom his eyes to the gloom, peered perfunctorily towards the creek. The watchman detached himself from the shadow, moving out into plain sight, and the boss turned back. The two men below were now working on the sluices which lay close under the bank and were thus hidden from the tent.

McNamara's description of Anvil Creek's riches had fired Helen Chester with the desire to witness a clean-up, so they had ridden out from town in time for supper at the claim. She had not known whither he led her, only understanding that provision for her entertainment would be made with the superintendent's wife. Upon recognizing the Midas, she had endeavored to question him as to why her friends had been dispossessed, and he had answered, as it seemed, straight and true.

The ground was in dispute, he said--another man claimed it--and while the litigation pended he was in charge for the court, to see that neither party received injury. He spoke adroitly, and it satisfied her to have the proposition resolved into such simplicity.

She had come prepared to spend the night and witness the early morning operation, so the receiver made the most of his opportunity. He showed her over the workings, explaining the many things that were strange to her. Not only was he in himself a fascinating figure to any woman, but wherever he went men regarded him deferentially, and nothing affects a woman's judgment more promptly than this obvious sign of power. He spent the evening with her, talking of his early days and the things he had done in the West, his story matching the picturesqueness of her canvas- walled quarters with their rough furnishings of skins and blankets. Being a keen observer as well as a finished raconteur, he had woven a spell of words about the girl, leaving her in a state of tumult and indecision when at last, towards midnight, he retired to his own tent. She knew to what end all this was working, and yet knew not what her answer would be when the question came which lay behind it all. At moments she felt the wonderful attraction of the man, and still there was some distrust of him which she could not fathom. Again her thoughts reverted to Glenister, the impetuous, and she compared the two, so similar in some ways, so utterly opposed in others.

It was when she heard the night shift at their meal that she threw a silken shawl about her head, stepped into the cool night, and picked her way down towards the roar of the creek. "A breath of air and then to bed," she thought. She saw the tall figure of the watchman and made for him. He seemed oddly interested in her approach, watching her very closely, almost as though alarmed. It was doubtless because there were so few women out here, or possibly on account of the lateness of the hour. Away with conventions! This was the land of instinct and impulse. She would talk to him. The man drew his hat more closely about his face and moved off as she came up. Glenister had been in her thoughts a moment since, and she now noted that here was another with the same great, square shoulders and erect head. Then she saw with a start that this one was a negro. He carried a Winchester and seemed to watch her carefully, yet with indecision.

To express her interest and to break the silence, she questioned him, but at the sound of her voice he stepped towards her and spoke roughly.

"What!"

Then he paused, and stammered in a strangely altered and unnatural voice:

"Ya.s.s'm. I'm the watchman."

She noted two other darkies at work below and was vaguely surprised, not so much at their presence, as at the manner in which they moved, for they seemed under stress of some great haste, running hither and yon. She saw horses standing in the trail and sensed something indefinably odd and alarming in the air. Turning to the man, she opened her mouth to speak, when from the rank gra.s.s under her feet came a noise which set her a-tingle, and at which her suspicions leaped full to the solution. It was the groan of a man. Again he gave voice to his pain, and she knew that she stood face to face with something sinister. Tales of sluice robbers had come to her, and rumors of the daring raids into which men were lured by the yellow sheen--and yet this was incredible. A hundred men lay within sound of her voice; she could hear their laughter; one was whistling a popular refrain. A quarter-mile away on every hand were other camps; a scream from her would bring them all. Nonsense, this was no sluice robbery-- and then the man in the bushes below moaned for the third time.

"What is that?" she said.

Without reply the negro lowered the muzzle of his rifle till it covered her breast and at the same time she heard the double click of the hammer.

"Keep still and don't move," he warned. "We're desperate and we can't take any chances, Miss."

"Oh, you are stealing the gold--"

She was wildly frightened, yet stood still while the lookout anxiously divided his attention between her and the tents above until his companions signalled him that they were through and the horses were loaded. Then he spoke:

"I don't know what to do with you, but I guess I'll tie you up."

"What!" she said.

"I'm going to tie and gag you so you can't holler."

"Oh, don't you DARE!" she cried, fiercely. "I'll stand right here till you've gone and I won't scream. I promise." She looked up at him appealingly, at which he dipped his head, so that she caught only a glimpse of his face, and then backed away.

"All right! Don't try it, because I'll be hidden in those bushes yonder at the bend and I'll keep you covered till the others are gone." He leaped down the bank, ran to the cavalcade, mounted quickly, and the three lashed their horses into a run, disappearing up the trail around the sharp curve. She heard the blows of their quirts as they whipped the pack-horses.

They were long out of sight before the girl moved or made sound, although she knew that none of the three had paused at the bend.

She only stood and gazed, for as they galloped off she had heard the sc.r.a.p of a broken sentence. It was but one excited word, sounding through the rattle of hoofs--her own name--"Helen"; and yet because of it she did not voice the alarm, but rather began to piece together, bit by bit, the strange points of this adventure.

She recalled the outlines of her captor with a wrinkle of perplexity. Her fright disappeared entirely, giving place to intense excitement. "No, no--it can't be--and yet I wonder if it IS!" she cried. "Oh, I wonder if it could be!" She opened her lips to cry aloud, then hesitated. She started towards the tents, then paused, and for many moments after the hoof-beats had died out she stayed undecided. Surely she wished to give the signal, to force the fierce pursuit. What meant this robbery, this defiance of the law, of her uncle's edicts and of McNamara? They were common thieves, criminals, outlaws, these men, deserving punishment, and yet she recalled a darker night, when she herself had sobbed and quivered with the terrors of pursuit and two men had shielded her with their bodies.

She turned and sped towards the tents, bursting in through the canvas door; instantly every man rose to his feet at sight of her pallid face, her flashing eyes, and rumpled hair.

"Sluice robbers!" she cried, breathlessly. "Quick! A hold-up! The watchman is hurt!"

A roar shook the night air, and the men poured out past her, while the day shift came tumbling forth from every quarter in various stages of undress.

"Where? Who did it? Where did they go?"

McNamara appeared among them, fierce and commanding, seeming to grasp the situation intuitively, without explanation from her.

"Come on, men. We'll run 'em down. Get out the horses. Quick!"