Barker and Stacy both stared at their companion. It was unlike Demorest to regret anythingparticularly a mere social diversion.
They say, remarked Stacy, that if you had known Jack Hamlin earlier and professionally, a great deal of real value would have quitted you before he did.
Dont repeat that rot flung out by men who have played Jacks game and lost, returned Demorest derisively. Id rather trust him thanHe stopped, glanced at the meditative Barker, and then concluded abruptly, the whole caboodle of his critics.
They were silent for a few moments, and then seemed to have fallen into their former dreamy mood as they relapsed into their old seats again. At last Stacy drew a long breath. I wish we had sent those nuggets off with the others this morning.
Why? said Demorest suddenly.
Why? Well, dn it all! they kind of oppress me, dont you see. I seem to feel em here, on my chestall the three, returned Stacy only half jocularly. Its their dd specific gravity, I suppose. I dont like the idea of sleeping in the same room with em. Theyre altogether too much for us three men to be left alone with.
You dont mean that you think that anybody would attemptsaid Demorest.
Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously. No; I dont think THATI rather wish I did. Its the blessed chunks of solid gold that seem to have got US fast, dont you know, and are going to stick to us for good or ill. A sort of Frankenstein monster that weve picked out of a hole from below.
I know just what Stacy means, said Barker breathlessly, rounding his gray eyes. Ive felt it, too. Couldnt we make a sort of cache of itbury it just outside the cabin for to-night? It would be sort of putting it back into its old place, you know, for the time being. IT might like it.
The other two laughed. Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy, said Stacy, handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon! Besides, whats to keep any prospector from coming along and making a strike of it? You know thats mining lawif you havent preempted the spot as a claim.
But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any reply, and Demorest arose. And I feel that youd both better be turning in, as weve got to get up early. He went to the corner of the cabin, and threw the blanket back over the pan and its treasure. There thatll keep the chunks from getting up to ride astride of you like a nightmare. He shut the door and gave a momentary glance at its cheap hinges and the absence of bolt or bar. Stacy caught his eye. Well miss this security in San Franciscoperhaps even in Boomville, he sighed.
It was scarcely ten oclock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to undress themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and his trousers hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snugly curled up in their respective bunks. Presently Stacys voice came from under the blankets:
Hallo! arent you going to turn in too?
Not yet, said Demorest from his chair before the fire. You see its the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon Ill see the rest of it out.
Thats so, said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with his blankets. I tell you what, boys: we just ought to make a watch-night of ita regular vigil, you knowuntil twelve at least. Hold on! Ill get up, too! But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful partners bare foot which went searching painfully for the ground in one hand, tucked it back under the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, patted the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air.
Youll just say your prayers and go to sleep, sonny. Youll want to be fresh as a daisy to appear before Miss Kitty to-morrow early, and you can keep your vigils for to-morrow night, after dinner, in the back drawing-room. I said Good-night, and I mean it!
Protesting feebly, Barker finally yielded in a nestling shiver and a sudden silence. Demorest walked back to his chair. A prolonged snore came from Stacys bunk; then everything was quiet. Demorest stirred up the fire, cast a huge root upon it, and, leaning back in his chair, sat with half-closed eyes and dreamed.
It was an old dream that for the past three years had come to him daily, sometimes even overtaking him under the shade of a buckeye in his noontide rest on his claim,a dream that had never yet failed to wait for him at night by the fireside when his partners were at rest; a dream of the past, but so real that it always made the present seem the dream through which he was moving towards some sure awakening.
It was not strange that it should come to him to-night, as it had often come before, slowly shaping itself out of the obscurity as the vision of a fair young girl seated in one of the empty chairs before him. Always the same pretty, childlike face, fraught with a half-frightened, half-wondering trouble; always the same slender, graceful figure, but always glimmering in diamonds and satin, or spiritual in lace and pearls, against his own rude and sordid surroundings; always silent with parted lips, until the night wind smote some chord of recollection, and then mingled a remembered voice with his own. For at those times he seemed to speak also, albeit with closed lips, and an utterance inaudible to all but her.
Well? he said sadly.
Well? the voice repeated, like a gentle echo blending with his own.
You know it all now, he went on. You know that it has come at last,all that I had worked for, prayed for; all that would have made us happy here; all that would have saved you to me has come at last, and all too late!
Too late! echoed the voice with his.
You remember, he went on, the last day we were together. You remember your friends and family would have you give me upa penniless man. You remember when they reproached you with my poverty, and told you that it was only your wealth that I was seeking, that I then determined to go away and never to return to claim you until that reproach could be removed. You remember, dearest, how you clung to me and bade me stay with you, even fly with you, but not to leave you alone with them. You wore the same dress that day, darling; your eyes had the same wondering childlike fear and trouble in them; your jewels glittered on you as you trembled, and I refused. In my pride, or rather in my weakness and cowardice, I refused. I came away and broke my heart among these rocks and ledges, yet grew strong; and you, my love, YOU, sheltered and guarded by those you loved, YOUHe stopped and buried his face in his hands. The night wind breathed down the chimney, and from the stirred ashes on the hearth came the soft whisper, I died.
And then, he went on, I cared for nothing. Sometimes my heart awoke for this young partner of mine in his innocent, trustful love for a girl that even in her humble station was far beyond his hopes, and I pitied myself in him. Home, fortune, friends, I no longer cared forall were forgotten. And now they are returning to meonly that I may see the hollowness and vanity of them, and taste the bitterness for which I have sacrificed you. And here, on this last night of my exile, I am confronted with only the jealousy, the doubt, the meanness and selfishness that is to come. Too late! Too late!
The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: Too late, beloved, for ME, but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in your happiness I too may live again?
The wondering, troubled eyes that had looked into his here appeared to clear and brighten with a sweet prescience. Was it the wind moaning in the chimney that seemed to whisper to him: Too late, beloved, for ME, but not for you. I died, but Love still lives. Be happy, Philip. And in your happiness I too may live again?
He started. In the flickering firelight the chair was empty. The wind that had swept down the chimney had stirred the ashes with a sound like the passage of a rustling skirt. There was a chill in the air and a smell like that of opened earth. A nervous shiver passed over him. Then he sat upright. There was no mistake; it was no superstitious fancy, but a faint, damp current of air was actually flowing across his feet towards the fireplace. He was about to rise when he stopped suddenly and became motionless.
He was actively conscious now of a strange sound which had affected him even in the preoccupation of his vision. It was a gentle brushing of some yielding substance like that made by a soft broom on sand, or the sweep of a gown. But to his mountain ears, attuned to every woodland sound, it was not like the gnawing of gopher or squirrel, the scratching of wildcat, nor the hairy rubbing of bear. Nor was it human; the long, deep respirations of his sleeping companions were distinct from that monotonous sound. He could not even tell if it were IN the cabin or without. Suddenly his eye fell upon the pile in the corner. The blanket that covered the treasure was actually moving!
He rose quickly, but silently, alert, self-contained, and menacing. For this dreamer, this bereaved man, this scornful philosopher of riches had disappeared with that midnight trespass upon the sacred treasure. The movement of the blanket ceased; the soft, swishing sound recommenced. He drew a glittering bowie-knife from his boot-leg, and in three noiseless strides was beside the pile. There he saw what he fully expected to see,a narrow, horizontal gap between the log walls of the cabin and the adobe floor, slowly widening and deepening by the burrowing of unseen hands from without. The cold outer air which he had felt before was now plainly flowing into the heated cabin through the opening. The swishing sound recommenced, and stopped. Then the four fingers of a hand, palm downwards, were cautiously introduced between the bottom log and the denuded floor. Upon that intruding hand the bowie-knife of Demorest descended like a flash of lightning. There was no outcry. Even in that supreme moment Demorest felt a pang of admiration for the stoicism of the unseen trespasser. But the maimed hand was quickly withdrawn, and as quickly Demorest rushed to the door and dashed into the outer darkness.
For an instant he was dazed and bewildered by the sudden change. But the next moment he saw a dodging, doubling figure running before him, and threw himself upon it. In the shock both men fell, but even in that contact Demorest felt the tangled beard and alcoholic fumes of Whiskey Dick, and felt also that the hands which were thrown up against his breast, the palms turned outward with the instinctive movement of a timid, defenseless man, were unstained with soil or blood. With an oath he threw the drunkard from him and dashed to the rear of the cabin. But too late! There, indeed, was the scattered earth, there the widened burrow as it had been excavated apparently by that mutilated handbut nothing else!
He turned back to Whiskey Dick. But the miserable man, although still retaining a look of dazed terror in his eyes, had recovered his feet in a kind of angry confidence and a forced sense of injury. What did Demorest mean by attacking innoshent gentlemen on the trail outside his cabin? Yes! OUTSIDE his cabin, he would swear it!
What were you doing here at midnight? demanded Demorest.
What was he doing? What was any gentleman doing? He wasnt any molly-coddle to go to bed at ten oclock! What was he doing? Wellhed been with men who didnt shut their doors and turn the boys out just in the shank of the evening. He wasnt any Barker to be wet-nursed by Demorest.
Some one else was here! said Demorest sternly, with his eyes fixed on Whiskey Dick. The dull glaze which seemed to veil the outer world from the drunkards pupils shifted suddenly with such a look of direct horror that Demorest was fain to turn away his own. But the veil mercifully returned, and with it Dicks worked-up sense of injury. Nobody was therenot a shole. Did Demorest think if there had been any of his friends there they would have stood by like dogsh and seen him insulted?
Demorest turned away and re-entered the cabin as Dick lurched heavily forward, still muttering, down the trail. The excitement over, a sickening repugnance to the whole incident took the place of Demorests resentment and indignation. There had been a cowardly attempt to rob them of their miserable treasure. He had met it and frustrated it in almost as brutal a fashion: the gold was already tarnished with blood. To his surprise, yet relief, he found his partners unconscious of the outrage, still sleeping with the physical immobility of over-excited and tired men. Should he awaken them? No! He should have to awaken also their suspicions and desire for revenge. There was no danger of a further attack; there was no fear that the culprit would disclose himself, and to-morrow they would be far away. Let oblivion rest upon that nights stain on the honor of Heavy Tree Hill.
He rolled a small barrel before the opening, smoothed the dislodged earth, replaced the pan with its treasure, and trusted that in the bustle of the early morning departure his partners might not notice any change. Stopping before the bunk of Stacy he glanced at the sleeping man. He was lying on his back, but breathing heavily, and his hands were moving towards his chest as if, indeed, his strange fancy of the golden incubus were being realized. Demorest would have wakened him, but presently, with a sigh of relief, the sleeper turned over on his side. It was pleasanter to look at Barker, whose damp curls were matted over his smooth, boyish forehead, and whose lips were parted in a smile under the silken wings of his brown mustache. He, too, seemed to be trying to speak, and remembering some previous revelations which had amused them, Demorest leaned over him fraternally with an answering smile, waiting for the beloved ones name to pass the young mans lips. But he only murmured, Threehundredthousand dollars! The elder man turned away with a grave face. The influence of the treasure was paramount.
When he had placed one of the chairs against the unprotected door at an angle which would prevent any easy or noiseless intrusion, Demorest threw himself on his bunk without undressing, and turned his face towards the single window of the cabin that looked towards the east. He did not apprehend another covert attempt against the gold. He did not fear a robbery with force and arms, although he was satisfied that there was more than one concerned in it, but this he attributed only to the encumbering weight of their expected booty. He simply waited for the dawn. It was some time before his eyes were greeted with the vague opaline brightness of the firmament which meant the vanishing of the pallid snow-line before the coming day. A bird twittered on the roof. The air was chill; he drew his blanket around him. Then he closed his eyes, he fancied only for a moment, but when he opened them the door was standing open in the strong daylight. He sprang to his feet, but the next moment he saw it was only Stacy who had passed out, and was returning fully dressed, bringing water from the spring to fill the kettle. But Stacys face was so grave that, recalling his disturbed sleep, Demorest laughingly inquired if he had been haunted by the treasure. But to his surprise Stacy put down the kettle, and, with a hurried glance at the still sleeping Barker, said in a low voice: