Читать книгу The Sky Line of Spruce - Эдисон Маршалл - Страница 8

Snowy Gulch, B.C.

DEAR BROTHER EZRA:—

I rite this with what I think is my dying hand. It's my will too. I'm at the hotel at Snowy Gulch—and not much more time. You know I've been hunting a claim. Well, I found it—rich a pocket as any body want, worth a quarter million any how and in a district where the Snowy Gulch folks believe there ain't a grain of gold.

It's yours. Come up and get it quick before some thieves up hear jump it. Lookout for Jeffery Neilson and his gang they seen some of my dust. I'm too sick to go to recorder in Bradleyburg and record claim. Get copy of this letter to carry, put this in some safe place. The only condition is you take good care of Fenris, the pet I raised from a pup. You'll find him and my gun at Steve Morris's.

I felt myself going and just did get hear. You get supplies horses at Snowy Gulch go up Poor Man Creek through Spruce Pass over to Yuga River. Go down Yuga River past first rapids along still place to first creek you'll know it cause there's an old cabin just below and my canoe landing. Half mile up, in creek bed, is the pocket and new cabin. And don't tell no one in Snowy Gulch who you are and where you going. Go quick brother Ez and put up a stone for me at Snowy Gulch.

Your brother

HIRAM MELVILLE.

There was a long pause after Ezram's voice had died away. Ben's eyes glowed in the moonlight.

"And you haven't heard—whether your brother is still alive?"

"I got a wire the hotel man sent me. It reached me weeks before the letter came, and I guess he must have died soon after he wrote it. I suppose you see what he means when he says to carry a copy of this letter, instead of the original."

"Of course—because it constitutes his will, your legal claim. Just the fact that you are his brother would be claim enough, I should think, but since the claim isn't recorded, this simplifies matters for you. You'd better make a copy of it and you can leave it in some safe place. And of course this claim is what you offered to let me in on."

"That's it. Not much, but all what I got. What I want to know is—if it's a go."

"Wait just a minute. You've asked me to go in with you on a scheme that looks like a clear quarter of a million, even though I can't give anything except my time and my work. You found me in a penitentiary, busted and all in—a thief and a gangster. Before we go any further, tell me what service I've done you, what obligation you're under to me, that gives me a right to accept so much from you?"

It might have been in the moonlight that Ezram's eyes glittered perceptibly. "You're in my charge," he grinned. "I guess you ain't got any say comin'."

"Wait—wait." Ben sprang to his feet, and caught by his earnestness, Ezram got up too. "I sure—I sure appreciate the trust you put in me," Ben went on slowly. "For my own part I'd give everything I've got and all I'd hope to ever get to go with you. It's a chance such as I never dared believe would come to me again—a chance for big success—a chance to go away and get a new start in a country where I feel, instinctively, that I'd make good. But that's only the beginning of it."

The dark vivid eyes seemed to glow in the soft light. "Forgive me if I talk frank; and if it sounds silly I can't help it," Ben continued. "You've never been in prison—with a five-year sentence hanging over you—and nobody giving a damn. For some reason I can't guess you've already done more for me than I can ever hope to repay. You got me out of prison, you wakened hope and self-respect in me when I thought they were dead, and you've proved a friend when I'd given up any thought of ever knowing human friendship again. I was down and out, Ezram. Anything you want me to do I'll do to the last ditch. You know I can fight—you know how a man can fight if it's his last chance. I've got some bonus money coming to me from the Canadian Government—and I'll put that in too, because we'll be needing horses and supplies and things that cost money. But I can't take all that from a stranger. You must know how it is. A man can't, while he's young and strong, accept charity—"

"Good Lord, it ain't charity!" the old man shouted, drowning him out. "I'm gettin' as much pleasure out of it as you." His voice sank again; and there was no line of mirth in his face.

"It was long ago, in Montreal," Ezram went on, after a pause. "I knew your mother, as a girl. She married a better man, but I told her that every wish of hers was law to me. You're her son."