Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew Part 13

Those four hours watching the clock were the most tedious of her life.

When the time was drawing nigh and the waiting pa.s.sengers were stirring about, the man in the ticket office came out and wrote upon the blackboard, "East bound Express two hours late."

Again the slow swinging pendulum sent a torrent of woe to the unhappy girl, and when the train rolled into the yards she felt as though she had lived within sound of that clock for a year.

The green valley changed to the red earth of the foothills, still showing signs of the gold hunters of 1849. The puffing and wheezing of the engine told they were climbing steep grades, and soon they were in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The train entered the forty-two mile snow shed and when half way through struck a hand car, derailing the engine.

It was day without, but dark within the sheds. A kindly woman with her daughter occupied the berth opposite Hattie. She noticed the troubled look on the girl's face and from that time on until they separated at Cheyenne, did everything she could to make the journey pleasant. But there was the ever present suspense and doubt.

It was ten hours before the train was again under way, but they had lost the right of way on the road and were compelled to make frequent stops on the sidings to allow other trains to pa.s.s.

As the train skirted the Great Salt Lake with its bleak and desolate islands of rock rising in silhouette against the cold grey skies, Hattie compared the scene to the feeling of utter desolation within her soul.

A storm was raging on the Laramie plains and when the snow plow, driven by the tremendous force of an extra engine in front, stuck fast in the snow, she began to have some conception of the mighty force of an avalanche, and the difficulty of reaching imprisoned men beneath its weight.

The railroad ended at a little station in the San Luis valley and then followed many miles of staging in a crowded coach. Everywhere the girl met with the most profound respect and attention from fellow pa.s.sengers. She was always given the best seat in the coach, and otherwise made as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would permit. Such was the gallantry of these men of the frontier to the girl who was traveling alone.

At the last stage station before reaching Saguache, she heard men talking of the imprisoned miners in the Sangre de Christo mountains, but she was unable to learn any of the particulars other than that the relief party was still working. When, at last, she alighted at the hotel in Saguache her first question was concerning the imprisoned men. They will have them out in a few days if nothing happens was the a.s.surance given by the landlady. "They are alive, we know, for we can see the smoke coming out from under the rock."

The two men under the snow slide had been the talk of the town for days. Every day a new party went to the scene to relieve those who had worked the day and night before, tunneling up the steep mountain side through snow of an unknown depth.

When Hattie reached the tunnel she begged to be allowed to go to the end of it where the men were working. She was a.s.sisted up the mountain side by willing hands and when she reached the workers one of them said: "The boys are all right for we can hear their voices."

It was then she gave an exclamation of joy, and when Buchan said to me in the cabin, "It seems that I hear her voice," he was right.

XXVI.

WHEN THE DEATH GLOOM GATHERS.

Amos staggered out of the fog of powder smoke and groped his way to the door. He took the center of the street reeling as he went, and made his way to his home. The scenes at the Bucket of Blood were magnified in his whisky-crazed brain. He raved in wild delirium, fighting the demons that gathered around his bedside. The doctor came and shook his head. "He has been drinking so long that my medicine will not act," he said. Amos glared wildly from his bloodshot eyes when a monkey seemed to leap on the footboard. He held a gla.s.s in his hand. "Have a c.o.c.ktail, Amos," said the monkey, as he tossed the liquid into the air and caught it in another gla.s.s. Amos' throat was parched and he wanted the c.o.c.ktail, but the monkey did not give it to him. A rhinoceros came creeping through the wall and looked at him with its leaden eyes. The monkey tossed the c.o.c.ktail into the wide open mouth of the rhinoceros, who smacked his lips and said to the monkey, "Let's play ante over."

"All right," replied the monkey, "what with?"

"Get his eye, get his eye," exclaimed the rhinoceros.

The monkey crept forward and plucked out one of Amos' eyes, as he groaned and yelled. For awhile the rhinoceros was on one side of the dresser and the monkey on the other, tossing his eye to and fro between them. The scene changed. He was on a white horse, plunging down a steep rocky road lined with trees on either side; pythons and rattlesnakes reached out from among the branches striking their fangs at his head. There was the form of a dead woman behind him on the horse. Her cold arms clung about his neck as little devils came out from behind the trees and shouted: "You did it; you did it." The horse was now plunging over a snow-covered country. He felt the icy winds chill his heart. He was trying to shake off the dead arms that clung to his neck, when the horse stopped in a wild spot among the rocks. A grave digger, with the flesh of face and arms dried to the bone, appeared. "We will bury her here," he said as he sunk his spade into the earth. As the grave digger threw up the clods they turned to little devils, the size of frogs and yelped, "We are the sins of Amos come out of the grave." The vision pa.s.sed and another appeared. Three Sisters of Charity stood at the footboard of his bed. They were looking down on him with sorrowful eyes. One of them lifted her hand and all was a livid flame. Amos raised his head and gave one prolonged shriek. A shriek of death.

