They were now fairly into the Boomville valley, and were entering a narrow arroyo bordered with dusky willows which effectually excluded the view on either side. It was the bed of a mountain torrent that in winter descended the hillside over the trail by which they had just come, but was now sunk into the thirsty plain between banks that varied from two to five feet in height. The muleteer had advanced into the narrow channel when he suddenly cast a hurried glance behind him, uttered a Madre de Dios! and backed his mule and his precious freight against the bank. The sound of hoofs on the trail in their rear had caught his quicker ear, and as the three partners turned they beheld three horsemen thundering down the hill towards them. They were apparently Mexican vaqueros of the usual common swarthy type, their faces made still darker by the black silk handkerchief tied round their heads under their stiff sombreros. Either they were unable or unwilling to restrain their horses in their headlong speed, and a collision in that narrow passage was imminent, but suddenly, before reaching its entrance, they diverged with a volley of oaths, and dashing along the left bank of the arroyo, disappeared in the intervening willows. Divided between relief at their escape and indignation at what seemed to be a drunken, feast-day freak of these roystering vaqueros, the little party re-formed, when a cry from Barker arrested them. He had just perceived a horseman motionless in the arroyo who, although unnoticed by them, had evidently been seen by the Mexicans. He had apparently leaped into it from the bank, and had halted as if to witness this singular incident. As the clatter of the vaqueros hoofs died away he lightly leaped the bank again and disappeared. But in that single glimpse of him they recognized Jack Hamlin. When they reached the spot where he had halted, they could see that he must have approached it from the trail where they had previously seen him, but which they now found crossed it at right angles. Barker was right. He had really kept them at easy distance the whole length of the journey.
But they were now reaching its end. When they issued at last from the arroyo they came upon the outskirts of Boomville and the great stage-road. Indeed, the six horses of the Pioneer coach were just panting along the last half mile of the steep upgrade as they approached. They halted mechanically as the heavy vehicle swayed and creaked by them. In their ordinary working dress, sunburnt with exposure, covered with dust, and carrying their rifles still in their hands, they, perhaps, presented a sufficiently characteristic appearance to draw a few facessome of them pretty and intelligentto the windows of the coach as it passed. The sensitive Barker was quickest to feel that resentment with which the Pioneer usually met the wide-eyed criticism of the Eastern tourist or greenhorn, and reddened under the bold scrutiny of a pair of black inquisitive eyes behind an eyeglass. That annoyance was communicated, though in a lesser degree, even to the bearded Demorest and Stacy. It was an unexpected contact with that great world in which they were so soon to enter. They felt ashamed of their appearance, and yet ashamed of that feeling. They felt a secret satisfaction when Barker said, Theyd open their eyes wider if they knew what was in that pack-saddle, and yet they corrected him for what they were pleased to call his snobbishness. They hurried a little faster as the road became more frequented, as if eager to shorten their distance to clean clothes and civilization.
Only Demorest began to linger in the rear. This contact with the stagecoach had again brought him face to face with his buried past. He felt his old dream revive, and occasionally turned to look back upon the dark outlines of Black Spur, under whose shadow it had returned so often, and wondered if he had left it there forever, and it were now slowly exhaling with the thinned and dying smoke of their burning cabin.
His companions, knowing his silent moods, had preceded him at some distance, when he heard the soft sound of ambling hoofs on the thick dust, and suddenly the light touch of Jack Hamlins gauntlet on his shoulder. The mustang Jack bestrode was reeking with grime and sweat, but Jack himself was as immaculate and fresh as ever. With a delightful affectation of embarrassment and timidity he began flicking the side buttons of his velvet vaquero trousers with the thong of his riata. I reckoned to sling a word along with you before you went, he said, looking down, but Im so shy that I couldnt do it in company. So I thought Id get it off on you while you were alone.
Weve seen you once or twice before, this morning, said Demorest pleasantly, and we were sorry you didnt join us.
I reckon I might have, said Jack gayly, if my horse had only made up his mind whether he was a bird or a squirrel, and hadnt been so various and promiscuous about whether he wanted to climb a tree or fly. Hes not a bad horse for a Mexican plug, only when he thinks there is any devilment around he wants to wade in and take a hand. However, I reckoned to see the last of you and your pile into Boomville. And I DID. When I meet three fellows like you that are clean white all through I sort of cotton to em, even if IM a little of a brunette myself. And Ive got something to give you.
