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Show -1 Bv Will Irvuin 1 fr DU cn cm J Wlltr put me right about that trail." Forth- THE 8T0RY SO FAR &wrr$ubLi lrwta wIth we clambered oyer the rocks to . .v , the mesa where our burros, which THE STORY SO FAR on their way to the new Cot- do in the Seventies, Robert nZn, ea.t.rner. who tell, the ,' ,Z nd Buck Hnyd.n. a vet-1 vet-1 miner, his partner, secretly the hold-up of a stage- coach. CHAPTER I Continued Z I gaff a disturbance of the leaves ' , the willows. Into a space be- 1 patches of the green pattern I horse swing round, sidewise Td backward, as an Independent La will when he Is about to be located. His flanks appeared first; In his side. He was a rangy, lean, American horse of that yellow shade ,hlch We called buckskin In the West ln those days; but on his nigh flank, u to exposed It to my view, the full Hash of the sun brought out a lighter Mtch as though he were turning white' a patch which, with my iharpened observation, I compared mentally to the top of a pear or the back view of the head and shoulders of a veiled woman. A second later I ,aw his rider mount booted, in inconspicuous incon-spicuous dark clothes, still wearing a mask. The bandits were all dressed so moch alike that, except for the big fellow, they had to me no separate identity. The thicket quivered no more; they were gone. "Keep ' on layln' close a minute," said Buck. Nowj he no longer whispered, whis-pered, but spoke aloud. "They kin see us Just as we kin see them." He chuckled in his beard. "Hid their horses from the stage people. Hard to mask a horse !" "Well, even If we didn't shoot " I began, throwing forward my uneasl-Dess uneasl-Dess of conscience. "An' what was the use of shootin'? only to git the woman killed," Interrupted Inter-rupted Buck. "Even 'if we didn't shoot, we've got 1 little- evidence," I pursued. "Kid Tenderfoot," replied Buck Impressively, Im-pressively, "what you don't know in this man's country don't hurt you none." "What do you mean?" I asked, my eastern sense of law and order not a little shocked. "I mean," replied Euck, "that we don't know nothin' yet about the lay of this country, or what's goin' to git ( you In an' out of trouble." He 11 chuckled again in his beard and grew almost garrulous. "Darn slick job. Did you notice how smooth they got away? If anybody up here had been disposed or Inclined to do any shootin' they was only a second when you conld 'a' got all four of 'em. I wonder," won-der," he mused, . "jest what the rear look-out was signalin' fur." His question ques-tion was answered at thr.t instant, when a mule team drawing an emigrant emi-grant wagon hove into sight below us. "Steered off by a family outfit of Hesters," remarked Buck. "Wish't they could 'a' known the joke on 'em ! Well, I gross we'd better be gettin' back to the jacks." "I'm going down there," I said. Curiosity, Cu-riosity, perhaps something stronger, was drawing me. Buck rolled over, and regarded me full in the face. "If anybody asks you questions, you didn't see nothin' but the tail end of this little circus," he said. "An' especially es-pecially you saw no horses. What'd hey do, anyway, but git a roll or a watch or two from those first passen-Prs passen-Prs they stuck up?" "They got the express strong-box," tuld I ,rIes, and who owned what was ln I'! Some money devil or other in "all street." replied Buck. "All right," i replied, perhaps assuming as-suming more reluctance than I felt. Keally I was a ntle reiieved not t0 e to admit that we had witnessed " episode without opening fire. remarking, "You go ahead. I t to pack these irons," took the wo long gun3 nnd turned back to the I! ,,1 rose UP then, and began gambling toward the road down the len. the ho8ha- As I came down, "e "ttle. bearded man whom I had en relieved of his wallet was reding re-ding to the express messenger: .'0li're a fine guard, you are let j S,nse Kit held up in broad day- nt and you with a sawed-off shot-m shot-m over your knees" ns robbed, too, wasn't I?" put turgor man with a drooping sea- 2 nitache. "And I say he done mVrt- T Sh0t an' the leader's down, tour e mess"ger is Iookin' into had v tS f har(hvare- Suppose he V , '""how many of us would II got It huh?" 'olhsa,pirlfht'" ame ln half a dozen ran ' , "' tlle general sentiment of "f nst shooting, and my pride bow ge restC(1 easier- I looked hora i Ulen' for the women- She ln,ide . recenized as the elder sat the J Stage' inning herself with Hlddlo? " a newsPnper. She was bore 7 "nd a little more- 1 forestry'1'''1 fore-stry'1'''1 '0 her ; she did not seem 1 hGs'dDClng ar""il, I remembered that " tiiisONi,e(Tlooked the 0Qe eal tragedy 4t some lrthe n'Eh whlte leader, i a hi ,tY ln Ulese proceedings he V for ,hl ,hls ''ead settle Into the dust And hMt Ume' and dled-an dled-an h'S head Etood the other head 'n 1161 eyes on 1,is wounded Pnise i nWn by 1 kDOW not wl'at im-"J im-"J air aPproached hor; she looke(1 !liInT' "le dCnd hors' oked me Jle eye. lier face was so full of pity and tenderness that I could feel the tears starting behind my own eyes. That expression of tenderness which held me speechless changed and merged into a little flicker of wonder. Then I saw that she was indeed young and beautiful. When finally she dropped her gaze from mine and spoke, her accent was of the East. "You aren't you weren't one of the passengers ?" "No," I said. "But I saw the end of it. I didn't shoot," I added hastily. has-tily. "It wouldn't have been of any use." In excusing myself I was accusing ac-cusing myself. But she reassured me; and, I felt, with genuine feeling. "I'm glad you didn't," she said. 