When Amos returned to Saguache after his spree with Rayder his first act was to purchase a ranch in the San Luis valley and deed it to his wife. He then went to his a.s.say office and drew down the blinds and sat in the shadows like a cunning old spider in hiding waiting for the unwary fly for which he had wove his web. His life had been that of the iconoclast who creates nothing to adorn the world's great gallery of G.o.ds. But he was not philosophical enough to evolve an idea that would disrupt existing beliefs.

It was some weeks after his arrival home, when he espied Rayder one morning coming down the street towards his office. He cautiously turned the key in his office and slipped over to the Bucket of Blood and returned with some beer and two quart bottles of whisky. When Rayder returned an hour later he was maudlin drunk.

Rayder was still pale from the effects of his recent debauch and when he found Amos in an intoxicated condition he went away, not caring to stay and talk with him on important business matters lest he should get drawn into another spree. Meanwhile, Carson had arrived and spread the news of the imprisoned miners under the snow slide. Rayder learned that this was the mine he had come to purchase through the connivance of Amos and concluded to wait and see what time would develop.

Day after day he sought Amos, but the latter was too drunk to talk with any sense. He then sought Carson and offered financial a.s.sistance in the rescue work, but the men spurned the offer. They felt they were doing a G.o.d-given duty and to receive money for an act of that kind would be debasing their manhood. Such was it then and such is now the spirit of the West. He called at the Amos home, and while he was received by the matron and failed to see Annie, he thought he detected an air of distress in the surroundings, and attributed it to Amos'

condition. Feeling that he was at their home at an inopportune time, he went away and started out to find Amos and if possible persuade him to quit drinking. Not finding him at his office he took a nearer route and entered the Bucket of Blood by the back door. He pa.s.sed two or three hoboes sitting on beer kegs on the outside. "Say, old timer, can't I dig into ye for two bits?" asked one. The man was trembly and his lips quivered as he spoke. Remembering his own recent condition Rayder handed the fellow a dollar and motioning to the others, said: "Divide up." The men jumped to their feet with alacrity and followed the first man to the bar.

Rayder walked to the faro table where Amos sat with his back to him putting down twenty dollar gold pieces on the money. "I never squeal,"

Amos was saying to another man who was drawing out the cards from the box. "Bet yer life, man wins my money I never squeal," Amos was saying to the dealer. "Got skads of it anyhow, and when that's gone I know where to get a mine worth more an' a million." Rayder stood watching the player tossing twenty after twenty in gold and tapping a tiny bell now and then when a waiter came and took the orders from those seated around the table watching the game. They all called for whisky except the dealer, he took a cigar. It requires a clear head to deal faro.

Rayder grew tired of watching and sat down. He was thinking where did Amos get so much money? He had not attended to the business of his office since his recovery and had had no occasion to look into his check book. After a certain period of the night with Amos in his back office, everything was a blank. He remembered the conversation about Annie and the mine but had no recollection about signing the check. To see Amos sitting at that table losing money like a prince at Monte Carlo, almost took his breath. He began to feel certain now as to the fabulous riches of the mine, for he could conceive of no other way by which Amos could get possession of so much money. He had learned of Mrs. Amos purchasing the ranch and paying for it in gold, and wondered at the time. Then he thought that perhaps Amos was trying to throw him off the purchase of the mine in order to secure the property himself.

There was a mystery somewhere he could not fathom.

The board part.i.tion against which he sat was thin, and while he was not playing eavesdropper, he could not help hearing: "The secret of that mine has been known to me since I was a child," a woman was saying, "but I never supposed Carson would locate it when I gave him the papers." And then she recounted the story of the hidden Spanish treasure in the Grand river hills and continued: "The two men they are trying to rescue from under the snow slide are dead long ago and the only one left that is interested is Carson. I will get him out of the way, and you must file on the claim, I cannot, for I am an Indian, but you can. Besides, I could never sing my death song in peace if he lives."

"Tonight, then," her companion said. "You had better act before matters go any farther."

Here was another revelation to Rayder, he saw coming through one archway an Indian woman, and through the other, Coyote Jim who slowly walked toward the faro table. Rayder's first and best impulse was to see Carson and warn him of impending danger. His second thought was that such a course would be bad financial policy. No, he would let the woman kill him if she could and he would jump the claim himself. He was certain now of its fabulous value and determined to have it at any price.

And so the old black crow sat and waited and plotted, while the other old black crow gambled away his money, and when the shooting was over, and the coal oil lamps flickered their sickly flame through the curling powder smoke, Rayder was raised from the floor where he had flattened himself against the baseboard, trembling like a frightened sheep about to be led to the slaughter.

XXVII.

A NIGHT OF TRAGEDIES.

The Lone Tree saloon and dance hall was ablaze with lights. Two bar-keepers in white jackets were setting out the bottles over the long, polished counter. There was the clink of gla.s.ses, as men stood in rows drinking the amber-colored liquid. "Have another on me," was frequently heard along the counter, as someone felt it was his turn to set up the drinks to the crowd.

A brawny miner stepped up to the side of a sheep herder who had been edging in all evening to get free drinks--and squirted a mouthful of tobacco juice in his ear.

"If anybody else had done that but you, Bill, I'd be tempted to strike him."

"Don't let your friendship for me spoil your notions," the miner said with a contemptuous look.

The sheep herder made no reply, as he wiped his ear. The fire that burned in his stomach demanded whiskey, and he would brook any insult to get it. He had reached the level of the sodden, and others pa.s.sed him by. It was yet early in the night, and crowds were gathering in the rear of the large room, about the roulette wheel, the c.r.a.p tables and faro layout, back of which the lookout was seated on a raised platform. Stacks of coin in gold and silver were on the tables to tempt the players. At other tables men were seated playing cards and smoking. In an adjoining room, cut with archways, was the dance hall.

An orchestra on a platform played rag-time music, while painted women in short dresses to give them a youthful appearance, sat on benches against the wall, or danced with swaggering men to the calls of a brawny bullet-headed floor manager. His bleared eyes and heavy swollen jaw showed the effects of a recent debauch ending in a fist fight.

The women urged their partners to drink at the end of every dance.

While the men drank whiskey, they gave the bar-keepers a knowing look, and a bottle like the others was set out containing ginger ale which the women drank as whiskey, and were given a check, which they afterwards cashed as their percentage.

While the sign on the windows read The Lone Tree Saloon and Dance Hall, the place had earned the sobriquet of the Bucket of Blood, from the many tragedies enacted therein. And this place was run by a woman, Calamity Jane, famous in several mining camps. One fellow a.n.a.lyzed her when he said: "She is a powerful good woman, except she hain't got no moral character."

Coyote Jim, faro dealer, sauntered in and took his place at the table.

His eyes were a steel blue, the kind that men inured to the mining camps of the early west had learned were dangerous. His face was thin and white, hair of a black blue, like a raven's wing, hung half way to his shoulders. His thin hands handled the pasteboards in the box with a dexterity that marked him an expert. Supple in form, with quick, cat-like motions, he made one think of a tiger.

A dark faced woman wearing a Spanish mantilla was winning at the roulette wheel. The onlookers crowded about. She was winning almost every bet. The interest grew intense, men crowded forward to catch a glimpse of her whose marvelous luck surpa.s.sed anything in the history of the Lone Tree. Her stack of chips of white, red and blue, grew taller at every turn of the wheel. The face of the gambler at the wheel grew vexed and then flushed with anger. The devil appeared to have been turned loose and he was losing his stakes. The chips vanished from his box in twenties, fifties and hundreds, and the group of onlookers stared in astonishment. As he counted out his last hundred he said: "If you win this you have broke the game."

The woman lost and the gambler began to have hope, when she won again, and so the pendulum of chance swung to and fro over those last hundred chips for an hour, when the gambler slammed the lid of his box with the exclamation: "You have busted the game!"

The woman cashed in her checks. Over five thousand dollars was paid to her. She walked up to the bar and threw down five hundred dollars on the counter and said to a bar-tender:

"I pay for everybody's drinks here tonight. Take no money from any of them and when this runs short, call on me."