CHAPTER VIII
A NIGHT'S EXPENSES
From Karrish to Goldite by the road was twenty-seven miles. There werefifteen mile of bottles by the way--all of them empty. A blind manwith a nose for glass could have smelled out the trail unerringlyacross that desert stretch. Karrish was the nearest town for a verygreat distance around.
Over the road innumerable caravans were passing. Everything wasrushing to Goldite. There were horsemen, hurried persons on foot, menin carriages and autos, twenty-horse freight teams, and men on tinyburros. Nearly all were shedding bottles as they went. A waterlessland is not necessarily devoid of all manner of moisture.
A dozen of the slowly laboring freight outfits were passed by Van andhis two companions. What engines of toil they represented! The tenpairs of sweating, straining animals seemed almost like some giantcaterpillar, harnessed to a burden on wheels. They always draggedthree wagons, two of which were huge gray hulks, incredibly heavy withgiant-powder, canned goods, bottled goods, picks, shovels, bedding,hay, great mining machinery, and house-hold articles. These wagonswere hitched entrain. The third wagon, termed a "trailer," was smalland loaded merely with provisions for the teamster and the team. Thewhole thing, from end to end, beat up a stifling cloud of dust.
The sun went down while Beth, Van, and Elsa were still five miles fromtheir goal. They rode as rapidly as possible. The horses, however,were jaded, and the way was slightly up grade. The twilight was brief.It descended abruptly from the western bank of clouds, by now as thickand dark as mud. Afar off shone the first faint light of the gold-campto which the three were riding. This glimmering ray was two miles outfrom the center of town. Goldite was spread in a circle four mileswide, and the most of it was isolated tents.
The darkness shut down like a pall. A vivid, vicious bolt oflightning--a fiery serpent, overcharged with might--struck down uponthe mountain tops, pouring liquid flame upon the rocks. A sweepinggust of wind came raging down upon the town, hurling dust and gravel onthe travelers.
Van rode ahead like a spirit of the storm. He knew the need for haste.Beth simply let her pony go. She was cramped and far too wearied foreffort.
They were galloping now past the outskirts of the camp, the manyscattered tents of the men who were living on their claims. All theworld was a land of claims, staked off with tall white posts, likeghosts in the vanishing light. Ahead, a multitude of lights hadsuddenly broken on the travelers' vision, like a nearby constellationof stars.
They rode into all of it, blazing lights, eager crowds upon thestreets, noise of atrocious music from the brilliant saloons, and rushof wind and dust, not a minute too soon. They had barely alighted andsurrendered their horses to a friend of Van's when the rain from thehilltops swooped upon the camp in a fury that seemed like an elementalthreat to sweep all the place, with its follies, hopes, and woes, itsexcitements, lawlessness, and struggles, from the face of the barrendesert world.
Beth and her maid were lame and numb. Van could only hustle theminside a grocery-and-hardware store to save them from a drenching. Thestore was separated from a gambling-hall saloon by the flimsiest boardpartition. Odors of alcohol, confusion of voices, and calls of agamester came unimpeded to the women's senses, together with somemighty bad singing, accompanied lustily by strains and groans poundedfrom a ghastly piano.
"Sit down," said Van, inverting a tub at the feet of the wonderingwomen. "I'll see if I can rustle up your brother."
He went out in the rain, dived impartially into the first of thecrowded saloons, was somewhat hilariously greeted by a score ofconvivial fellows, found no one who knew of young Glen Kent, andproceeded on to the next.
The horseman was well and favorably known in all directions. He waseagerly cornered wheresoever he appeared by a lot of fellows who werefriends to little purpose, in an actual test. However, he clung to hismission with commendable tenacity of purpose, and kept upon his way.Thus he discovered at length, when he visited the bank--an institutionthat rarely closed before ten o'clock in the evening--that Kent hadbeen gone for the past two weeks, no one knew where, but somewhere outsouth, with a party.
There was nothing to do after that but to look for fit apartments forthe gently reared girl and her maid. Hunting a needle in the oceanwould have been a somewhat similar task. Van went at once at thebusiness, with his customary spirit. He was presently informed therewas nothing resembling a room or a bed to be had in all the place. Ahundred men would walk the streets or sleep in chairs that night. Theone apartment suitable for two lone women to occupy had been securedthe previous day by "Plunger" Trask, an Eastern young man who would betthat grass was not green.
Van searched for Trask and found him "cashing in" a lot of assortedchips, representing his winnings at a faro game at which he had been"bucking."
"Hello, there, Van," he said familiarly as the horseman touched him onthe shoulder. "Come and have a drink."
"My teeth are floating now from drink," said Van, "but I'll takesomething else if you say so. I want your apartments for the night."
"Say, wire me!" answered the plunger. "That's the cutest little bunchof nerve I ever saw off the Bowery! How much money have you got inyour clothes?"
"About forty-five dollars," said Van. "Is it good?"
"Not as a price, but O.K. in a flip," said Trask, with an itch forschemes of chance. "I'll throw you the dice, my room against yourforty-five--and the devil take your luck if you win!"
Van agreed. They borrowed a box of dice, threw three times apiece--andthe horseman paid over his money.
"There you are, old man," said the plunger cheerfully. "Satisfied, Ihope."
"Not quite," said Van. "I'll owe you forty-five more and throw youagain."
"Right ho!" responded Trask. "Go as far as you like."
They shook again. Van lost as before. He borrowed again,undiscouraged. For the third time they cast the little cubes ofuncertainty and this time Van actually won. The room was his todispose of as he pleased. It had cost him ninety dollars for the night.
In his pocket he had cautiously retained a little money--seven andone-half dollars, to be accurate. He returned to Beth, informed her ofall he had discovered concerning her brother, took herself and Elsa todine in the camp's one presentable restaurant, paid nearly sevendollars for the meal, and gave what remained to the waiter.
Then Beth, who had never in her life been so utterly exhausted,resigned herself to Elsa's care, bade Van good-night, and left himstanding in the rain before the door, gallant, and smiling to the end.