Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew Part 12

I'm scared to death 'fear old woman 'ill find it out. I got 'ter square the deal or I'm a goner and stuff's all off, want yer to let me take ten thousand fer few days, got ter blow a lot o' money on weddin', too, yer see."

"All right, Amos, youse's square a man's ever met. I'll let ye hev it."

"Good, thet's relief; sooner I get it easier mind'll be. Nuthin' like 'mediate action to relieve man's mind, you know. Let's take nuther drink and ye can write th' check with steadier hand."

Rayder swallowed another drink while Amos fumbled about the desk until he found Rayder's check book.

"Bet ye can't spell ten without making a crook. There now, if you can write thousand as well you're a peachareno. Bully, now write Silas Rayder at the bottom. You're a brother in fact, Rayder, an' I love ye better as any brother. Shay, let's hev nuther bottle."

And Amos pocketed the check and quietly slipped down stairs, to the saloon and was back with another quart before Rayder had roused from his drunken stupor. He poured out another half goblet of whisky.

"Shay, Rayder, de ye know about story of Guvner of North Carolina sed to Guvner of South Carolina, to effet an' words, it was long time between drinks?"

"An' that was a d.a.m.n shame Guvner hed to wait, ought to had you along an' famous epigram ed never been born."

Half an hour later Rayder was stretched upon the lounge in the little back office, dead to the world. Amos sat by the window sobering up until the grey of the morning. The sleeping man roused, and Amos gave him another half goblet of whisky followed by a sip of water. He had drawn the blinds and left the coal-oil lamp burning when it grew light, lest the sleeping man should arouse and discover it was daylight.

When the office boy came, he cautioned him not to awaken Rayder. He then crossed over to the bank, called for the face payment of the check in gold coin. He took the money to the Wells Fargo Express company's office and expressed it to his wife in Saguache.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE AREGUIPENA. (Page 56)]

Rayder was sleeping when he returned. He placed the check book in its accustomed place in the desk, destroyed all evidence of the night's debauch and left a note on the desk saying: "My dear Rayder, I have been suddenly called home by the illness of my wife. Come to Saguache as soon as you can make it convenient. Amos."

When Rayder awoke it was four o'clock in the afternoon. His head was in a whirl and every muscle was twitching. He called Charley and sent for a doctor. The doctor saw the trouble at a glance. He called a hack and accompanied Rayder to his home.

"This will never do, Mr. Rayder. You have drank much whisky in your time and it has become a poison to your system. Do not look for me to get you out of this in less time than four weeks."

XXIV.

THE RECKLESS HAND OF FATE.

The day was fair when Carson left Saguache with pretty Annie Amos seated beside him in the sleigh. Although he had spent the night in fearful anxiety, walking the streets, he now felt such a relief over getting out of town, undiscovered by Mary Greenwater, that he was bubbling over with high spirits. In the presence of Annie his better nature stood outward and he even surprised himself with his quick sallies of wit and repartee. Annie was charmed with his presence, and as the two chatted gaily, they did not notice the lowering clouds about the Spanish Peaks, until a strong wind began to raise and soon one of those sudden storms so common to the region was coming in all its fury. In a short while it became a raging blizzard. The snow drifted in blinding swirls, so dense that the horse's head could not be seen.

Carson had experienced the blizzard on the range and knew the only safe course was to let the horse have the reins, and trust to its animal instinct to find a shelter. He drew the robes securely about Annie and endeavored to allay her fears, although conscious of the peril they were in. The horse was plodding its way through the snow-drifts and it was evident that the animal would soon become exhausted. The blizzard might last all night, or it might continue for three days. On those trackless wastes in such a storm death by freezing was almost certain, unless they reached a place of shelter.

The hours dragged by. He kept up an incessant talking with Annie, lest she should fall into the fatal sleep. The girl was quick to perceive his tender care, and in full apprehension of their danger, felt a growing confidence in the man beside her. She knew that he fully realized their peril and admired him for his efforts to conceal his fears from her.

It was growing darker and the horse was moving with feeble steps.

Carson was at the point of giving vent to his fears, when the animal stopped. He left the sleigh, and upon going to the horse's head, found they were beside a cabin. His heart gave a great leap of joy and he called exultantly to Annie.

