CHAPTER XVI
BENEFITS RETURNED
Dick waited impatiently at the rendezvous, saw Joan coming, hurried tomeet her, and was restrained from displaying his joy by her upheldhand, as she smiled and cautioned: "Now, steady, Dick! You know wewere not to--to--be anything but comrades for a while yet."
He was compelled to respect her wishes, but his eyes spoke all thathis tongue might have uttered. In the joy of meeting her, he hadforgotten the part played by her father in his surreptitious attemptto gain possession of the Croix d'Or: but her first words reminded himof it:
"It has been terribly lonesome since you left. I have felt as if thewhole world had deserted me. Dad is not a cheery sort of companion,because he is so absorbed by the Rattler that he lives with it, eatswith it, sleeps with it. And, to make him worse, something appears tohave upset him in the last week or ten days until a bear would be ahighly lovable companion by comparison."
She failed to notice the gravity of his face, for he surmised howSloan's answer must have affected the owner of the Rattler, who strodemercilessly over all obstacles and men, but now had come to one whichhe could not surmount. He wondered how obdurate Bully Presby wouldprove if the time ever came when he dared ask for Joan, and whether,if the father refused, Joan's will would override this opposition.
Studying the lines of her face, and the firm contour of her chin as itrounded into the grace of her throat, he had a joyful sense ofconfidence that she would not prove wanting, and dismissed BullyPresby from his thoughts. With a great embarrassment, he fumbled inthe pocket of his shirt, and brought out a little box which he opened,to display a glittering gem. He held it toward her, in the palm of hishand; but she pulled her gloves over her fingers, and blushed andlaughed.
"It seems to me," she declared, "that you have plenty of assurance."
"Why?" he insisted.
"Because I haven't made my mind up--that far, yet, and because if Ihad I shouldn't say so until the Croix d'Or had been proven one wayor the other."
She stopped, awkwardly embarrassed, as if her objection had conveyed asuggestion that his financial standing had a bearing on heracceptance, and hastened to rectify it:
"Not that its success or the money it would bring has anything to dowith it."
"But if it failed?" he interrogated, striving to force her to anadmission.
"I should accept you as quickly as if it were a success; perhaps morequickly, for I have money enough. But that isn't it. Don't you see,can't you understand, that I want you to make good just to show thatyou can?"
"Yes," he answered gloomily. "But if I didn't feel quite confident, Ishouldn't offer you the ring. And if I failed, I shouldn't ask you."
"Then you musn't fail," she retorted. "And, do you know," shehastened, as if eager to change the subject, and get away from such atrying pass, "that I've never seen the Croix since you took possessionof it?"
"Come now," he said, with boyish eagerness. "I've wanted you to seewhat we are doing for weeks--yes, months. Will you? We can lead yourhorse down over the trail easily."
He walked by her side, the black patiently following them, and toldher of what had been accomplished in his absence, and of their plans.She listened gravely, offering such sage advice now and then that hisadmiration of her knowledge constantly increased. There were but fewmen in sight as they crossed the head of the canyon, and came slowlydown past the blacksmith shop.
"Why, if there isn't Mr. Clark!" she exclaimed, and the smith lookedup, grinned, dropped his tongs, and came toward them, wiping his handon his smudgy apron.
"Hello, Joan!" he called out. "You're a bit bigger'n you used to be,when I made iron rings for you."
"Oh, Smuts," she laughed happily, stepping to meet him, "do you know Istill have one, and that it's in my jewel case, among my most preciouspossessions?"
She held out her white, clean hand, and he almost seized it in hisgrimy, fist, then drew her back.
"'Most forgot!" he declared. "I reckon I'd muss that up some if I tookit in my fist."
"Then muss it," she laughed. "You weren't always so particular." Andhe grabbed, held, and patted the hand that he had known in itschildhood.
"Why, little Joan," he growled, with a suspicious softness in hisvoice, "you ain't changed none since you used to sit on the end ofthat old-fashioned forge, dirty up your pinafores, and cry when Bullyled you off. Him and me ain't friends no more, so's you could notice.Seven years now since I hit him for cussin' me for somethin' thatwa'n't my fault! But, by gee whiz, old Bully Presby could go some! Wetipped an anvil over that day, and wrecked a bellows before theypulled us off each other. I've always wondered, since then which of usis the better man!"
