CHAPTER IX.
IN WHICH HECTOR ARISES FROM THE DITCH.
He stood for a moment breathless and paralysed with surprise; then hebegan slowly and deliberately to examine the tunnel step by step. Whenhe had proceeded a hundred feet from the spot, to his great relief hecame upon Jack Hamlin, sitting upright in a side drift. His manner wasfeverish and excited, and his declaration that he had not moved from theplace where Gabriel had left him at once was accepted by the latter asthe aberration of incipient inflammation and fever. When Gabriel statedthat it was time to go, he replied, "Yes," and added with suchsignificance that his business with the murderer of Victor Ramirez wasnow over, and that he was ready to enter the Lunatic Asylum at once,that Gabriel with great precipitation lifted him in his arms and carriedhim without delay from the tunnel. Once more in the open air theenergies of both men seemed to rally; Jack became as a mere feather inGabriel's powerful arms, and even forgot his querulous opposition tobeing treated as a helpless child, while Gabriel trod the familiar banksof the ditch, climbed the long ascent and threaded the aisles of thepillared pines of Reservoir Hill with the free experienced feet of themountaineer. Here Gabriel knew he was safe until daybreak, and gatheredtogether some withered pine boughs and its fragrant tassels for a couchfor his helpless companion. And here, as he feared, fever set in; therespiration of the wounded man grew quick and hurried; he began to talkrapidly and incoherently, of Olly, of Ramirez, of the beautiful girlwhose picture hung upon his breast, of Gabriel himself, and finally of astranger who was, as it seemed to him, his sole auditor, the gratuitouscoinage of his excited fancy. Once or twice he raised his voice to ashout, and then to Gabriel's great alarm suddenly he began to sing, andbefore Gabriel could place his hand upon his mouth he had trolled outthe verse of a popular ballad. The rushing river below them gurgled,beat its bars, and sang an accompaniment, the swaying pine sighed andcreaked in unison, the patient stars above them stared and bentbreathlessly, and then to Gabriel's exalted consciousness an echo of thewounded man's song arose from the gulch below! For a moment he held hisbreath with an awful mingling of joy and fear. Was he going mad too? orwas it really the voice of little Olly? The delirious man beside himanswered his query with another verse; the antiphonal response roseagain from the valley. Gabriel hesitated no longer, but with feverishhands gathered a few dried twigs and pine cones into a pile, and toucheda match to them. At the next moment they flashed a beacon to the sky, inanother there was a crackling of the underbrush and the hurried onset oftwo figures, and before the slow Gabriel could recover from hisastonishment, Olly flew, panting, to his arms, while her companion, thefaithful Pete, sank breathlessly beside his wounded and insensiblemaster.
Olly was first to find her speech. That speech, after the unfailinginstincts of her sex in moments of excitement, was the instantarraignment of somebody else as the cause of that excitement, and atonce put the whole universe on the defensive.
"Why didn't you send word where you was?" she said, impatiently, "andwot did you have it so dark for, and up a steep hill, and leavin' mealone at Wingdam, and why didn't you call without singin'?"
And then Gabriel, after the fashion of _his_ sex, ignored all but thepresent, and holding Olly in his arms, said--
"It's my little girl, ain't it? Come to her own brother Gabe! blessher!"
Whereat Mr. Hamlin, after the fashion of lunatics of any sex, must needsbe consistent, and break out again into song.
"He's looney, Olly, what with fever along o' bein' shot in the leg a'savin' me, ez izn't worth savin'," explained Gabriel, apologetically."It was him ez did the singin'."
Then Olly, still following the feminine instinct, at once desertedconscious rectitude for indefensible error, and flew to Mr. Hamlin'sside.
"Oh, where is he hurt, Pete? is he going to die?"
And Pete, suspicious of any medication but his own, replied doubtfully,"He looks bad, Miss Olly, dat's a fac--but now bein' in my han's, bressde Lord A'mighty, and we able to minister to him, we hopes fur de bess.Your brudder meant well, is a fair meanin' man, miss--a toll'able nuss,but he ain't got the peerfeshn'l knowledge dat Mars Jack in de habit o'gettin'." Here Pete unslung from his shoulders a wallet, and proceededto extract therefrom a small medicine case, with the resigned air of thefamily physician, who has been called full late to remedy the practiceof rustic empiricism.
