CHAPTER XXXVI
VAN RUNS AMUCK
Instead of turning northward in the mountain range and riding on to the"Laughing Water" claim, Van continued straight ahead to Goldite. Theletter to Beth was heavy in his pocket. Until he should rid himself ofits burden he knew he should have no peace--no freedom to act forhimself.
He had been delayed. The sun was setting when at last he rode hisbroncho to the hay-yard in the camp, and saw that he was fed withproper care. Then he got some boots and walked to Mrs. Dick's.
Beth, from her window, looking towards the sun, discovered him comingto the place. She had never in her life felt so wildly joyous atbeholding any being of the earth. She had watched for hours, countinghis steps across the desert's desolation one by one, tracing his coursefrom Starlight "home" by all the signs along the trail which she and hehad traveled together.
She ran downstairs like a child. She had momentarily forgotten evenGlen. Nothing counted but this sight of Van--his presence here withherself. When she suddenly burst from the door into all the goldenglory of the sunset, herself as glorious with color, warmth, and youthas the great day-orb in the west, Van felt his heart give onetumultuous heave in his breast, despite the resentment he harbored.
There had never been a moment when her smile had been so radiant, whenthe brown of her eyes had been so softly lighted and glowing, when hercheeks had so mirrored her beauty.
How superb she was, he said to himself--how splendid was her acting!He could almost forgive himself for having played the fool. Hishelplessness, his defenselessness had been warranted. But--her smilecould befuddle him no more. He took off his hat, with a certain coldelegance of grace. His face still wore that chiseled appearance ofstone-like hardness.
"Oh!" she cried, in her irrepressible happiness of heart. "You'rehome! You're safe! I'm glad!"
It was nothing, her cry that he was safe. She had worried only for thedesert's customary perils, but this he could not know. He thought shereferred to a possible meeting with Barger. He was almost swept fromhis balance by her look, for a bright bit of moisture had sprung in hereyes and her smile took on a tenderness that all but conquered him anew.
"I delivered your letter in Starlight," he said. "I return yourbrother's reply."
He had taken the letter from his pocket. He held it forth.
She took it. If memories of Glen started rushingly upon her, they werehalted by something she felt in the air, something in the cold, setspeech of the man she loved as never she had thought to love a creatureof the earth. She made no reply, but stood looking peculiarly uponhim, a question written plainly in her glance.
"If there is nothing more," he added, "permit me to wish you good-day."He swept off his hat as he had before, turned promptly on his heel, anddeparted the scene forthwith.
She tried to cry out, to ask him what it meant, but the thing had comelike a blow. It had not been what he had said, so much as the mannerof its saying--not so much what she had heard as what her heart hadfelt. A deluge of ice water, suddenly thrown upon her, could scarcelyhave chilled or shocked her more than the coldness that had bristledfrom his being.
Wholly at a loss to understand, she leaned in sudden weakness againstthe frame of the door, and watched him disappearing. Her smile wasgone. In its place a dumb, white look of pain and bewilderment hadfrozen on her face. Had not that something, akin to anger, which hernature had felt to be emanating from him remained so potently tooppress her, she could almost have thought the thing a joke--somefreakish mood of playfulness after all the other moods he had shown.But no such thought was possible. The glitter in his eyes had beenunmistakable. Then, what could it mean?
She almost cried, as she stood there and saw him vanish. She hadcounted so much upon this moment. She had prayed for his coming safelyback from the desert. She had so utterly unbound the fetters from herlove. Confession of it all had been ready in her heart, her eyes, andon her lips. Reaction smote her a dulling blow. Her whole impulsivenature crept back upon itself, abashed--like something discarded, flungat her feet ingloriously.
"Oh--Van!" she finally cried, in a weak, hurt utterance, and back alongthe darkening hall she went, her hand with Glen's crushed letterpressed hard upon her breast.
Van, for his part, far more torn than he could have believed possible,proceeded down the street in such a daze as a drunken man mightexperience, emerging from liquor's false delights to life's cold,merciless facts. The camp was more emptied than he had ever known itsince first it was discovered. Only a handful of the reservationstragglers had returned. The darkness would pour them in by hundreds.
Half way down the thoroughfare Van paused to remember what it was hisbody wanted. It was food. He started again, and was passing the bankwhen someone called from within.
"Hello, there--Van!" came the cry. "Hello! Come in!"
Van obeyed mechanically. The cashier, Rickart, it was who had shoutedthe summons--a little, gray-eyed, thin-faced man, with a very longmoustache.
"How are you, Rick?" said the horseman familiarly. "What's going on?"
"Haven't _you_ heard?--_you_?" interrogated Rickart. "I thought it wasfunny you were loafing along so leisurely. Didn't you know to-day wasthe day for the rush?"
"I did," said Van. "What about it?"
"Not much," his friend replied, "except your claim has been jumped byMcCoppet and one J. Searle Bostwick, who got on to the fact that thereservation line included all your ground."
Van looked his incredulity.
"What's the joke?" he said. "I bite. What's the answer?"
"Joke?" the cashier echoed. "Joke? They had the line surveyedthrough, yesterday, and Lawrence confirmed their tip. Your claim, Itell you, was on reservation ground, and McCoppet had his crowd on deckat six o'clock this morning. They staked it out, according to law, asthe first men on the job after the Government threw it open--and therethey are."