He took from a fold of his scarlet sash a small parcel neatly folded in white paper as fresh and spotless as himself. Holding it in his fingers, he went on: I happened to be at Heavy Tree Hill early this morning before sun-up. In the darkness I struck your cabin, and I reckonI struck somebody else! At first I thought it was one of you chaps down on your knees praying at the rear of the cabin, but the way the fellow lit out when he smelt me coming made me think it wasnt entirely fasting and prayer. However, I went to the rear of the cabin, and then I reckoned some kind friend had been bringing you kindlings and firewood for your early breakfast. But that didnt satisfy me, so I knelt down as he had knelt, and then I sawwell, Mr. Demorest, I reckon I saw JUST WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN! But even then I wasnt quite satisfied, for that man had been grubbing round as if searching for something. So I searched tooand I found IT. Ive got it here. Im going to give it to you, for it may some day come in handy, and you wont find anything like it among the folks where youre going. Its something unique, as those fine-art-collecting sharps in Frisco saysomething quite matchless, unless you try to match it one day yourself! Dont open the paper until I run on and say So long to your partners. Good-by.
He grasped Demorests hand and then dropped the little packet into his palm, and ambled away towards Stacy and Barker. Holding the packet in his hand with an amused yet puzzled smile, Demorest watched the gambler give Stacys hand a hearty farewell shake and a supplementary slap on the back to the delighted Barker, and then vanish in a flash of red sash and silver buttons. At which Demorest, walking slowly towards his partners, opened the packet, and stood suddenly still. It contained the dried and bloodless second finger of a human hand cut off at the first joint!
For an instant he held it at arms length, as if about to cast it away. Then he grimly replaced it in the paper, put it carefully in his pocket, and silently walked after his companions.
CHAPTER I
A strong southwester was beating against the windows and doors of Stacys Bank in San Francisco, and spreading a film of rain between the regular splendors of its mahogany counters and sprucely dressed clerks and the usual passing pedestrian. For Stacys new banking-house had long since received the epithet of palatial from an enthusiastic local press fresh from the opening luncheon in its richly decorated directors rooms, and it was said that once a homely would-be depositor from One Horse Gulch was so cowed by its magnificence that his heart failed him at the last moment, and mumbling an apology to the elegant receiving teller, fled with his greasy chamois pouch of gold-dust to deposit his treasure in the dingy Mint around the corner. Perhaps there was something of this feeling, mingled with a certain simple-minded fascination, in the hesitation of a stranger of a higher class who entered the bank that rainy morning and finally tendered his card to the important negro messenger.
The card preceded him through noiselessly swinging doors and across heavily carpeted passages until it reached the inner core of Mr. James Stacys private offices, and was respectfully laid before him. He was not alone. At his side, in an attitude of polite and studied expectancy, stood a correct-looking young man, for whom Mr. Stacy was evidently writing a memorandum. The stranger glanced furtively at the card with a curiosity hardly in keeping with his suggested good breeding; but Stacy did not look at it until he had finished his memorandum.
There, he said, with business decision, you can tell your people that if we carry their new debentures over our limit we will expect a larger margin. Ditches are not what they were three years ago when miners were willing to waste their money over your rates. They dont gamble THAT WAY any more, and your company ought to know it, and not gamble themselves over that prospect. He handed the paper to the stranger, who bowed over it with studied politeness, and backed towards the door. Stacy took up the waiting card, read it, said to the messenger, Show him in, and in the same breath turned to his guest: I say, Van Loo, its George Barker! You know him.
Yes, said Van Loo, with a polite hesitation as he halted at the door. He wasI thinkerin your employ at Heavy Tree Hill.
Nonsense! He was my partner. And you must have known him since at Boomville. Come! He got forty shares of Ditch stockthrough youat 110, which were worth about 80! SOMEBODY must have made money enough by it to remember him.
I was only speaking of him socially, said Van Loo, with a deprecating smile. You know he married a young womanthe hotel-keepers daughter, who used to wait at the tableand after my mother and sister came out to keep house for me at Boomville it was quite impossible for me to see much of him, for he seldom went out without his wife, you know.
Yes, said Stacy dryly, I think you didnt like his marriage. But Im glad your disinclination to see him isnt on account of that deal in stocks.
Oh no, said Van Loo. Good-by.
But, unfortunately, in the next passage he came upon Barker, who with a cry of unfeigned pleasure, none the less sincere that he was feeling a little alien in these impressive surroundings, recognized him. Nothing could exceed Van Loos protest of delight at the meeting; nothing his equal desolation at the fact that he was hastening to another engagement. But your old partner, he added, with a smile, is waiting for you; he has just received your card, and I should be only keeping you from him. So glad to see you; youre looking so well. Good-by! Good-by!
