CHAPTER XXXIII
THE CLOUDS OF TROUBLE GATHER
By the route beyond the river that Van was obliged to choose, thedistance from his claim to Starlight was more than forty miles. Hispony had no shoes, and having never been ridden far, was a trifle softfor a trip involving difficulties such as this mountain work abundantlyafforded. When they came to Phonolite Pass, the last of the cut-offson the trail, Van rode no more than a hundred yards into its shadowsbefore he feared he must turn.
Phonolite is broken shale, a thin, sharp rock that gives forth apleasant, metallic sound when struck, like shattered crockery. For amile this deposit lay along the trail across the width of the pass.For the bare-footed pony there was cruelty in every step. The barrierof rock was far more formidable than the river in its flood.
Van was not to be halted in his object. He had a letter to deliver; hemeant to take it through, though doom itself should yawn across hispath. The hour was late; the sun was rapidly sinking. Van pulled uphis broncho and debated.
Absolute silence reigned in the world of mountains. But if the placeseemed desolate, it likewise seemed secure. Nevertheless, death lurkedin the trail ahead. Barger was there. He was lying in the rocks,concealed where the chasm was narrow. He had ridden four hours--on themare Beth had lost--to arrive ahead of Van Buren. The muzzle of a longblack revolver that he held in hand rested upon a shattered boulder.His narrow eyes lay level with a rift in the group of rocks that hidhim completely from view. Van was in sight, and the convict's breathcame quickly as he waited.
Van dismounted from his pony's back and picked up one of his hoofs.
"Worn down pretty flat," he told the animal. "Perhaps if I walk we canmake it." He started on foot up the tinkling way, watching the bronchowith solicitude.
Suvy followed obediently, but the pointed rocks played havoc with hisfeet. He lurched, in attempting to right his foot on one that turned,and the long lassoo, secured to the saddle, flopped out, fell back, andmade him jump. Van halted as before. The convict was barely fiftyyards away. His pistol was leveled, but he waited for a deadlier aim,a shorter shot.
"Nope! We'll have to climb the hill," Van decided reluctantly."You're a friend of mine, Suvy, and even if you weren't, you'd have tolast to get back." He turned his back on death, unwittingly, to sparethe horse he loved.
Delayed no less than an hour by this enforced retreat, he patiently ledthe broncho back to the opening of the pass, and, still on foot, ledthe steep way up over the mountain.
Barger rose up and cursed himself for not having risked a shot. Hedared not attempt a dash upon his man; he could not know where Vanmight again be intercepted; he was helpless, baffled, enraged. Halfstarved, keenly alive only in his instinct to accomplish his revenge,the creature was more like a hunted, retaliating animal than like aman. He had sworn to even the score with Van Buren; he was not to bedeflected from his course. But to get his man here was no longerpossible. The horse Beth had lost, now in the convict's possession,was all but famished for water, not to mention food. There was nothingto choose but retreat towards the river, to the northward, where themountains might yet afford an ambush as Van was returning home.
Far away in the mountains, at the "Laughing Water" claim, while the sunwas setting on a scene of labors, all but concluded for the day, thegroup of surveyors, with Lawrence in charge, appeared along thesouthern ridge.
Gettysburg, Napoleon, and Dave were still in the water by the sluices.They were grimed, soiled with perspiration, wearied by the long, hardday of toil. Shovel in hand old Gettysburg discovered the men with aninstrument who trekked along the outside edge of the claim. Chain-man,rod-man, and Lawrence with his shining theodolite, set on its threeslender legs, they were silhouetted sharply against the evening sky.Their movements and their presence here were beyond the partners'comprehension. It was Gettysburg who climbed up the slope, andanchored himself in their path.
"What you doin'?" he said to the rod-man presently, when that tiredindividual approached and continued on his way.
"What does it look like--playing checkers?" said the man. "Can't theGovernment do nuthin'--run no county line ner nuthin' without everybodysittin' up to notice?"
No less than fifty men they had met that day had questioned what theGovernment was doing. The "county line" suggestion had been the onlyhint vouchsafed--and that had sufficed to allay the keenest suspicion.
"That all?" said Gettysburg, and, watching as he went, he slowlyreturned to his partners. His explanation was ample. The surveyorsproceeded on.
Meantime, in absolute ignorance of all that was happening on hisproperty, Van continued towards Starlight unmolested. An hour aftersundown he rode to the camp, inquired his way to the rough-board shack,where Kent was lying ill, and was met at the door by a stranger, whomGlen had employed as cook and "general nurse."
Bostwick was there. He remained unseen. His instructions wereimperative--and the "nurse" had no choice but to obey.
"Of course, Kent's here," he admitted, in response to Van's firstquestion. "He can't see no one, neither--no matter who it is."
