CHAPTER VII
AN EXCHANGE OF QUESTIONS
Youth is elastic, and Van was young. An hour of quiet riding restoredhim astoundingly. He bore no signs of fatigue that Beth could detectupon his face. Once more, as he had in the morning, he was riding aheadin the trail, apparently all but oblivious of the two anxious women inhis charge.
They had wound far downward through a canyon, and now at length wereemerging on a sagebrush slope that lowered to the valley. Van halted forBeth to ride to his side, and onward they continued together.
"I suppose you have friends to whom you are going in Goldite," he said,"--or at least there's someone you know."
"Yes," she answered, "my brother."
Van looked at her in his quizzical way, observing:
"I don't believe I know him."
Her glance was almost one of laughter.
"Why, how can you tell? You don't even know his name." She paused, thenadded quietly: "It's Glenmore Kent." She felt he had a right to know notonly her brother's name, but also her own, if only for what he had done."You might, of course, know him after all," she concluded. "He has quitea number of acquaintances."
"Kent," said Van. To himself it was "Beth Kent" he was saying. "No,guess not. No such luck, but I hope you'll find him in the camp."
"Do you think I may not?" She was just a trifle startled by thepossibility.
He was grave for once.
"Men come and go in a mining town, where everyone's unduly excited. Ifhe isn't on deck, then have you no one else? Have you any alternativeplan?"
"Why, no," she confessed, her alarm increasing, "not unless Mr. Bostwickhas arrived and arranged our accommodations."
"I wouldn't count on Searle," drawled Van significantly. "He may have towalk."
"Not across the awful desert?"
"If he goes around he'll be longer."
"Why--but----" she gasped, "there is nothing to eat--no water--thereisn't anything on the desert, is there?--anywhere?"
He was looking intently into the deep brown depths of her eyes as heanswered:
"There's so little to eat that the chipmunks have to fetch in theirlunches."
Beth continued to gaze upon him. If she noted the lights of laughterlying soberly subdued in his eyes, she also discerned something more,that affected her oddly. Despite the horseman's treatment of herescort--a treatment she confessed he had partially deserved--and despitethe lightness of his speeches, she felt certain of the depth of hisnature, convinced of the genuine earnestness of his purposes--the honestyand worth of his friendship.
She knew she was tremendously indebted for all he had done and was doing,but aside from all that, in her heart of hearts she admired bravery,courage, and a dash of boldness more than anything else in the world.She was not yet certain, however, whether the man at her side was braveor merely reckless, courageous, or indifferent to danger, bold or merelyaudacious. She knew nothing about him whatsoever, nothing except he mustbe tired, lame, and bruised from exertions undertaken in her behalf. Ithad been a long, long day. She felt as if they had known each otheralways--and had always been friends.
Her mind went back to the morning as if to an era of the past. Thethought of the convicts who had captured Bostwick aroused newapprehensions in her breast, though not for the man with the car.Someway Searle seemed strangely far away and dimmed in her regard. Shewas thinking of what she had overheard, back there at the Monte Cristomine.
"This has been a trying day," she said, apparently ignoring Van's lastobservation. "You have taken a great deal of trouble for--for us--and weappreciate it fully."
Van said gravely: "Taking trouble is the only fun I have."
"You laugh at everything," she answered, "but isn't it really a seriousthing--a menace to everyone--having those convicts out of prison?"
"It isn't going to be a knitting-bee, rounding them up," Van admitted."And meantime they're going to be exacting of everyone they meet."
She looked at him half seriously, but altogether brightly.
"And what if they chance to meet you?"
"Oh, we'd exchange courtesies, I reckon."
She had no intention of confessing how much she had overheard, but shewas tremendously interested--almost fearful for the man's safety, shehardly dared ask herself why. She approached her subject artfully.
"Do you know them, then?"
"Well, yes, the leader--slightly," he answered. "I sent him up formurder, stealing cattle, and robbing sluices. He was too annoying tohave around."
"Oh! Then won't he feel ugly, resentful?" she inquired earnestly."Won't he try to hunt you up--and pay you back?"
Van regarded her calmly.
"He told me to expect my pay--if ever he escaped--and he's doubtless gothis check-book along."
"His check-book?"