"How did ye come yer?" asked Gabriel of Olly, when he had submissivelytransferred his wounded charge to Pete. "What made ye allow I was hidin'yer? How did ye reckon to find me? but ye was allus peart and onhanded,Olly," he suggested, gazing admiringly at his sister.
"When I woke up at Wingdam, after Jack went away, who should I find,Gabe, but Lawyer Maxwell standin' thar, and askin' me a heap o'questions. I supposed you'd been makin' a fool o' yourself agin, Gabe,and afore I let on thet I knowed a word, I jist made him tell meeverythin' about you, Gabe, and it was orful! and you bein' arrested furmurder, ez wouldn't harm a fly, let alone that Mexican ez I never liked,Gabe, and all this comes of tendin' his legs instead o' lookin' arterme. And all them questions waz about July, and whether she wasn't yourenemy, and if they ever waz a woman, Gabe, ez waz sweet on you, you knowit was July! And all thet kind o' foolishness! And then when he couldn'tget ennythin' out o' me agin July, he allowed to Pete that he must takeme right to you, fur he said ther was talk o' the Vigilantes gettin'hold o' ye afore the trial, and he was goin' to get an order to takeyou outer the county, and he reckoned they wouldn't dare to tech ye if Iwaz with ye, Gabe--and I'd like to see 'em try it! and he allowed toPete that he must take me right to you! And Pete--and thar ain't awhiter nigger livin' than that ole man--said he would--reckonin' youknow to find Jack, as he allowed to me they'd hev to kill afore they gotyou--and he came down yer with me. And when we got yer--you was off--andthe sheriff gone--and the Vigilantes--what with bein' killed, thebiggest o' them, by the earthquake--what was orful, Gabe, but we bein'on the road didn't get to feel!--jest scared outer their butes! And thena Chinyman gins us your note"----
"My note?" interrupted Gabriel, "I didn't send ye any note."
"Then _his_ note," said Olly, impatiently, pointing to Hamlin, "sayin''You'll find your friends on Conroy's Hill!'--don't you see, Gabe?"continued Olly, stamping her foot in fury at her brother's slowness ofcomprehension, "and so we came and heard Jack singin', and a mightyfoolish thing it was to do, and yer we are!"
"But he didn't send any note, Olly," persisted Gabriel.
"Well, you awful old Gabe, what difference does it make _who_ sent it?"continued the practical Olly; "here we are, along o' thet note, and,"she added, feeling in her pocket, "there's the note!"
She handed Gabriel a small slip of paper with the pencilled words,"You'll find your friends waiting for you to-night on Conroy's Hill."
The handwriting was unfamiliar, but even if it were Jack's, how did _he_manage to send it without his knowledge? He had not lost sight of Jackexcept during the few moments he had reconnoitred the mouth of thetunnel, since they had escaped from the Court House. Gabriel wasperplexed; in the presence of this anonymous note he was confused andspeechless, and could only pass his hand helplessly across his forehead."But it's all right now, Gabe," continued Olly, reassuringly, "theVigilantes hev run away--what was left of them; the sheriff ain't to befound nowhar! This yer earthquake hez frightened everybody outer theidea of huntin' ye--nobody talks of ennything but the earthquake; theyeven say, Gabe--I forgot to tell ye--that our claim on Conroy Hill hasbusted, too, and the mine ain't worth shucks now! But there's no one tointerfere with us now, Gabe! And we're goin' to get into a waggin thatPete hez bespoke for us at the head of Reservoir Gulch to-morrow mornin'at sun-up! And then Pete sez we kin git down to Stockton and 'Frisco andout to a place called San Antonio, that the devil himself wouldn't thinko' goin' to, and thar we kin stay, me and you and Jack, until this wholething has blown over and Jack gits well agin and July comes back."
Gabriel, still holding the hand of his sister, dared not tell her of thesuspicions of Lawy
er Maxwell, regarding her sister-in-law's complicityin this murder, nor Jack's conviction of her infidelity, and hehesitated. But after a pause, he suggested with a consciousness of greatdiscretion and artfulness, "Suppose thet July doesn't come back?"
"Look yer, Gabe," said Olly, suddenly, "ef yer goin' to be thet foolishand ridiklus agin, I'll jess quit. Ez if thet woman would ever leaveye." (Gabriel groaned inwardly.) "Why, when she hears o' this, wildhosses couldn't keep her from ye. Don't be a mule, Gabe, don't!" AndGabriel was dumb.
Meantime, under the influence of some anodyne which Pete had found inhis medicine chest, Mr. Hamlin became quiet and pretermitted his vocalobligato. Gabriel, whose superb physical adjustment no mental excitementcould possibly overthrow, and whose regular habits were never broken byanxiety, nodded, even while holding Olly's hand, and in due time slept,and I regret to say--writing of a hero--snored. After a while Ollyherself succumbed to the drowsy coolness of the night, and wrapped inMr. Hamlin's shawl, pillowed her head upon her brother's broad breastand slept too. Only Pete remained to keep the watch, he beingcomparatively fresh and strong, and declaring that the condition of Mr.Hamlin required his constant attention.
It was after midnight that Olly dreamed a troubled dream. She thoughtthat she was riding with Mr. Hamlin to seek her brother, when shesuddenly came upon a crowd of excited men who were bearing Gabriel tothe gallows. She thought that she turned to Mr. Hamlin frantically forassistance, when she saw to her horror that his face had changed--thatit was no longer he who sat beside her, but a strange, wild-looking,haggard man--a man whose face was old and pinched, but whose grey hairwas discoloured by a faded dye that had worn away, leaving the originalcolour in patches, and the antique foppery of whose dress was derangedby violent exertion, and grimy with the dust of travel--a dandy whosestrapped trousers of a bygone fashion were ridiculously loosened in oneleg, whose high stock was unbuckled and awry! She awoke with a start.Even then her dream was so vivid that it seemed to her this face wasactually bending over her with such a pathetic earnestness and inquirythat she called aloud. It was some minutes before Pete came to her, butas he averred, albeit somewhat incoherently and rubbing his eyes to showthat he had not closed them, that he had never slept a wink, and that itwas impossible for any stranger to have come upon them without hisknowledge, Olly was obliged to accept it all as a dream! But she did notsleep again. She watched the moon slowly sink behind the serrated pinesof Conroy's Hill; she listened to the crackling tread of strange animalsin the underbrush, to the far-off rattle of wheels on the Wingdamturnpike, until the dark outline of the tree trunks returned, and withthe cold fires of the mountain sunrise the chilly tree-tops awoke towinged life, and the twitter of birds, while the faint mists of theriver lingered with the paling moon like tired sentinels for the reliefof the coming day. And then Olly awoke her companions. They struggledback into consciousness with characteristic expression. Gabriel slowlyand apologetically, as of one who had overslept himself; Jack Hamlinviolently and aggressively, as if some unfair advantage had been takenof his human weakness that it was necessary to combat at once. I amsorry to say that his recognition of Pete was accompanied by a degree ofprofanity and irreverence that was dangerous to his own physicalweakness. "And you had to trapse down yer, sniffin' about my tracks, youblack and tan idiot," continued Mr. Hamlin, raising himself on his arm,"and after I'd left everything all straight at Wingdam--and jest as Iwas beginning to reform and lead a new life! How do, Olly? You'll excusemy not rising. Come and kiss me! If that nigger of mine has let you wantfor anything, jest tell me and I'll discharge him. Well! hang it all!what are you waitin' for? Here it's daybreak and we've got to get downto the head of Reservoir Gulch. Come, little children, the picnic isover!"
Thus adjured, Gabriel rose, and lifting Mr. Hamlin in his arms withinfinite care and tenderness, headed the quaint procession. Mr. Hamlin,perhaps recognising some absurdity in the situation, forbore exercisinghis querulous profanity on the man who held him helpless as an infant,and Olly and Pete followed slowly behind.
Their way led down Reservoir Ca[~n]on, beautiful, hopeful, and bracing inthe early morning air. A few birds, awakened by the passing tread,started into song a moment, and then were still. With a cautiousgentleness, habitual to the man, Gabriel forbore, as he strode along, tostep upon the few woodland blossoms yet left to the dry summer woods.There was a strange fragrance in the air, the light odours liberatedfrom a thousand nameless herbs, the faint melancholy spicing of deadleaves. There was, moreover, that sense of novelty which Nature alwaysbrings with the dawn in deep forests; a fancy that during the night theearth had been created anew, and was fresh from the Maker's hand, as yetuntried by burden or tribulation, and guiltless of a Past. And so itseemed to the little caravan--albeit fleeing from danger and death--thatyesterday and its fears were far away, or had, in some unaccountableway, shrunk behind them in the west with the swiftly dwindling night.Olly once or twice strayed from the trail to pick an opening flower orlingering berry; Pete hummed to himself the fragment of an oldcamp-meeting song.