Van leaned against the counter carelessly, and looked at his friendunmoved.
"Who told you the story?" he inquired. "Who brought it into camp?"
"Why a dozen men--all mad to think they never got on," said Rickart,not without heat. "It's an outrage, Van! You might have fought themoff if you'd been on deck, and made the location yourself! Where haveyou been?"
Van smiled. The neatness of the whole arrangement began to bepresented to his mind.
"Oh, I was out of the way all right," he said. "My friends took careof that."
"I thought there was something in the wind, all along," imparted thelittle cashier. "Bostwick and McCoppet have been thicker than thievesfor a week. But the money they needed wasn't Bostwick's. I wired toNew York to get his standing--and he's got about as much as a pin. Butthe girl stood in, you bet! She's got enough--and dug up thirtythousand bucks to handle the crowd's expenses."
Van straightened up slowly.
"The girl?"
"Miss Kent--engaged to Bostwick--you ought to know," replied the manbehind the counter. "She's put up the dough and I guess she's in thegame, for she turned it all over like a man."
Van laughed, suddenly, almost terribly.
"Oh, hell, Rick, come out and git a drink!" he said. "Here," as henoted a bottle in the desk, "give me some of that!"
Rickart gave him the bottle and a glass. He poured a stiff amberdraught and raised it on high, a wild, fevered look in his eyes.
"Here's to the gods of law and order!" he said. "Here's to faith,hope, and charity. Here's to friendship, honor, and loyalty. Here'sto the gallant little minority that love their neighbors as themselves.Give me perfidy or give me death! Hurray for treason, strategy, andspoils!"
He drank the liquid fire at one reckless gulp, and laughing again, inghastly humor, lurched suddenly out at the open door and across to thenearest saloon.
Rickart, in sudden apprehension for the "boy" he genuinely loved,called out to him shrilly, but in vain. Then he scurried to thetelephone, rang up the office of the sheriff, and pr
esently had adeputy on the wire.
"Say, friend," he called, "if Bostwick or McCoppet should return tocamp to-night, warn them to keep off the street. Van Buren's in, and Idon't want the boy to mix himself in trouble."
"All right," came the answer, "I'm on."
In less than an hour the town was "on." Men returning by the scoresand dozens, nineteen out of every twenty exhausted, angered withdisappointment, and clamorous for refreshments, filled the streets,saloons, and eating houses, all of them talking of the "Laughing Water"claim, and all of them ready to sympathize with Van--especially at hisexpense.
His night was a mixture of wildness, outflamings of satire on thevirtues, witty defiance of the fates, and recklessness of everythingsave reference to women. Not a word escaped his lips whereby hiskeenest, most delighted listener could have probed to the heart of hismood. To the loss of his claim was attributed all his pyrotechnics,and no one, unless it was Rickart, was aware of the old proverbial"woman in the case," who had planted the sting that stung.
Rickart, like a worried animal, following the footsteps of his master,sought vainly all night to head Van off and quiet him down in bed. Attwo in the morning, at McCoppet's gambling hall, where Van perhapsexpected to encounter the jumpers of his claim, the little cashiersucceeded at last in commanding Van's attention. Van had a glass ofstuff in his hand--stuff too strong to be scathed by all the pure foodenactments in the world.
"Look here, boy," said Rickart, clutching the horseman's wrist in hishand, "do you know that Gettysburg, and Nap, and Dave are camping onthe desert, waiting for you to come home?"
Van looked at him steadily. He was far from being dizzied in hisbrain. Since the blow received at the hands of Beth had not sufficedto make him utterly witless, then nothing drinkable could overcome hisreason.
"_Home_?" he said. "Waiting for me to come _home_."
Suddenly wrenching his hand from Rickart's grip he hurled the glass ofliquor with all his might against the mirror of the bar. The crashrose high above the din of human voices. A radiating star was abruptlycreated in the firmament of glass, and Van was starting for the door.
The barkeeper scarcely turned his head. He was serving half a dozenmen, and he said: "Gents, what's your poison?"
A crowd of half-intoxicated revelers started for Van and attempted tohaul him back. He flung them off like a lot of pestiferous puppies,and cleared the door.
He went straight to the hay-yard, saddled his horse, and headed up overthe mountains. He had eaten no dinner; he wanted none. The fresh,clean air began its work of restoration.
It was daylight when he reached the camp his partners had made on thedesert. Napoleon and Gettysburg were drunk. Discouraged by his longdelay, homeless, and utterly disheartened, they had readily succumbedto the conveniently bottled sympathy of friends.
No sooner had the horseman alighted at the camp than Napoleon flunghimself upon him. He was weeping.
"What did I sh-sh-sh-sh-(whistle) shay?" he interrogated brokenly,"home from a foreign--quoth the r-r-r-r-r-(whistle) raven--NEVER MORE!"
Gettysburg waxed apologetic, as he held his glass eye in his hand.
"Didn't mean to git in thish condition, Van--didn't go to do it," heimparted confidentially. "Serpent that lurks in the glash."
Van resumed his paternal role with a meed of ready forgiveness.
"Let him who hath an untainted breath cast the first bottle," he said.Even old Dave, thought sober, was disqualified, and Algy was asleep.