Chapter III: Part 3

The marriage feast was indeed an epoch-making event in the county. It resembled a barbecue and was quite as inclusive. Distinctions of the social sort were few in Arapahoe County. Cattle-rustlers and sheepmen were debarred, of course, but aside from these unfortunates practically the whole population of men, women, children, and babies assembled in the Kettle Hole Ranch grove. The marriage was to be "_al fresco_," as the Limone _Limerick_ repeated several times.

Blondell found it a hard day, for what with looking after the roasting ox and the ice and the beer, he was almost too busy to say hello to his guests. Fan had contrived to get a clean shirt on him by the trick of whisking away his old one and substituting a white one in its place. He put this on without realizing how splendid it was, but rebelled flatly at the collar, and by the time the ox was well basted his shirt was subdued to a condition which left him almost at ease with himself.

Fan received the people at the door of the shack--her mother being too busy in the preparation for dinner to do more than say "Howdy?" to those who deliberately sought her out; but Fan was not embarrassed or wearied. It was her great day--she was only a little disturbed when George Adelbert fled to his room for a little relief from the strain of his position, for he lacked both her serenity of spirit and her physical health.

Once Lester would have enjoyed the action and comment of these people as characters in a play, but now the knowledge that he was about to sink to their level and be nailed there filled him with a fear and disgust which not even the radiant face and alluring body of his bride could conceal or drive out. These lumbering ranchers, these tobacco-chewing, drawling lumpkins, were they to be his companions for the rest of his life? These women with their toothless, shapeless mouths, these worn and weary mothers in home-made calico and cheap millinery, were they to be the visitors at his fireside? What kind of woman would they make of Fan?

By one o'clock the corrals were full of ponies and the sheds and yards crowded with carriages all faded by the pitiless sun and sucked dry by the never-resting wind of the plain.

Meanwhile the young women had set long tables in the back yard and covered them with food--contributed chicken, home-made biscuit, cake, and pie, while the young fellows had been noisily working at constructing a "bowery" for the dance which was to follow the ceremony at three. And at last Fan raised a bugle-call for "_dinner!_" and they all came with a rush.

The feast did not last long, for every one was hungry and ate without permitting delay or distraction. Nearly all remarked on having had a very early breakfast, and they certainly showed capacity for not merely beef and beer, but pie and ice-cream, and when they shoved back, and lighted the cigars which Lester had provided with prodigal hand, they all agreed that the barbecue was "up to the bills."

The ceremony at three was short, almost hurried, so great was the bustle about the house and yard. Fan wore no veil and George Adelbert made no change from the neat sack-suit which he had put on at rising. At the close of the clergyman's blessing he was called upon for a second time to pump the hard hands and stringy arms of his neighbors as they filed by to bid them both a hearty God-speed.

After this painful procession was ended Fan dragged him away to the bower where the young folks were already dancing with prodigious clatter. "How young she is!" he exclaimed, as he saw her mix with the crowd of tireless, stamping, prancing cowboys.

As the dance went on he grew furious with her lack of reserve, her indelicacy. Her good-natured laughter with the men who crowded about her familiarly was a kind of disloyalty. She seemed at times to be exchanging doubtful jests with them; and at last, to protect her from the results of her own fatuity, he danced with her himself--danced almost incessantly, notwithstanding the heat and the noise.

At sunset they all returned to the tables and ate up what remained of the ox and the pies.

Lester was well enough acquainted with these rough youths to know that some deviltry was preparing, and, already furious with his bride and distrustful of the future, his self-command at last gave way. Drawing Fan away from the crowd he said, tenderly:

"I've had enough of this! I'm having Aglar harness the buckskins into the red cart, and I want you to go to the house and pack a few things--we're going to Limone and catch the early train for Denver."

"We can't do that, Dell; we got to stay here and feed this gang once more."

"Oh, hang the gang! I'm sick of them. Get ready, I tell you! Who cares what these beggars think?"

She laughed. "You're jealous of them." Then, rising to his passion, she answered, "All right; I'll sneak some clothes into a bag and we'll slide out and leave the gang."

A half-hour later they stole away toward the back of the garden and out upon the prairie, where a Mexican was holding a spirited team. Fan was giggling so hard that she was barely able to lift the valise which she carried in her hand.

"Don't you tell," she said to the Mexican. "If they ask, say we went to Holcombe."

"All right. I _sabe_," the Mexican replied. Even as he spoke the music in the bower ceased and voices were heard in question.

Fan sobered. "They've missed us already."

Lester took the reins. "Send 'em south, Aglar," and at his chirp the team sprang forward out upon the road into the coolness and silence of the midnight plain.

Fan, clutching Lester's arm, shook with laughter. "It's like eloping--ain't it?"

The tone of her voice irritated him. "Good Heaven! how vulgar she is! And she is my wife," was his thought; and he took no pleasure in her nearness.

Wild whoops reached them from the ranch-house now hid in the valley behind them, and a few moments later the yells broke out again perceptibly nearer.

"They're after us!" cried Fan, vastly excited and pleased. "It's a race now," and, catching the whip from his hand, she lashed the horses into a gallop.

He said: "I'll turn into the Sun-Fish Trail; we'll throw 'em off the track."