And so they walked on, keeping the rosy dawn and its promise beforethem. From time to time the sound of far-off voices came to themfaintly. Slowly the light quickened; morning stole down the hills uponthem stealthily, and at last the entrance of the ca[~n]on became dimlyoutlined. Olly uttered a shout and pointed to a black object movingbackward and forward before the opening. It was the waggon and teamawaiting them. Olly's shout was answered by a whistle from the driver,and they quickened their pace joyfully; in another moment they would bebeyond the reach of danger.
Suddenly a voice that seemed to start from the ground before them calledon Gabriel to stop! He did so unconsciously, drawing Hamlin closer tohim with one hand, and with the other making a broad protecting sweeptoward Olly. And then a figure rose slowly from the ditch at theroadside and barred their passage.
It was only a single man! A small man bespattered with the slime of theditch and torn with brambles; a man exhausted with fatigue and tremulouswith nervous excitement, but still erect and threatening. A man whomGabriel and Hamlin instantly recognised, even through his rags andexhaustion! It was Joe Hall--the sheriff of Calaveras! He held a pistolin his right hand, even while his left exhaustedly sought the support ofa tree! By a common instinct both men saw that while the hand was feeblethe muzzle of the weapon covered them.
"Gabriel Conroy, I want you," said the apparition.
"He's got us lined! Drop me," whispered Hamlin, hastily, "drop me! I'llspoil his aim."
But Gabriel, by a swift, dexterous movement that seemed incompatiblewith his usual deliberation, instantly transferred Hamlin to his otherarm, and with his burden completely shielded, presented his own rightshoulder squarely to the muzzle of Hall's revolver.
"Gabriel Conroy, you are my prisoner," repeated the voice.
Gabriel did not move. But over his shoulder as a rest, dropped the longshining barrel of Jack's own favourite duelling pistol, and over itglanced the bright eye of its crippled owner. The issue was joined!
There was a deathlike silence.
"Go on!" said Jack, quietly. "Keep cool, Joe. For if _you_ miss him,you're gone in; and hit or miss _I've_ got _you_ sure!"
The barrel of Hall's pistol wavered a moment, from physical weakness butnot from fear. The great heart behind it, though broken, was undaunted.
"It's all right," said the voice fatefully. "It's all right, Jack!Ye'll kill me, I know! But ye can't help sayin' arter all that I did myduty to Calaveras as the sheriff, and 'specially to them twenty-five menez elected me over Boggs! I ain't goin' to let ye pass. I've been onthis yer hunt, up and down this ca[~n]on all night. Hevin' no possy Ireckon I've got to die yer in my tracks. All right! But ye'll git intothet waggon over my dead body, Jack--over my dead body, sure."
Even as he spoke these words he straightened himself to his fullheight--which was not much, I fear--and steadied himself by the tree,his weapon still advanced and pointing at Gabriel, but with such anevident and hopeless contrast be
tween his determination and his evidentinability to execute it, that his attitude impressed his audience lesswith its heroism than its half-pathetic absurdity.
Mr. Hamlin laughed. But even then he suddenly felt the grasp of Gabrielrelax, found himself slipping to his companion's feet, and the nextmoment was deposited carefully but ignominiously on the ground byGabriel, who strode quietly and composedly up to the muzzle of thesheriff's pistol.
"I am ready to go with ye, Mr. Hall," he said, gently, putting thepistol aside with a certain large indifferent wave of the hand, "readyto go with ye--now--at onct! But I've one little favour to ax ye. Thisyer pore young man, ez yur wounded, unbeknownst," he said, pointing toHamlin, who was writhing and gritting his teeth in helpless rage andfury, "ez not to be tuk with me, nor for me! Thar ain't nothin' to bedone to him. He hez been dragged inter this fight. But I'm ready to gowith ye now, Mr. Hall, and am sorry you got into the troubil along o'me."
BOOK VII.
_THE BED ROCK._