'Tni glad I don't have to see a man this way" she glanced down at the dead horse "even a bandit," She stood musing a moment. I had time to notice no-tice a firm chin, a mouth just a trifle too wide for our standards of beauty In those days like my mother's, I noted mentally but pink and gently bowed, a fine-drawn, pointed nose, dark-blue eyes. "Crime Is always cruel," she said. "I I never thought of that before. "This this Is my first sight of it." She seemed now to pull herself out of this mood ; and she looked me over with her engaging glance of frankness. frank-ness. "You're from the East, too?" she remarked. "How did you know?" said I "I didn't mean to be Impertinent," she answered, smiling, "but It's your accent." "Acquired at Harvard and most difficult dif-ficult to alter into the forceful and manly tones of the West," said I. She laughed at that, though lightly; and I liked her laugh. "And at present," I went on, "I'm bound for Cottonwood too ; only instead in-stead of traveling ln the effete luxury of a stage, I'm driving a jack train." "I don't know how else a lone woman wom-an is to travel,," she replied. "It's just as well those bandits didn't rob me " She stopped, as though feeling feel-ing she had said too much. "Oh, they didn't get round to you. then?" I Inquired; and cursed myself for my hypocrisy. Somehow I felt averse in that moment to lying. "No," she said, "though I think they were going to when that shot stopped them." "And the lady inside there your " I began. "Oh, she's just another passenger," she replied to my unformed question. "I'm traveling to Cottonwood alone. She took it all beautifully." . "I'm going to stake a claim and take my chances," I said, leaving it delicately open for her to slake ray curiosity cu-riosity if she wished. Apparently she saw the point, and parried. "I'm going up on business," she replied. re-plied. Just then Buck Joined us, asking ask-ing innocently what the difficulty might be. The passengers surrounded him, babbled out their separate stories, sto-ries, Buck breaking ln now and then with a bland, "Well, well !" or "You don't say I" "Didn't nouce which way they went?" inquired Buck on the first pause. "That's what I've been saying," declared de-clared the little man who had been robbed. "Trail's hot now. By the time the sheriff gets started it'll be dead cold. If we was half a set of men we'd be formin' a posse right now an' chasln' 'em." "And us without a saddle ln the outfit," Interposed the express messenger mes-senger coldly, logically. "Well, a great, grand line this is !" said the injured passenger. "Payin' a hundred dollars to git robbed. Took three hundred dollars in bills off me, an' if I hadn't 'n' hid " "We've heard that before," said the express messenger. It looked for a second like trouble ; doubtless it would have been trouble, but for Buck. "I'm goin' to follow a ways on foot," he said. "Anybody goin' along?" I had to suppress a smile at my crafty partner. He and I alone knew that the bandits had got clear away. The In lured passenger, his bluff called, said rather weakly. I thought: "That's the ticket." The express messenger threw his sawed-off shotgun over his arm;' they two plunged into the thicket and the rest of the pnssengers. after a second of hesitation, followed. I saw that, with the eye of beauty on me, I must not hold back. "Wait a minute," I called! "I am going along." At that, the unknown woman put out her hand so that she almost touched my elbow, drew it in with a little flush of confusion, and "Oh, you won't do anything rash!" she faltered. "There's no dangerthey must have gone'" I replied with exact truth and yet with hypocrisy. As I waded through the mud past the coach I looked up; the middle-aged woman was regarding me from under her frizzes. , "Well, It's time!" she remarked grimly. , I came upon our company following in open order the footprints of the four bandits. For a quarter of a mile we floundered and stumbled. Already feint protests were rising from the rear over the futility of the whole proceeding, pro-ceeding, when Buck came to a turn of the creek and peered around a clump of willows mowing dose to the curve of the bank. I shot up beside him ; he pointed. Half sunken ln the creek lay the big iron box, open. We all plunged forward. "Thar's yer express safe," said Buck. The messenger bent down and examined exam-ined it. A cold chisel, quite evidently, had been edged into the crack between box and Ud and the Inadequate lock had been severed by a few smashing blows. The messenger was running over the envelopes which strewed the bottom bot-tom of the box. He turned toward us, and he was pale under his tan. "They took the money," he said. "That's gone." "How much?' said Buck. "I ain't supposed to know," said the express messenger, "but twenty thousand thou-sand If anybody asks you." "Where's the mall sack?" some one Inquired. As we spread out in a straggling strag-gling line of searchers the express messenger still squatted by the box, stared blankly into Its depths. But suddenly