"I've brought a letter from his sister," Van explained. "He's got tohave it, and have it now. If he wishes to send any answer back, I'mhere to take it."
The "nurse" looked him over.
"The orders from the doctor is no visitors!" he said. "And that goes.If you want to leave the letter, why you kin."
Van produced the letter.
"If the man's as ill as that, I have no desire to butt in for aninterview," he said. "Oblige me by ascertaining at your earliestconvenience whether or not I may be of service to Mr. Kent in returninghis reply."
The man looked bewildered. He received the letter, somewhat dubiously,and disappeared. Van waited. The reception was not precisely what hemight have expected, but, for the matter of that, neither had the tripbeen altogether what he might have chosen.
It was fully twenty minutes before the nurse reappeared.
"He was just woke up enough to say thank you and wants to know ifyou'll oblige him with the favor of takin' his hand-write back to hissister in the mornin'?"
Van looked him over steadily. After all, the man within might beutterly sick and weak. His request was natural. And the service wasfor Beth.
"Certainly," he said. "I'll be here at seven in the morning."
Starlight was nearly deserted. Gratified to discover sufficient foodand bedding for himself and his pony, Van made no complaint.
At six in the morning he was rousing up the blacksmith, fortunately notyet gone to join the reservation rush. Suvy was shod, and at seveno'clock he and Van were again at Glenmore's cabin.
His man was in waiting. In his hand he held an envelope, unsealed.
"Mr. Kent's asleep, but here's his hand-write to his sister," he said."He wants you to read it out before you hike."
Van received the envelope, glanced at the man inquiringly, and removeda single sheet of paper. It was not a note from Glen; it appeared tobe the final page of Beth's own letter to her brother. Van knew thestrong, large chirography. His eye ran swiftly over all the lines.
"--so I felt I ought to know about things, and let you know of what isgoing on. There is more that I cannot tell you. I wrote you much inmy former letter--much, I mean, about the man who will carry thisletter, so unsuspiciously--the man I shall yet repay if it lies withinmy power. For the things he has done--and for what he is--for what herepresents--this is the man I hate more than anything or anyone else inthe world. You would understand me if you knew it all--all! Let himcarry some word from you to Your loving sister, BETH."
Van had read and comprehended the full significance of the lines beforehe realized some error had been made--that this piece of Beth's letterhad been placed by mistake in the envelope for him to take, instead ofthe letter Glen had written.
He did not know and could not know that Bostwick, within, by the sickman's side, had kept Glen stupid and hazy with drugs, that the on
e word"hate" had been "love" on the sheet he held in his hand till altered bythe man from New York, or that something far different from an utterlydespicable treachery towards himself had been planned in Beth's warm,happy heart.
The thing, in its enormity, struck him a blow that made him reel, for amoment, till he could grasp at his self-control. He had made no sign,and he made none now as he folded the sheet in its creases.
"I'm afraid you made some mistake," he said. "This is not the notefrom Mr. Kent. Perhaps you will bring me the other."
"What?" said the man, unaware of the fact that Bostwick had purposelyarranged this scheme for putting the altered sheet in Van Buren's hands.
"What's that?" He glanced at the sheet in genuine surprise."Keerect," he said. "I'll go and git you the letter."
Van mounted his horse. His face had taken on a chiseled appearance, asif it had been cut in stone. He had ridden here through desert heatand flood, for this--to fetch such a letter as this, to a man he hadnever seen nor cared to see, and whose answer he had promised to return.
He made no effort to understand it--why she should send him when theregular mail would have answered every purpose. The vague, dark hintscontained in her letter--hints at things going on--things she could nottell--held little to arouse his interest. A stabbed man would havetaken more interest in the name of the maker of the weapon, stamped onthe dagger's blade, than did Van in the detail of affairs betweenGlenmore Kent and his sister. Beth had done this thing, and he hadfondly believed her love was welded to his own. She had meant it,then, when she cried in her passion that she hated him for what he haddone. Her anger that night upon the hill by Mrs. Dick's had not beenjealousy of Queenie, but rage against himself. She was doubtless inlove with Bostwick after all--and would share this joke with her lover.
He shrugged his shoulders. Luck had never been his friend. By whatright had he recently begun to expect her smile? And why had hecontinued, for years, to believe in man or in Fate? All the madness ofjoy he had felt for days, concerning Beth and the "Laughing Water"claim, departed as if through a sieve. He cared for nothing, theclaim, the world, or his life. As for Beth--what was the use ofwishing to understand?
The "nurse" came out at the door again, this time with a note whichBostwick had written, with a few suggestions from Glen, in an unsealedcover as before.
"I told young Kent you didn't take no time to read the other," he said,holding up the epistle. "If you want to read this----"
"Thank you," Van interrupted, taking the letter and thrusting it atonce in his pocket. "Thank Mr. Kent for his courtesies, in my behalf."He turned and rode away.