"No use," she laughed. "No use, Dell; they can read a trail like Injuns; besides, they're overtaking us. We might as well turn and go back."

His only answer was a shout to the horses. He was burning with fury now. All his hidden contempt, his concealed hatred of the vulgarians behind him, filled his heart. It was like them, the savages, to give chase.

With shrill whoops in imitation of Comanches the cowboys came on, riding their swift and tireless ponies; like skimming hawks they swept down the swells, and the bride, clinging to her husband's arm, called each of them by his name.

"Link Compton is in the lead. Pull up!" She reached a firm hand and laid it on the lines. "Pull up, Dell; it's no use."

He tried to shake off her grasp, but could not. Her voice changed to command. "Don't be a fool!" she called, sharply, and, laying both hands upon the reins, she brought the horses into a trot in spite of his furious objection, just as the first of the pursuing cowboys rode alongside and, seizing one of the horses by the bit, cried out:

"Come back. We need you!"

Even as he spoke a whistling rope settled round the fleeing couple and the team came to a stand, surrounded by a hooting mob of mounted men. The noose, tight-drawn, was like a steel embrace, and Compton called:

"Thought you'd give us the slip, did ye? Well, I don't think!"

"Leave us alone, you ruffians," shouted Lester, "or it'll be the worse for you!"

They all laughed at this, and Compton drew the rope tighter, pinning Lester's arms to his side.

"Boys--" began Fan in appeal, but she got no further.

Lester, wrenching his right arm loose, began to shoot. What happened after that no one ever clearly knew, but the team sprang wildly forward, and Compton's pony reared and fell backward, and the bride and groom were thrown violently to the ground.

* * * * *

When Fan opened her eyes she saw the big stars above her and felt a sinewy arm beneath her head. Compton was fanning her with his hat and calling upon her to speak, his voice agonized with fear and remorse.

Slowly it all came back to her, and, struggling to a sitting position, she called piteously: "Dell, where are you? Dell!" Her voice rose in fear, a tone no man had ever heard in it before. She staggered to her feet and dazedly looked about her. A group of awed, silenced, dismounted men stood not far away, and on the ground, lying in a crumpled, distorted heap, was her husband. With a shriek of agony she fell on her knees beside him, calling upon him to open his eyes, to speak to her.

Then at last, as the conviction of his death came to her, she lifted her head and with a voice of level, hoarse-throated hate, she imprecated her murderers. "I'll kill you, every one of you! I'll kill you for this--you cowardly wolves--I'll kill--"

V

They lifted them both up for dead, and Compton, taking Fan in his strong arms, held her like a child as they drove slowly back to the ranch. All believed Lester dead; but Compton, who held his ear to Fan's lips, insisted that she was breathing, and indeed she recovered from her swoon before they reached the house.

Blondell, more powerfully moved than ever before in his life, after a swift curse upon the culprits took his girl to his bosom and carried her to her bed.

As her brain cleared, Fan rose and, staggering across the room, took her husband's head in her arms. "Bring some water. Dell is hurt. Don't you see he is hurt? Be quick!"

"Has somebody gone for the doctor?" asked the mother, to whom this was the raving of dementia. "Somebody go."

No one had, for all believed the man to be dead; but Compton exclaimed, "I'll go!" turning to vault his horse, glad of something to do, eager to escape the sight of Fan's agonized face.

The dash of cold water on his bruised face brought a flutter of life to Lester's eyelids, and in triumph the bride cried out:

"I told you so! He is alive! Oh, Dell, can't you speak to me?"

He could not so much as lift his eyelids, but his breathing deepened, and with that sign of returning vitality Fan was forced to be content. She was perfectly composed now, and helped to bathe his crushed and bleeding head and his broken shoulder with a calmness very impressive to all those who were permitted to glance within the room.

Slowly the guests departed. The cowboys, low-voiced and funereal of mien, rode away in groups of three or four.

The doctor came hurrying down the slope about ten of the morning, his small roan mustang galloping, his case of instruments between his feet. He was very young, and, luckily, very self-confident, and took charge of "the case" with thrilling authority.

"The coma was induced," he explained, "by the concussion of the brain. The shoulder is also badly contused and the collar-bone broken, but if brain fever does not set in the man will live. The treatment so far as it has gone is admirable."

Compton returned with him, or a little before him, and seemed to be waiting for arrest. He was a lean, brown young fellow with good, gray eyes and a shapely nose. "Yes, I threw the rope," he confessed to every one. "It was all in fun, but he shot my horse, and as he reared up he jerked the people out of the buggy. I guess the broncos jumped ahead at the same time. But it was my fault. I had no business to rope 'em. In fact, we had no business chasing 'em up at all."

At last Blondell gruffly told him to go home. "If the man dies we'll come after you," he added, with blunt ferocity.

"All right," responded the young fellow, with lofty spirit. "I'll be there--but I want to see Fan a moment before I leave. I want to know if there is anything I can do for her or him."

Blondell was for refusing this utterly, but his wife said: "You didn't mean nothing, Link--I'm sure of that--and I've always liked you, and so has Fan. She won't lay it up against you, I know. I'll tell her you're here."

Fan, sitting beside Lester's bed, turned at her mother's word and saw the young fellow standing in the doorway in mute appeal. Her glance was without anger, but it was cold and distant. She shook her head, and the young rancher turned away, shaken with sobs. That look was worse than her curse had been.

* * * * *

From the dim, grim region of his delirium and his deathlike unconsciousness George Lester struggled slowly back to life. His reawakening was like a new birth. He seemed born again, this time an American--a Western American. In the measure of a good old homely phrase, some sense (a sense of the fundamental oneness of humanity) had been beaten into his head.

As he lay there, helpless and suffering, he was first of all aware of Fan, whose face shone above him like the moon, and was soon able to understand her unwearying devotion and to remember that she was his wife. She was always present when he woke, and he accepted her presence as he accepted sunshine, knowing nothing of the sleeplessness and toil which her attendance involved--a knowledge of this came later.

At times gruff old Blondell himself bent his shaggy head above his bed to ask how he felt, and no mother could have been more considerate than Mrs. Blondell.

"What right have I to despise these people?" he asked himself one day. "What have I done to lift myself above them?" (And this question extended to the neighbors, to the awkward ranchers who came stiffly and with a sort of awe into his room to "pass a good word," as they said.) "They are a good sort, after all"--his heart prompted him to admit.

But his deepest penitence, his tenderest gratitude, rose to Fan, whom care and love had marvelously refined. He was able to forget her careless speech and to look quite through her untidy ways to the golden, good heart which beat beneath her unlovely gowns. Nothing was too hard, too menial, for her hands, and her smile warmed his midnight sick-room like sunshine.

He was curiously silent even after his strength was sufficient for speech. Content to lie on his bed and watch her as she moved about him, he answered only in monosyllables, while the deep current of his love gathered below his reticence. As he came to a full understanding of what he had been and to a sense of his unworthy estimate of her and her people, his passion broke bounds.

"Fan!" he called out one morning, "I'm not fit to receive all your care and devotion--but I'm going to try to be; I'm going to set to work in earnest when I get up. Your people shall be my people, your cares my cares." He could not go on, and Fan, who was looking down at him in wonder, stooped and laid a kiss on his quivering lips.

"You get well, boy; that's all you need to worry about," she said, and her face was very sweet--for she smiled upon him as if he were a child.

THE LONESOME MAN

_--the murderer still seeks forgetfulness in the solitude,
building his cabin in the shadow of great peaks._

IV

THE LONESOME MAN

The road that leads to the historic north shoulder of Solidor is lonely now. The stages that once crawled painfully upward through its flowery meadows are playhouses for the children of Silver Plume, and the brakes that once howled so resoundingly on the downward way are rusting to ashes in the weeds that spring from the soil of the Silverado Queen's unused corral. The railway, half a hundred miles to the north, has left the famous pass to solitude and to grass.

Once a week, or possibly oftener, a cattleman or prospector rides across, or a little band of tourists plod up or down,--thinking they are penetrating to the heart of the Rockies,--but for the most part the trail is passing swiftly to the unremembered twilight of the tragic past. There are, it is true, one or two stamp-mills above Pemberton, but they draw their supplies from the valley to the west and not from the plain's cities, and the upper camps have long since been deserted by the restless seeker of sudden gold.

It is a desolate, unshaded country, made so by the reckless hand of the tenderfoot prospector, who, in the days of the silver rush, cut and burned the timber sinfully, and the great peaks are meticulated with the rotting boles of noble pines and spotted with the decaying stumps of the firs which once made the whole land as beautiful as a park. Here and there, however, a segment of this splendid ancient forest remains to give some hint of what the ranges were before the destroying horde of silver-seekers struck and scarred it.

Along this trail and above the last vestige of its standing trees a man could be seen, walking eastward and upward, one bright afternoon in August, a couple of years ago. He moved slowly, for he was heavily built and obviously not much used to climbing, for he paused often to breathe. The air at that altitude is thin and, to the one not accustomed to it, most unsatisfying. In the intervals of his pauses the traveler's eyes swept the heights and explored each cañon wall as if in search of a resting-place. Around him the conies cried and small birds skimmed from ledge to ledge, but his dark face did not lighten with joy of the beauty which shone over his head nor to that which flamed under his feet. It was plain that he was too preoccupied with some inner problem, too intent on his quest, to give eye or ear to the significance of bird or flower.

Huge Solidor, bare and bleak, rose grandly to the north, propping the high-piled shining clouds, and the somber, dust-covered fields of snow showed to what far height his proud summit soared above his fellows. Little streams of icy water trickled through close-knit, velvety sward whereon small flowers, white and gold and lilac, showed like fairy footprints. Down from the pass a chill wind, delicious and invigorating, rushed as palpably as if it were a liquid wave. In all this upper region no shelter offered to the tired man.

A few minutes later, as he rounded the sloping green bastion which flanks the peak to the south, the man's keen eyes lighted upon a small cabin which squatted almost unnoticeably against a gray ledge some five hundred feet higher than the rock whereon he stood. The door of this hut was open and the figure of a man, dwarfed by distance, could be detected intently watching the pedestrian on the trail. Unlike most cabin-dwellers, he made no sign of greeting, uttered no shout of cheer; on the contrary, as the stranger approached he disappeared within his den like a marmot.

There was something appealing in the slow mounting of the man on foot. He was both tired and breathless, and as he neared the cabin (which was built on ground quite twelve thousand feet above sea-level) his limbs dragged, and every step he made required his utmost will. Twice he stopped to recover his strength and to ease the beating of his heart, and as he waited thus the last time the lone cabin-dweller appeared in his door and silently gazed, confronting his visitor with a strangely inhospitable and prolonged scrutiny. It was as if he were a lonely animal, jealous of his ground and resentful even of the most casual human inspection.

The stranger, advancing near, spoke. "Is this the trail to Silver Plume?" he asked, his heaving breast making his speech broken.

"It is," replied the miner, whose thin face and hawk-like eyes betrayed the hermit and the man on guard.

"How far is it across the pass?"

"About thirty miles."

"A good night's walk. Are there any camps above here?"

"None."

"How far is it to the next cabin?"

"Some twelve miles."

The miner, still studying the stranger with piercing intensity, expressed a desire to be reassured. "What are you doing up here on this trail? Are you a mining expert? A spy?" he seemed to ask.

The traveler, divining his curiosity, explained. "I stayed last night at the mill below. I'm a millwright. I have some property to inspect in Silver Plume, hence I'm walking across. I didn't know it was so far; I was misinformed. I'm not accustomed to this high air and I'm used up. Can you take care of me?"

The miner glanced round at the heap of ore which betrayed his craft, and then back at the dark, bearded, impassive face.

"Come in," he said at last, "I'll feed you." But his manner was at once surly and suspicious.

The walls of the hovel were built partly of logs and partly of boulders, and its roof was compacted of dirt and gravel; but it was decently habitable. The furniture (hand-rived out of slabs) was scanty, and the floor was laid with planks, yet everything indicated many days of wear.

"You've been here some time," the stranger remarked rather than asked.

"Ten years."

Thereafter the two men engaged in a silent duel. The millwright, leaning back in his rude chair, stretched his tired limbs and gazed down the valley with no further word of inquiry, while his grudging host prepared a primitive meal and set it upon a box which served as a table.

"You may eat," he curtly said.

In complete silence and with calm abstraction the stranger turned to the food and ate and drank, accepting it all as if this were a roadhouse and he a paying guest. The sullen watchfulness of his host seemed not to disturb him, not even to interest him.

At length the miner spoke as if in answer to a question--the question he feared.

"No, my mine has not panned out well--not yet. The ore is low-grade and the mill is too far away."

To this informing statement the other man did not so much as lift an eyebrow. His face was like a closed door, his eyes were curtained windows. He mused darkly as one who broods on some bitter defeat.

Nevertheless, he was a human presence and the lonely dweller on the heights could not resist the charm of his guest's personality, remote as he seemed.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

There was a moment's hesitation.

"In St. Paul."

"Ever been here before?"

The dark man shook his shaggy head slowly, and dropped his eyes as if this were the end of the communication. "No, and I never expect to come again."

The miner perceived power in his guest's resolute taciturnity, and the very weight of the silence eventually opened his own lips. From moment to moment the impulse to talk grew stronger within him. There was something as compelling as heat in this reticent visitor whose soul was so intent on inward problems that it perceived nothing of interest in an epaulet of gold on the shoulder of Mount Solidor.

"Few come this trail now," the miner volunteered, as he cleared the table. "I am alone and seldom see a human being drifting my way. I do not invite them."

The stranger refilled his pipe and again leaned back against the wall in ponderous repose. If he heard his host's remark he gave no sign of it, and yet, despite the persistence of his guest's silence--perhaps because of it--the lonely gold-seeker babbled on with increasing candor, contradicting himself, revealing, hiding, edging round his story, confessing to his hopes of riches, betraying in the end the secrets of his lonely life. It was as if the gates of his unnatural reserve had broken down and the desire to be heard, to be companioned, had over-borne all his early caution.

"It's horribly lonesome up here," he confessed. "Sometimes I think I'll give it all up and go back to civilization. When I came here the pass had its traffic; now no one rides it, which is lucky for me," he added. "I have no prying visitors--I mean no one to contest my claim--and yet a man can't do much alone. Even if my ore richens I must transport it or build a mill. Sometimes I wonder what I'm living for, stuck away in this hole in the hills. I was born to better things--"

He checked himself at this moment, as if he were on the edge of self-betrayal, but his listener seemed not vitally interested in these personal details. However, he made some low-voiced remark, and, as if hypnotized, the miner resumed his monologue.

"The nights are the worst. They are endless--and sometimes when I cannot sleep I feel like surrendering to my fate--" Here again he broke off sharply. "That's nonsense, of course. I mean, it seems as if a life were too much to pay for a crazy act--I mean a mine. You'll ask why I don't sell it, but it's all I have and, besides, no one has any faith in it but myself. I cannot sell, and I can't live down there among men."

Gabbling, keeping time to his nervous feet and hands, endlessly repeating himself, denying, confessing, the miner raged on, and through it all the dark-browed guest smoked tranquilly, too indifferent to ask a question or make comment; but when, once or twice, he lifted his eyes, the garrulous one shuddered and turned away, a scared look on his haggard face. He seemed unable to endure that steady glance.

At last, for a little space, he remained silent; then, as if compelled by some increasing magic in his hearer, he burst forth:

"I'm not here entirely by my own fault--I mean my own choice. A man is a product of his environment, you know that, and mine made me idle, wasteful. Drink got me--drink made me mad--and so--and so--here I am struggling to win back a fortune. Once I gambled--on the wheel; now I am gambling with nature on the green of these mountain slopes; but I'll win--I have already won--and soon I shall sell and go back to the great cities."

Again his will curbed his treacherous tongue, and, walking to the doorway, he stood for a moment, looking out; then he fiercely snarled:

"Oh, God, how I hate it all--how I hate myself! I am going mad with this life! The squeak of these shadowy conies, the twitter of these unseen little birds, go on day by day. They'll drive me mad! If you had not come to-night I could not have slept--I would have gone to the mill, and that means drink to me--drink and oblivion. You came and saved me. I feared you--hated you then; now I bless you."

Once more he seemed to answer an unspoken query:

"I have no people. My mother is dead, my father has disowned me--he does not even know I am alive. I'm the black devil of the family--but I shall go back--"

His face was working with passion, and though he took a seat opposite his guest, his hands continued to flutter aimlessly and his head moved restlessly from side to side.

"I don't know why I am telling all this to you," he went on after a pause. "I reckon it's because of the weakness of the thirst that is coming over me. Some time I'll go down to those hell-holes at the mills and never come back--the stuff they sell to me is destructive as fire--it is poison! You're a man of substance, I can see that--you're no hobo like most of the fellows out here--that's why I'm talking to you. You remind me of some one I know. There's something familiar in your eyes."

The man with the beard struck the ashes from his pipe and began scraping it. "There is always a woman in these cases," he critically remarked.

The miner took this simple statement as a challenging question. His excitement visibly increased, but he did not at once reply. He talked on aimlessly, incoherently, struggling like a small animal in a torrent. He rose at last, and as he stood in the doorway, breathing deeply, his face livid in the sunset light, the muscles of his jaw trembled.

The stranger observed his host's agitation, but put away his pipe with slow and steady hand. He said nothing, and yet an observer would have declared he held the other and weaker man in the grasp of an inexorable hypnotic silence. Finally he fixed a calm, cold glance upon his host, as if summoning him to answer.

"Yes," the miner confessed, "there is always a woman in the case--another and more fortunate man. The woman is false, the man is treacherous. You trust and they betray. Such beings ruin and madden--they make outlaws such as I am--"

"Love is above will," asserted the millwright, with decision.

The other man fiercely turned. "I know what you mean--you mean the woman is not to be condemned--that love goes where it is drawn. That is true, but deceit is not involuntary--it is deliberate--"

"Sometimes we deceive ourselves."

"In her case it was deceit," retorted the miner, who was now so deeply engaged with his own story that each general observation on the part of his guest was taken to be specific and personal.

The room was growing dusky, and the stranger's glance appeared keener, more insistent, as his body melted into the shadow. His shaggy head and black beard all but disappeared; only the faint outlines of his forehead remained, and yet, as his physical self faded into the gloom, his personality, his psychic self, loomed larger. His will enveloped the hermit, drawing upon him with irresistible power. It was as if he were wringing him dry of a confession as the priest closes in upon the culprit.

"I had my happy days--my days of care-free youth," the unquiet man was saying. "But my time of innocence was short. Evil companions came early and reckless deeds followed.... I knew I was losing something, I knew I was being drawn downward, but I could not escape. Day and night I called for help, and then--_she_ came--"

"Who came?"

"The one who made me forget all the others, the one who made me ashamed."

"And then?"

"And then for a time I was happy in the hope that I might win her and so redeem my life."

"And she?"

"She pitied me--at first--and loved me--at least I thought so."

As his excitement increased his words came slower, burdened with passion. He spoke like a prisoner addressing a judge, his voice but a husky whisper.

"I told her I was unworthy of her--that was when I believed her to be an angel. I promised to begin a new life for her sake. Then she promised me--helped me--and all the while she was false to me--false as a hell-cat!"

"How?" queried the almost invisible man, and his voice was charged with stern demand.

"All the time she was promised to another man--and that man my enemy."

Here his frenzy flared forth in a torrent of words.

"Then--then I went mad. My brain was scarred and numb. I lost all sense of pity--all fear of law--all respect for woman. I only knew my wrongs--my despair--my hate. I watched, I waited, I found them together--"

"And then? What did you do then?" demanded the stranger, rising from his seat with sudden energy, his voice deep, insistent, masterful. "Tell me what you did?"

The miner's wild voice died to a hesitant whisper. "I--I fled."

"But before that--before you fled?"

"What is it to you?" asked the hermit, gazing with scared eyes at the man who towered above him like the demon of retribution. "Who are you?"

"I am the avenger!" answered the other. "The man you hated was my brother. The woman you killed was his wife."

The fugitive fell upon his knees with a cry like that of one being strangled.

Out of the darkness a red flame darted, and the crouching man fell to the floor, a crumpled, bloody heap.

For a long time the executioner stood above the body, waiting, listening from the shadow to the faint receding breath-strokes of his victim. When all was still he restored his weapon to its sheath and stepped over the threshold into the keen and pleasant night.

As he closed the door behind him the stranger raised his eyes to Solidor, whose sovereign, cloud-like crest swayed among the stars.

"Now I shall rest," he said, with solemn satisfaction.

THE TRAIL TRAMP

_--mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart, still
rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in
his parfleche all the vanishing traditions of the West._

V

THE TRAIL TRAMP

KELLEY AFOOT

I

Kelley was in off the range and in profound disgust with himself, for after serving honorably as line-rider and later as cow-boss for ten years or more, he had ridden over to Keno to meet an old comrade. Just how it happened he couldn't tell, but he woke one morning without a dollar and, what was worse, incredibly worse, without horse or saddle! Even his revolver was gone.

In brief, Tall Ed, for the first time in his life, was set afoot, and this, you must understand, is a most direful disaster in cowboy life. It means that you must begin again from the ground up, as if you were a perfectly new tenderfoot from Nebraska.

Fort Keno was, of course, not a real fort; but it was a real barracks. The town was an imitation town. The fort, spick, span, in rows, with nicely planted trees and green grass-plats (kept in condition at vast expense to the War Department), stood on the bank of the sluggish river, while just below it and across the stream sprawled the town, drab, flea-bitten, unkempt, littered with tin cans and old bottles, a collection of saloons, gambling-houses and nameless dives, with a few people--a very few--making an honest living by selling groceries, saddles, and coal-oil.

Among the industries of Keno City was a livery-and-sales stable, and Kelley, with intent to punish himself, at once applied for the position of hostler. "You durned fool," he said, addressing himself, "as you've played the drunken Injun, suppose you play valet to a lot of mustangs for a while."

As a disciplinary design he felicitated himself as having hit upon the most humiliating and distasteful position in Keno. It was understood that Harford of the Cottonwood Corral never hired a real man as hostler. He seemed to prefer bums and tramps, either because he could get them cheaper or else because no decent man would work for him. He was an "arbitrary cuss" and ready with gun or boot. He came down a long trail of weather-worn experiences in the Southwest, and showed it in both face and voice. He was a big man who had once been fatter, but his wrinkled and sour visage seldom crinkled into a smile. He had never been jolly, and he was now morose.

Kelley hated him. That, too, was another part of his elaborate scheme of self-punishment--hated, but did not fear him, for Tall Ed Kelley feared nothing that walked the earth or sailed the air. "You bum," he continued to say in bitter derision as he caught glimpses of himself of a morning in the little fragment of broken glass which, being tacked on the wall, served as mirror in the office. "You durned mangy coyote, you need a shave, but you won't get it. You need a clean shirt and a new bandanna, but you won't get them, neither--not yet awhile. You'll earn 'em by going without a drop of whisky and by forking manure fer the next six months. You hear me?"

He slept in the barn on a soiled, ill-smelling bunk, and his hours of repose were broken by calls on the telephone or by some one beating at the door late at night or early in the morning; but he always responded without a word of complaint. It was all lovely discipline. It was like batting a measly bronco over the head in correction of some grievous fault (like nipping your calf, for example), and he took a grim satisfaction in going about degraded and forgotten of his fellows, for no one in Keno knew that this grimy hostler was cow-boss on the Perco. This, in a certain degree, softened his disgrace and lessened his punishment, but he couldn't quite bring himself to the task of explaining just how he had come to leave the range and go into service with Harford.

The officers of the fort, when tired of the ambulance, occasionally took out a team and covered rig, and so Kelley came in contact with the commanding officer, Major Dugan, a fine figure of a man with carefully barbered head and immaculate uniform. In Kelley's estimation he was almost too well kept for a man nearing fifty. He was, indeed, a gallant to whom comely women were still the fairest kind of game.

In truth, Tall Ed as hostler often furnished the major with a carriage, in which to make some of his private expeditions, and this was another and final disgrace which the cowman perceived and commented upon. To assist an old libertine like the major in concealing his night journeys was the nethermost deep of "self-discipline," but when the pretty young wife of his employer became the object of the major's attention Kelley was thrown into doubt.

Anita Harford, part Spanish and part German, as sometimes happens in New Mexico, was a curious and interesting mixture with lovely golden-brown hair and big, dark-brown eyes. She had the ingratiating smile of the señora, her mother, and the moods of gravity, almost melancholy, of her father.

She had been away in Albuquerque during the first week of Kelley's hostlership, and though he had heard something of her from the men about the corral, he had no great interest in her till she came one afternoon to the door of the stable, where she paused like a snow-white, timid antelope and softly said:

"Are you the new hostler?"

"I am, miss."

She smiled at his mistake. "I am Mrs. Harford. Please let me have the single buggy and bay Nellie."

Kelley concealed his surprise. "Sure thing, mom. Want her right now?"

"If you please."

As she moved away so lightly and so daintily Kelley stared in stupefaction. "Guess I've miscalculated somewhere. Old Harf must have more drag into him than I made out. How did the old seed get a woman like that? 'Pears like he's the champion hypnotic spieler when it comes to 'skirts.'"

He hitched-up the horse in profound meditation. For the first time since his downfall his humiliation seemed just a trifle deeper than was necessary. He regretted his filthy shirt and his unshorn cheeks, and as he brought the horse around to the door of the boss's house he slipped out of the buggy on the off side, hurriedly tethered the mare to the pole, and retreated to his alley like a rat to its burrow. The few moments when Anita's clear eyes had rested upon him had been moments of self-revelation.

"Kelley, you're all kinds of a blankety fool," said he. "You're causing yourself a whole lot of extra misery and you're a disgustin' object, besides. It isn't necessary fer you to be a skunk in order to give yourself a welting. Go now and get a shave and a clean shirt, and start again."

This he did, and out of his next week's pay he bought a clean pair of overalls and a new sombrero, so that when he came back to the barn Harford was disturbed.

"Hope you aren't going to pull out, Kelley? You suit me, and if it's a question of pay, I'll raise you a couple of dollars on a week."

"Oh no, I'm not leaving. Only I jest felt like I was a little too measly. 'Pears like I ought to afford a clean shirt. It does make a heap of difference in the looks of a feller. No, I'm booked to stay with you fer a while yet."

Naturally thereafter little Mrs. Harford filled a large place in Kelley's gloomy world. He was not a romantic person, but he was often lonesome in the midst of his self-imposed penance. He forbade himself the solace of the saloon. He denied himself a day or even an hour off duty, and Harford, secretly amazed and inwardly delighted, went so far one day as to offer him a cigar.

Kelley waved it away. "No, I've cut out the tobacco, too."

This astounded his boss. "Say, it's a wonder you escaped the ministry."

"It's more of a wonder than you know," replied Kelley. "I was headed right plumb that way till I was seventeen. My mother had it all picked out fer me. Then I broke away."

Harford, with the instinctive caution of the plainsman, pursued the subject no further. He was content to know that for a very moderate wage he had secured the best man with horses that the stable had ever known. His only anxiety related to the question of keeping his find.

"Kelley's too good to be permanent," he said to his wife that night. "He'll skip out with one of the best saddle-horses some night, or else he'll go on a tearing drunk and send the whole outfit up in smoke. I don't understand the cuss. He looks like the usual hobo out of a job, but he's as abstemious as a New England deacon. 'Pears like he has no faults at all."

Anita had been attracted to Kelley, lowly as he looked, and, upon hearing his singular virtues recounted by her husband, opened her eyes in augmented interest. All the men in her world were rough. Her father drank, her brothers fought and swore and cheated, and her husband was as free of speech in her presence as if she were another kind of man, softening his words a little, but not much. Therefore, the next time she met Kelley she lingered to make conversation with him, rejoicing in his candid eyes and handsome face. She observed also that his shirt was clean and his tie new. "He looks almost like a soldier," she thought, and this was her highest compliment.

Surrounded as she was by gamblers, horse-jockeys, cattle-buyers, and miners, all (generally speaking) of the same slouchy, unkempt type, she recognized in the officers of the fort gentlemen of highest breeding and radiant charm. Erect, neat, brisk of step, the lieutenants on parade gave off something so alien, yet so sweet, that her heart went out to them collectively, and when they lifted their caps to her individually, she smiled upon them all with childish unconsciousness of their dangerous qualities.

Most of the younger unmarried men took these smiles to be as they were, entirely without guile. Others spoke jestingly (in private) of her attitude, but were inclined to respect Harford's reputation as a gunman. Only the major himself was reckless enough to take advantage of the young wife's admiration for a uniform.

Kelley soon understood the situation. His keen eyes and sensitive ears informed him of the light estimation in which his employer's wife was held by the major; but at first he merely said, "This is none of your funeral, Kelley. Stick to your currycomb. Harford is able to take care of his own."

This good resolution weakened the very next time Anita met him and prettily praised him. "Mr. Harford says you are the best man he ever had, and I think that must be so, for my pony never looked so clean and shiny."

Kelley almost blushed, for (as a matter of faithful history) he had spent a great deal of time brushing bay Nellie. She did indeed shine like a bottle, and her harness, newly oiled and carefully burnished, glittered as if composed of jet and gold.

"Oh, that's all right; it's a part of my job," he replied, as carelessly as he could contrive. "I like a good horse"--"and a pretty woman," he might have added, but he didn't.

Although Anita lingered as if desiring a word or two more, the tall hostler turned resolutely away and disappeared into the stable.

Bay Nellie, as the one dependable carriage-horse in the outfit of broncos, had been set aside for the use of Anita and her friends, but Kelley had orders from Harford to let the mare out whenever the women did not need her, provided a kindly driver was assured, and so it happened that the wives of the officers occasionally used her, although none of them could be called friends or even acquaintances of little Mrs. Harford.

Kelley observed their distant, if not contemptuous, nods to his employer's wife as they chanced to meet her on the street, but he said no word, even when some of the town loafers frankly commented on it. He owed nothing to Harford. "It's not my job to defend his wife's reputation." Nevertheless, it made him hot when he heard one of these loafers remark: "I met the old major the other evening driving along the river road with Harf's wife. Somebody better warn the major, or there'll be merry hell and a military funeral one of these days."

"I reckon you're mistaken," said Kelley.

"Not by a whole mile! It was dark, but not so dark but that I could see who they were. They were in a top buggy, drivin' that slick nag the old man is so choice about."

"When was it?" asked Kelley.

"Night before last. I met 'em up there just at the bend of the river."

Kelley said no more, for he remembered that Anita had called for the horse on that date just about sundown, and had driven away alone. She returned alone about ten--at least, she drove up to the stable door alone, but he recalled hearing the low tones of a man's voice just before she called.

It made him sad and angry. He muttered an imprecation against the whole world of men, himself included. "If I hadn't seen her--if I didn't know how sweet and kind and pretty she was--I wouldn't mind," he said to himself. "But to think of a little babe like her--" He checked himself. "That old cockalorum needs killing. I wonder if I've got to do it?" he asked in conclusion.

II

Harford came home the next day, and for several weeks there was no further occasion for gossip, although Kelley had his eyes on the major so closely that he could neither come nor go without having his action analyzed. He kept close record of Anita's coming and going also, although it made him feel like a scoundrel whenever she glanced at him. He was sure she was only the thoughtless child in all her indiscretions, with a child's romantic admiration of a handsome uniform.

"I'll speak to her," he resolved. "I'll hand her out a word of warning just to clear my conscience. She needs a big brother or an uncle--some one to give her a jolt, and I'll do it!"

The opportunity came one day soon after Harford's return, but his courage almost failed at the moment of meeting, so dainty, so small, so charming, and so bird-like did the young wife seem.

She complimented him again on the condition of the mare and asked, timidly, "How much does my husband pay you?"

"More than I'm worth," he replied, with gloomy self-depreciation.

She caught the note of bitterness in his voice and looked at him a moment in surprised silence, her big eyes full of question. "What made you say that?"

Kelley, repenting of his lack of restraint, smiled and said: "Oh, I felt that way--for a minute. You see, I used to lead a high life of ease. I was a nobleman--an Irish lord."

She smiled and uttered an incredulous word, but he went on:

"Yes, although my name is Kelley, I belong to a long line of kings. I'm working as hostler just to square myself fer having killed a man. You see, my queen was kind o' foolish and reckless and let a certain English duke hang round her till I got locoed, and, being naturally quick on the trigger, I slew him."

She was not stupid. She understood, and with quick, resentful glance she took the reins from his hands and stepped into the carriage.

Kelley, silenced, and with a feeling that he had bungled his job, fell back a pace, while she drove away without so much as a backward glance.

"I reckon she got it," he said, grimly, as he went back to his work. "I didn't put it out just the way I had it in my head, but she 'peared to sense enough of it to call me a Piute for butting in. If that don't work on her I'll tack a warning on the major which nobody will misread fer a joke."

As the hours of the afternoon went by he became more and more uneasy. "I hope she'll turn up before dark, fer Harf is liable to get back any minute," he said a dozen times, and when at last he saw her coming up the street with a woman in the seat beside her he breathed deeply and swore heartily in his relief. "I guess my parable kind o' worked," he said, exultantly. "She's kept clear of the old goat this trip."

The little lady stopped her horse at the door of the stable and with a cool and distant nod alighted and walked away.

"I'm the hostler now--sure thing," grinned Kelley. "No raise of pay fer Tall Ed this week."

He was in reality quite depressed by the change in her attitude toward him. "Reckon I didn't get just the right slaunch on that warning of mine--and yet at the same time she ought to have seen I meant it kindly.--Oh well, hell! it's none o' my funeral, anyway. Harford is no green squash, he's a seasoned old warrior who ought to know when men are stealing his wife." And he went back to his dusty duties in full determination to see nothing and do nothing outside the barn.

Nevertheless, when, thereafter, anybody from the fort asked for bay Nellie, he gave out that she was engaged, and the very first time the major asked for the mare Kelley not only brusquely said, "She's in use," but hung up the receiver in the midst of the major's explanation.

The town gossips were all busy with the delightful report that Mrs. Harford had again been seen driving with the major, whose reputation for gallantry, monstrously exaggerated by the reek of the saloons, made even a single hour of his company a dash of pitch to the best of women. Kelley speculated on just how long it would take Harford to learn of these hints against his wife. Some of his blunt followers were quite capable of telling him in so many words that the major was doing him wrong, and when they did an explosion would certainly take place.

One day a couple of Harford's horses, standing before the stable, became frightened and ran away up the street. Kelley, leaping upon one of the fleetest broncos in the stalls, went careering in pursuit just as Anita came down the walk. He was a fine figure of a man even when slouching about the barn, but mounted he was magnificent. It was the first time he had ridden since the loss of his own outfit, and the feel of a vigorous steed beneath his thighs, the noise of pounding feet, the rush of air, filled his heart with mingled exultation and regret. He was the centaur again.

Anita watched him pass and disappear with a feeling of surprise as well as of admiration. She was skilled in reading the character of men on horseback, and peculiarly sensitive to such an exhibition of grace and power. Her hostler was transformed into something new and wholly admirable, and she gladly took the trouble to watch for his return, as she could not witness the roping and the skilful subduing of the outlaws.

The picture he made as he tore along, swinging his rope, had displaced that of the dirty, indifferent hostler, and Anita thereafter looked upon him with respect, notwithstanding his presumptuous warning, which still lay heavy in her ears.