Reassured, Barker no longer hesitated, but dashed with his old impetuousness into his former partners room. Stacy, already deeply absorbed in other business, was sitting with his back towards him, and Barkers arms were actually encircling his neck before the astonished and half-angry man looked up. But when his eyes met the laughing gray ones of Barker above him he gently disengaged himself with a quick return of the caress, rose, shut the door of an inner office, and returning pushed Barker into an armchair in quite the old suppressive fashion of former days. Yes; it was the same Stacy that Barker looked at, albeit his brown beard was now closely cropped around his determined mouth and jaw in a kind of grave decorum, and his energetic limbs already attuned to the rigor of clothes of fashionable cut and still more rigorous sombreness of color.
Barker boy, he began, with the familiar twinkle in his keen eyes which the younger partner remembered, I dont encourage stag dancing among my young men during bank hours, and youll please to remember that we are not on Heavy Tree Hill
Where, broke in Barker enthusiastically, we were only overlooked by the Black Spur Range and the Sierran snow-line; where the nearest voice that came to you was quarter of a mile away as the crow flies and nearly a mile by the trail.
And was generally an oath! said Stacy. But youre in San Francisco NOW. Where are you stopping? He took up a pencil and held it over a memorandum pad awaitingly.
At the Brook House. Its
Hold on! Brook House, Stacy repeated as he jotted it down. And for how long?
Oh, a day or two. You see, Kitty
Stacy checked him with a movement of his pencil in the air, and then wrote down, Day or two. Wife with you?
Yes; and oh, Stacy, our boy! Ah! he went on, with a laugh, knocking aside the remonstrating pencil, you must listen! Hes just the sweetest, knowingest little chap living. Do you know what were going to christen him? Well, hell be Stacy Demorest Barker. Good names, arent they? And then it perpetuates the dear old friendship.
Stacy picked up the pencil again, wrote Wife and child S. D. B., and leaned back in his chair. Now, Barker, he said briefly, Im coming to dine with you tonight at 7.30 sharp. THEN well talk Heavy Tree Hill, wife, baby, and S. D. B. But here Im all for business. Have you any with me?
Barker, who was easily amused, had extracted a certain entertainment out of Stacys memorandum, but he straightened himself with a look of eager confidence and said, Certainly; thats just what it isbusiness. Lord! Stacy, Im ALL business now. Im in everything. And I bank with you, though perhaps you dont know it; its in your Branch at Marysville. I didnt want to say anything about it to you before. But Lord! you dont suppose that Id bank anywhere else while you are in the businesschecks, dividends, and all that; but in this matter I felt you knew, old chap. I didnt want to talk to a banker nor to a bank, but to Jim Stacy, my old partner.
Barker, said Stacy curtly, how much money are you short of?
At this direct question Barkers always quick color rose, but, with an equally quick smile, he said, I dont know yet that Im short at all.
But I do!
Look here, Jim: why, Im just overloaded with shares and stocks, said Barker, smiling.
Not one of which you could realize on without sacrifice. Barker, three years ago you had three hundred thousand dollars put to your account at San Francisco.
Yes, said Barker, with a quiet reminiscent laugh. I remember I wanted to draw it out in one check to see how it would look.
And youve drawn out all in three years, and it looks dd bad.
How did you know it? asked Barker, his face beaming only with admiration of his companions omniscience.
How did I know it? retorted Stacy. I know YOU, and I know the kind of people who have unloaded to you.
Come, Stacy, said Barker, Ive only invested in shares and stocks like everybody else, and then only on the best advice I could get: like Van Loos, for instance,that man who was here just now, the new manager of the Empire Ditch Company; and Carters, my own Kittys father. And when I was offered fifty thousand Wide West Extensions, and was hesitating over it, he told me YOU were in it tooand that was enough for me to buy it.
Yes, but we didnt go into it at his figures.
No, said Barker, with an eager smile, but you SOLD at his figures, for I knew that when I found that YOU, my old partner, was in it; dont you see, I preferred to buy it through your bank, and did at 110. Of course, you wouldnt have sold it at that figure if it wasnt worth it then, and neither I nor you are to blame if it dropped the next week to 60, dont you see?
Stacys eyes hardened for a moment as he looked keenly into his former partners bright gray ones, but there was no trace of irony in Barkers. On the contrary, a slight shade of sadness came over them. No, he said reflectively, I dont think Ive ever been foolish or followed out my OWN ideas, except once, and that was extravagant, I admit. That was my idea of building a kind of refuge, you know, on the site of our old cabin, where poor miners and played-out prospectors waiting for a strike could stay without paying anything. Well, I sunk twenty thousand dollars in that, and might have lost more, only CarterKittys fatherpersuaded mehes an awful clever old fellowinto turning it into a kind of branch hotel of Boomville, while using it as a hotel to take poor chaps who couldnt pay, at half prices, or quarter prices, PRIVATELY, dont you see, so as to spare their pride,awfully pretty, wasnt it?and make the hotel profit by it.