He spoke with such an air of regret that Joan and Dick laughedoutright, and in the midst of it a shadow came across their own, andthey turned to meet the amused, complacent stare of Bill. Inacknowledging the introduction, Joan felt that his piercing eyes werestudying her, probing her soul, as appraisingly as if seeking to layher appearance and character bare. His harsh, determined face suddenlybroke into a wondrous warmth of smile, and he impulsively seized herhand again.
"Say," he said, "you'll do! You're all right!"
And she knew intuitively that this giant of the hills and lonelyplaces had read her, with all her emotions and love, as he would readprint, and that, with the quick decision of such men, he was preparedto give her loyal friendship and affection.
They walked slowly around the plant, Dick pointing out their technicalprogress as they went, and she still further gained Bill's admirationin the assay-house when she declared that she had a preference foranother kind of furnace than they were using.
"Why, say, Miss Presby, can you assay?" he burst out.
"Assay!" she said. "Why, I lived in the assay-house at two or threetimes, and then studied it afterward."
"Hey, up there!" a shout came from the roadway below.
They turned and went out to the little cindered, littered level infront of the door, and looked down to where, on the roadway a hundredfeet below, a man stood at the head of a string of panting burros, andthey recognized in him a packer from Goldpan.
"I've got somethin' here for you." He waved his hand back toward thestring of burros.
"What is it?" asked Bill, turning to Dick.
"I don't know what it can be. I have ordered nothing as heavy as thatoutfit appears to be."
Perplexed, they excused themselves and descended the slope, leavingJoan standing there in front of the assay office, and enjoying thepicture of the canyon, with its border of working buildings on oneside, and its scattered cabins, mess- and bunk-houses on the other,the huge waste dump towering away from the hoist, and filling the headof the canyon, and the sparkle of the stream below.
"It's for you, all right," the packer insisted. "The Wells Fargo agentturned it over to me down in Goldpan, and said the money had been sentto pay me for bringin' it up here. I don't know what it is. It'sstones of some kind."
Still more perplexed, the partners ordered him to take his pack trainaround to the storage house, and Bill led the way while his partnerclimbed back up the hill, and rejoined Joan. He was showing her someof the assay slips from the green lead when they heard a loud callfrom the yard. It was Bill, beckoning. They went across to meet him.One of the hitches had been thrown, and the other burros stoodexpectantly waiting to be relieved of their burdens.
"It's a tombstone," Bill said gravely. "It's for Bell's grave. Theexpress receipt shows that it was sent by----" he hesitated for amoment, as if studying whether to use one name, or another, and thenconcluded--"The Lily."
He pointed to a section of granite at their feet, and on its polishedsurface they read:
Under this granite sleeps Bells Park, an engineer. Murdered in defense of his employers. Faithful when living, and faithful when dead, to the Croix d'Or and all those principles which make a worthy man.
A sudden, overwhelming sadness seemed to descend upon them. Billturned abruptly, and stepped across to
ward the boiler-house. Thewhistle sent out a long-drawn, booming call--the alarm signal for themine. In all the stress of the Croix d'Or it was the first time thatnote had ever been used save in drill. The bells of the hoist aroseinto a jangling clamor. They heard the wheels of the cage whirl as itshot downward, the excited exclamations of men ascending, some of themwith tools in hand, the running of a man's feet, emerging from theblacksmith's tunnel, the shout of the smith to his helper, and thelabored running of the cook and waiter across the cinders of the yard.Bill slowly returned toward them.
"We'll have to get you to land it up there," he said, waving his armtoward the cross high above. "Give us a hand here, will you? andwe'll throw this hitch again."
The entire force of the mine had gathered around them before he hadfinished speaking, and, seeing the stone, understood. Joan caught herriding skirts deftly into her hand, and, with Bill leading the way upthe steep and rock-strewn ascent, they climbed the peak. The burroshalted now and then to rest, straining under the heaviness of theirtask. The men of the Croix d'Or sometimes assisted them with willingshoulders pushing behind, and there by the mound, on which flowerswere already beginning to show green and vivid, they laid out thesections of granite. Only the cook's helper was absent. Willing handscaught the sections, which had been grooved to join, and, tier ontier, they found their places until there stood, high and austere, thegranite shaft that told of one man's loyalty.