"Colt--forty-four," Van drawled by way of explanation.
She turned a trifle pale.
"He'd shoot you on sight?"
"If he sighted me first."
Her breath came hard. She realized that the quiet-seeming horseman ather side would kill a fellow-being--this convict, at least--as readily ashe might destroy a snake.
"How long ago did you put him in jail?" she inquired.
"Four years ago this summer."
"Have you always lived here--out West?"
"I've lived every day I've been here," he answered evasively. "Do I looklike a native?"
She laughed. "Oh, I don't know. We came here straight from New York, aweek ago, Elsa and I. Mr. Bostwick joined us two days later. I reallyknow nothing of the country at all."
"New York," he said, and relapsed into silent meditation. How far awayseemed old New Amsterdam! How long seemed the brief six years since hehad started forth with his youthful health, his strength, determination,boyish dreams, and small inheritance to build up a fortune in the West!What a mixture of sunshine and failure it had been! What glitteringhopes had lured him hither and yon in the mountains, where each greatgateway of adventure had charged its heavy toll!
He had lost practically all of his money; he had gained his all ofmanhood. He had suffered privation and hardship; he had known the vastcomfort of friends--true friends, as certain as the very heart in hisbreast to serve him to the end.
Like a panoramic dream he beheld a swift procession of mine-and-cattlescenes troop past for swift review. He lived again whole months ofnights spent out alone beneath the sky, with the snow and the wind hurleddown upon him from a merciless firmament of bleakness. Once more hestumbled blindly forward in the desert--he and Gettysburg--perishing forwater, giving up their liquid souls to the horribly naked and insatiatesun. Again he toiled in the shaft of a mine till his back felt like acrackly thing of glass with each aching fissure going deeper.
Once more the gold goddess beckoned with her smile, and fortune wasthere, almost in reach--the fortune that he and his partners had soughtso doggedly, so patiently--the fortune for which they had starved anddelved and suffered--only to see it vanish in the air as the sunshinewill vanish from a peak.
Old hopes, like ghosts, went skulking by, vain charlatans, ashamed. Butfriendships stood about in every scene--bright presences that cast aroseate glow on all the tribulations of his life. And it seemed as if afailure here was half a failure only, after all. It had not robbed himeither of his youth, his strength, or a certain boyish credulity andtrust in all his kind. He still believed he should win his golden goal,and he loved the land that had tried him.
His last, his biggest venture, the Monte Cristo mine was, however,gone--everything sold to meet the company debts. Nevertheless, he hadonce more purchased a claim, with all but his very last dollar in theworld, and he and his partners would soon be on the ground, assaultingthe stubborn adamant with powder, pick, and drill, in the fever of theminer's ceaseless dream.
To-day, as he rode beside the girl, he wondered at it all--why he hadlabored so persistently. The faint, far-off shadow of a sweetheart, longsince left
behind, failed to supply him a motive. She had grownimpatient, listened to a suitor more tangible than Van's absent self, andso, blamelessly, had faded from his scheme of hopes, leaving no more thana fragrance in his thoughts, with certainly no bitterness or anger.
"Old New York," he repeated, at the end of his reverie, and meeting oncemore the steady brown eyes of the girl with whom the fates had thrownhim, he fetched up promptly with the present.
"How long has your brother been out here in Goldite?"
"About a month," she answered. "He's been in the West for nearly a year,and wrote Mr. Bostwick to come."
"Mr. Bostwick is doubtless a very particular friend of your family."
"Why, yes, he's my---- That is, he _was_--he always has been a veryparticular friend--for several years," she faltered suddenly turning red."We haven't any family, Glen and I--and he's my half brother only--butwe're just like chums---and that was why I wanted to come. I expect tosurprise him. He doesn't know I'm here."
Van was silent and she presently added:
"I hope you and Glen will be friends. I know how much he'll wish tothank you."
He looked at her gravely.
"I hope he won't. It's up to me to thank him."
They had come to a road at the level of the valley--a desert valley,treeless, grassless, gray, and desolate. The sun was rapidly nearing therim of the mountains, as if to escape pursuit of a monstrous bank ofclouds.
Van spurred his chestnut to a gallop, and the horses bearing the womenresponded with no further need of urging.