he looked up and said: "Didn't take the mail sack." Buck whistled. "Ain't no raw beginners, these here bandits," he remarked. "Know If they rob the mail they're ln trouble with Uncle Sam." We gave up the pursuit. As we turned back the express messenger and I picked up the box by Its handles han-dles and carried It between us. By now two more wagon outfits had piled up back of the stage. I saw the driver was hitching a little bay bronco into the place of the dead leader. I learned afterward that he was the spare horse of a wagon outfit, leased on the spot at a ruinous rate. My unknown lady was leaning against her shelf of rock, surrounded by four men. I caught her face ; she was smiling, but with all her feminine reserves up. However, as I came Into the road she saw me; and I felt that her deep-blue eyes had for just an Instant flattered me with personal concern, that momentarily mo-mentarily she had stepped out from her intrenchments. "What did you find?" she asked as I approached the group. So not to her but to the company I told the story of our little adventure. I had not finished when the stage driver I Was Alone With Her Now, but Only for the Brief Passage From the Rock to the Stage Coach Door. yelled, "All aboard!" .The .wagon men departed to their outfits. I was alone with her now, but only for the brief passage from the rock to the stage-coach door. "My name Is Gilson, Robert Gllson," I said. "That's a good old New England name," she remarked. "Second Cliff, Scituate, In 1633," said I ; then felt my cheeks tingling with the gh6st of shame; It seemed like boasting, that. She was gathering gather-ing her duster about her; she was starting; but I said no more lest she change the subject. Doubtless she saw the point in my pause. "Mine is Deane Mrs. Deane," she replied; and we stepped to the stagecoach. stage-coach. Then, as I closed the door and she settled down lightly in her seat, she said without hint or prompting from me: "I shnll be boarding with Mrs. Barnaby here," and a wave of her gloved hand Indicated the woman to her right. "You will," put In that lady grimly, "If ever that freight company gets my outfit into camp- The way this stage line Is run, I must say the chances is promlsln'. I must say " The coach Jerked away, but her conversation buzzed monotonously through the creaking of the leather boot, the rattle of the wheels. She the young unknown she had given me a subtle, half-expressed invitation. in-vitation. The glow about my heart told me that I liked that, Just as I did not like her "Mrs." Buck spoke; I found that my eyes were still on the retreating coach. . "One dum thing after another," he said. "If It ain't a cave-In, it's robbers. rob-bers. Won't be a four-foot patch of pay dirt left by the time we strike camp. 'Well, . anyhow, stage drivers Is sometimes Fotue use. This here one put me right about that trail." Forthwith Forth-with we clambered over the rocks to the mesa where our burros, which Buck had calmly staked out before he rejoined me, grazed at the extreme end of their lines. CHAPTER II The Interruption of the stage' robbery rob-bery took most of our morning. By dusk we had advanced only ten weary miles ; for now we were really climbing. climb-ing. While I unsaddled, cut down a dead pine for wood, built a fire on a course of rocks which thrust its crest above the snow, started supper, Buck went ahead ln the dying light to re-connolter. re-connolter. He returned In his native state of cynical pessimism. We should be In luck if we made Cottonwood In two days. As for the chance at a claim, Buck revealed his pessimism on that score by a series of speculations concerning miners' wages In Cottonwood. Cotton-wood. Above the ledge of rock where burned our fire a scant circle of young pines grew on a miniature plateau from which the snow had melted. There we tethered our weary train. After supper, dog-tired though we were, we had still more work. By the light of our candle lantern I cut a pile of fresh boughs to alleviate the hardness of our bed. Young and weary though I was, when I had rolled Into my blanket and settled my head on my saddle, anticipation banished ban-ished sleep for at least five minutes. I knew nothing more until Buck shook me and I saw that the eastern edge of the sky below us had begun to glow. The stars were fading and a shrill dawn wind was blowing down the gorge when we finished our coffee, gave the last touch to our packs by adding our tin cups and plates, saddled sad-dled our horses, mounted. For a twisted mile, our train scrambled scram-bled from ledge to ledge, then slid Into the main road. It was full daylight day-light now ; the half-frozen mud had a consistency of soft rubber, and each burro landed with a kind of elastic "plop." We rounded a pinnacle of rock. Above us the road carried for a mile or so straight up a 12 per cent grade ; and I saw that we were at the tall of a procession. We found a side trail running across smooth rock, and avoided, for the time being, a Jam which grew thicker and thicker as we advanced. And now both our trail and the main road spilled out upon a small basin In the mountain side. A widening of the road, built so that teams might pass, gave us a chance to advance two places in line and to wriggle ln .behind a light buckboard carrying what I took for a pair of gamblers. At