Dick gave some final instructions as to the rearranging of the graveand the little plot that had been created around it, and theydescended in a strange silence, saddened by all that had beenrecalled. No one spoke, save Bill, who gave orders to the men toreturn to their tasks, and then said, as if to himself: "I'd likemighty well to know where Lily Meredith is. We cain't even thank her.Once I wondered what she was. Now I know more than ever. She was allwoman!"
And to this, Joan, putting out her hand to bid them good-by,assented.
The night shots had been fired at five o'clock--the time usuallyselected by mines working two shifts--supper had been eaten, and thepartners were sitting in front of their quarters when Bill againreferred to Mrs. Meredith. High up on the hill, where the new landmarkhad been, erected, at the foot of the cross, the day shift of theCroix d'Or was busied here and there in clearing away the groundaround the grave of the engineer, some of the men on hands and kneescasting aside small bowlders, others trimming a clearing in thesurrounding brush, and still others painfully building a low wall ofrock.
"The hard work of findin' out where The Lily is," said Bill softly,"is because she covered her trail. Nobody knows where she went. Thestage driver saw her on the train, but the railway agent told him shedidn't buy no ticket. The conductor wrote me that he put her off atthe junction, and that she took the train toward Spokane. That's all!It ends there as if she'd got on the train, and then it had neverstopped. We cain't even thank her."
Dick, absorbed in thoughts of Joan, heard but little of what he said,and so agreed with a short: "No, that's right." And Bill subsided intosilence. A man came trudging up the path leading from the roadwaylower down, and in his hand held a bundle of letters.
"Got the mail," he said. "The stage may run every other day afterthis, instead of twice a week, the postmaster over at the camp toldme. Not much to-night. Here it is."
He handed Dick a bundle of letters, and then, sighting the others onthe side of the peak above, started to join them, and take his sharein that labor of respect and affection. In the approaching twilightDick ran through the packet, selected one letter addressed to hispartner, and gave it to him, then tore open the first one at hand. Itwas addressed in an unfamiliar and painful chirography, with thepostmark of Portland, Ore., stamped smudgily in its corner. He begancasually to read, then went white as the laborious lines flowed andswam before his eyes:
Dear Mister Townsend, owner of the cross mine, I write you because I am afraid I aint got your pardners name right and because Ive got something on my mind that I cant keep any more. Im the girl that got burned at the High Light. Your pardner saved my life and you were awful kind to me. Everybody's been very kind to me too. I spose you know I'll not be able to work in dance halls no more because Im quite ugly now with them scars all over my face. But that dont make no difference. Mrs. Meredith has been here to see me and told me who it was saved my life. Mrs. Meredith dont want nobody to know where shes gone. Shes not coming back any more. Shes quit the business and is running a sort of millinery store in----
Here a name had been painstakingly obliterated, as if by afterthought,the very paper being gouged through with ink.
Shes paid all my hospital bills and when I get strong enough shes going to let me go to work for her. But that aint what Im writing about and this letter is the biggest I ever wrote. The nurse says Im making a book. I wasn't a very bad girl or a very good girl when I was in the camps. Maybe you know that but I done my best and was as decent as I could be. There was a man was my sweetheart and sometimes when he drank too much he talked too much. Men always say a whole lot when theyre full of rotgut, unless they get nasty. My man never got nasty. Hes gone away and I dont know where. Maybe he dont want nothing more to do with me since I got my face burned. Ive kept my mouth shut until I found out it was you two men who saved me and Im writing this to pay you back the only way I can. Bully Presby is stealing all his best pay ore from the Croix d'Or. Hes worked clean under you and got the richest ledge in the district. They aint nobody but confidential men ever get into that drift. Hes been stealing that ore for going on two years andll give you a lot of trouble if you dont mind your Ps and Qs. I hope you beat him out, and I pray for both of you.
Your ever grateful, Pearl Walker.