The cabin was deserted, but, praise Providence, it was shelter. The door swung open on its hinges. There was a fireplace with some half-burned logs in a heap of ashes. When Annie was securely inside, he brought in the robes from the sleigh and next unhitched the horse and brought the animal inside the cabin. This made Annie's heart leap with joy; she had not considered how they would protect the horse, and this humane act on the part of Carson gave her the most implicit confidence in the man. There is nothing to fear from a man who is so kind to animals, was her mental comment.

Soon there was a blazing fire on the hearth. Some poles were found by the door. These Carson dug from the snow and brought inside. He had no axe with which to cut them, and in the emergency, he laid the ends together in the fire slantwise from the chimney, and as they burned away, he shoved the logs forward. The wind screamed in wildest fury, while the snow drifted in through the rough clapboard roof.

Until now no thought had been given to the lunch which Annie had prepared for the trip. She brought it out from among the wraps and when Carson gave the horse a b.u.t.tered biscuit as his share of the meal, she watched the act with a thrill of gladness. The blazing logs gave warmth and light, and the man and woman sat and talked throughout the long watches of the night, while the snow drifted and the wind screamed and roared, making the loose clapboards of the roof creak and groan.

There these two, thrown together by the reckless hand of fate, told incidents of their lives and won the love and sympathy of each other.

A new song was born in Carson's breast. For a moment he seemed to remember a former life; somewhere out in the wide, white waste and hush of infinite s.p.a.ce, where they had known each other and now their souls imprisoned in forms of clay, they had met by chance and renewed an old affinity.

As she told him the simple story of her life, he listened with ever-increasing interest. An orphan at an early age, she had since lived in the home of her Uncle Amos. Everything had gone well until the last year, when her uncle brought Rayder to their home and insisted that she should regard him as a suitor for her hand. Rayder, old and grey, had dyed his whiskers and tried to appear boyish. His intentions were well enough--he would give her all she would ask that money could purchase--but she could not love the man and could never think of becoming his wife. Amos, her uncle, was a man of avarice and greed. He insisted that it was a duty she owed him for his fatherly care in bringing her up. He dwelt on the advantages it would be to him in his old age and that it would be only right for her to help him in this way. He had appealed to her generous nature and sought to make her believe this sacrifice on her part would be just and right. Amos'

wife had taken the same view of the matter and urged that the wedding should be at an early date. Annie, alone in the world, had no one to whom she could go for counsel. Some of the coa.r.s.e women of the mining camp who came to their home thought her the most fortunate of girls to have a suitor as rich as Rayder, and ridiculed the idea of her refusing to accept the greatest opportunity of her life. Some of their husbands were rough, uncouth men, who cared nothing for the luxuries of a home, spent most of their money and time drinking and gambling at the Lone Tree, and they gauged conditions as they were with themselves. They were honest-hearted women of the frontier who believed they were doing the girl a kindness. It was not through bravery that she was cool and collected, yesterday, in the presence of death from the lions, she told him, but because she had almost made up her mind that she did not care. Death had lost its terrors in the contemplation of impending fate.

He did not tell her of the burden of his heart. He did not feel that he dared to ask for sympathy. At that hour he would have given ten years of his life to undo his marriage with Mary Greenwater by the ancient custom of the Swiftest Horse. He knew the Indian woman and knew that she intended to kill him and yet he felt helpless, powerless. He did tell the girl beside him that he, too, was alone in the world and hoped to merit the love of a good woman and that his every act in life should go to prove his sincerity. And so, amid the wild scenes of the night, they talked.

At noon the following day, the storm abated and when the flurries of snow had ceased they saw the town of Del Norte well down on the plain.

Annie was received at the home of her friends with delight and when she told them of her recent adventures, they gave expression to heartfelt joy for Annie's safety, and called Carson a hero.

Carson did not leave Del Norte for six weeks. Meanwhile, Annie visited her friends. When the two were not together in the cozy parlor at Annie's host's, Carson kept close in his room at the hotel. He wanted to delay the meeting with Mary Greenwater as long as possible. If she was only a man,--ah, that would be different! It would then be knife to knife, or bullet to bullet--he would not shrink. But she was a woman, an educated Indian woman upon whom society had some claim, and she had some claim upon it.

Annie promised to become his wife and it was arranged that she should return to her uncle's home, and as soon as he could arrange his affairs at the mine they would go to an eastern state. He first intended, however, to make a clean breast of the Mary Greenwater affair, and trust his fate to her love for him.

When he reached the foot of the Sangre de Christo range, through the great depths of snow, he saw the fearful havoc of the snow slide and noted the slanting position of the edgewise cliff. Thinking it was of but recent occurrence, he hurried to Saguache and gave the alarm that two of his companions were buried beneath the mountain of snow.

In no place in the world does an appeal for help meet with a quicker response than among the pioneers of the west. The news flew over the town like wildfire that two miners were imprisoned in a snow slide. A relief party was organized at once and Carson led them to the base of the range.

Mary Greenwater saw Carson organizing the relief, she stood within a few feet of him un.o.bserved, and could have shot him, but she knew better than shoot a man in the act of aiding the distressed. The crowd would hang her, woman or no woman, and she knew it. Some other time than this--she would wait.

XXV.

CORDS OF LOVE ARE STRONG.

Hattie Judson sat by the window overlooking the green wheat fields of the Los Ossis valley. The bells in the old mission were calling the humble worshippers of the valley, just as they had done for more than one hundred and forty years. She watched the blue haze of the valley growing denser in the shadows of the evening. She heard the low boom of a signal gun roll up from the sea. It was from the coast steamer in the open roadstead, the signal she was listening for in the hope that it would bring her a letter--the letter for which she had been waiting for six weeks.

The shadows from the coast hills crept up the valley, and the stars shone, when the whistle of the little narrow-gauge engine announced its arrival from the port. She put on her wraps and went to the postoffice and waited a good long hour before the mail was distributed. There was nothing in her box except the San Francisco paper. And yet she felt intuitively there must be some news. She returned to her home with a vague feeling of dread and lit the parlor lamp. Mechanically she scanned the headlines of the paper when her eye caught the line:

"Imprisoned Miners in Snow-slide; Relief Party Working Night and Day."

"Saguache, Colo.--Word reached here last night that John Buchan and James Winslow, miners working a claim on the Sangre de Christo range, were buried in their cabin beneath a snow slide. It is believed the men are alive although there seems to be small hope of rescuing them on account of an overhanging cliff which may topple at any moment, with the melting snows and crush them out of existence. Rescue parties are at work night and day."

The room seemed to whirl and grow dark as she finished reading. Tears came to her eyes and she cried aloud. The members of the family came to find the cause of her outcry and found her in a flood of tears.

They read the dispatch and knew the cause. The paper was two days old from San Francisco. What could she do? She must know at once. She went to the telegraph office and sent a message of inquiry to the mayor of Saguache. It was twelve o'clock when the message came: "Lines all down in San Luis valley." There was a telegraph line to San Louis Obispo, but no coast line railroad nearer than Paso Robles Hot Springs, sixty miles inland. It would be three days before there was another steamer for San Francisco. She felt that if she waited the suspense would kill her. She must go to Saguache.

In the grey of the morning she was seated beside a driver in a light running rig behind the swiftest pair of horses in the town. The northern express was due at noon and the distance of sixty miles must be made. The fleet animals climbed the mountain slopes and crossed the divide of the Santa Lucia range, and went speeding through the beautiful Santa Marguerite valley with its carpet of green, enlivened with splashes of yellow from the wild mustard blossoms. Across the swift flowing ford of the Salinis river, through deep ravines and mountain gorges, and over miles and miles of sun-baked sand and dreary waste of stunted cactus and sagebrush, the horses sped.

The scorched winds of the desert caught up the sands and hurled them hot into their faces and stung them like tiny sparks.

Dripping with foam the horses were reined up at the depot platform in just five hours and fifty minutes from the time of starting--a record that stands in San Louis Obispo today as the best ever made, and that too by a big-hearted western man who did it only to aid a woman in distress.

The train sped over miles of brown and parched desert, studded with a growth of palms that rattled in the sultry wind like dried sunflower stalks. The scenes were scarcely noticed by Hattie as she sat in the coach busied with her own thoughts. The train was an express but it seemed to her to creep along. The rumble of the wheels clanking on the iron rails seemed to say: "You'll be too late, you'll be too late."

At Sacramento there was a wait of four hours for the east bound express, and Hattie sat in the depot where she could watch the clock, tick, tock, tick, tock--swinging the pendulum in these moments of suspense and waiting. Those monotonous sounds persistently repeated the single theme, seconds were born and ushered into eternity with the slow swing of the pendulum; every tick brought the time of starting nearer, but the pendulum swung so slow.