the next sharp rise of the grade our pack train had its first accident. With the instinct of their breed, the burros had hitherto avoided the slippery spots and held their footing foot-ing ln spite of their tiny hoofs. But now the big fellow who had caused us all the trouble two days before slipped to his knees, rolled heavily over onto his side. . Because he was larger of frame than the rest we had loaded him on that morning of the supreme effort with the heaviest of our mining equipment. We had not calculated on the inherent asinlnity of his character. This time, instead of waiting patiently for man to get him out of trouble, he struggled violently though vainly bidding fair to break our shovels and his own legs. Buck leaped forward, sat on his head until he accepted the Inevitable and lay quiescent. qui-escent. Not only had the saddle shifted shift-ed until the burro lay on his pack, but Buck's scientific arrangement had been knocked all askew. There was nothing for It but to loosen the cinches, slip him out of the saddle, and pack again. "If I hold this line up there'll be shooting!" remarked Buck under his breath. "Got to pack this stuff to a level spot somewheres." And hard on this, the freighter behind us, driving six mules with a Jerk-line, called: "Well, git out of the road I Git a move on !" Buck rose to his full impressive height. "If yon want us out of the way," he said, "ye kin drop that pretty Jumpln' rope of yours and help !" The buckboard went on, revealed a hundred yards ahead a cleft on the hillside down which, when the snows began really to melt, a stream would tumble across the road. There we assembled as-sembled our Jacks and our horses. As we returned to the scene of the Jam I met the freighter and his assistant tolling up with part of our paraphernalia. parapher-nalia. When Buck had loaded himself him-self to capacity there were left only the pack saddle, a shovel and an ax. Possessing myself of these, I staggered stag-gered stride by stride behind Buck for at least ten yards. Although I was young and full of foolish pride ln my own strength I could keep up with him no longer than that. I straggled into the creek bed far behind, dumped my load and dropped myself across It In the last stages of exhaustion. However, How-ever, even the mountain-Inured Buck, I noticed with satisfaction, was fain to squat on his heels and rest himself for a minute. Then he sprang up, prodded the recreant burro Into position posi-tion with the sole of his boot, began to saddle. Now a white ridge rose just above and beyond us. Beyond lay not indeed the summit, but a round, wide and gentle slope which stretched a glittering glitter-ing white expanse to the sky line. We had passed the sources of the stream above which we had been toiling ail that day. Buck mounted, and I, with more relief than I can tell, followed his example. He did not need to inform in-form me that this was the final dash to the pass, for which he had been harboring har-boring the strength of our horses. With menacing cracks tf .his black-snake black-snake whip Buck kept our burros climbing at a fast walk. And now we passed a low ridge and I saw that the line of the horizon no more made a sharp cleft between dazzling white and deep blue. It was slashed with the black silhouettes of men, horses, wagons. wag-ons. The men, I perceived at a second sec-ond glance, all stood with their backs toward us. "Thar she be, I guess," remarked Buck. He himself had a catch In his breath. In those days none had measured meas-ured this quarter of the Rockies, but I knew now that we were much more than eleven thousand feet above sea level. "Kin leave the jacks for a minute," Buck went on. At a cautious trot, which set the sides of my own horse to pumping against my legs like a bellows, we advanced to the group on the horizon line. It remained the horizon line ; no further heights showed beyond. We pulled up beside a freight wagon, and The view burst all at once, without preliminary glimpses. I had come out at the top of a cliff, which fell away for a hundred yards below my feet. Across lay the white mother of ranges. It seemed an immeasurable distance away; yet It seemed also to fill a third of the heavens. Far to the right the range which we were now traversing travers-ing curved to meet the divide beyond. In that quarter the whiteness was broken by the composite tints of cliffs and rocky walls too steep for the clinging cling-ing snow ; and over their bases trailed a smoke cloud. "Thet's it !" A voice by my side brought my soaring thoughts back to earth. A freighter, his legs bound like puttees with gunny sacking against the cold and snow, was pointing; and the leas experienced argonauts gtouped about him were straining their eyes. I followed the direction of his finger. That cloud, a day's journey away, rose from the fires of the camp, the El Dorado in which some of us were to find fortune and some to leave our bones. All along the edge of the cliff men and women stood talking in excited exclamations, broken suddenly with a catch of the breath. Buck, having taken one long look, rode back to round up the pack. I shirked and stayed, fascinated. You'll hear a great deal more about the grim details of life in a mining camp after you've read the next Installment. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |