Читать книгу The Lost Cabin Mine - Frederick Niven - Страница 15

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e all came to our feet then, Apache Kid carefully flicking the sand from his clothing.

"Now," he said, "that settles us. We 're quits." And we all walked slowly and silently back in company toward the city. When we came to Blaine's "coffee-joint" Apache Kid stopped, and told me he would see me later in the evening at the Laughlin House to arrange about the starting out on our venture. Donoghue wanted him to go on with him, but Apache Kid said he must see Blaine again before leaving the city.

"I desire to leave a good impression of myself behind me," he said with a laugh. "I should like Blaine to feel sorry to hear of my demise when that occurs, and as things stand I don't think he 'd care, to use the language of the country, a continental cuss."

So saying, with a wave of his hand, he entered Blaine's.

At Baker Street corner Donoghue stopped.

"I 'll be seeing you two days from now," he said.

"Do we not start for two days then?" I asked.

"O, Apache Kid will see you to-night and make all the arrangements about pulling out. So-long, just now."

So I went on to my hotel and, thus rescued from poverty on the very day that I had the first taste of it, I felt very much contented and cheered, and it was with a light and hopeful heart that I wandered out, after my unusually late supper, along the waggon road as far as the foothill woods and back, breathing deep of the thin air of night and rejoicing in the starlight.

When I returned to the hotel there was a considerable company upon the rear verandah, as I could see from quite a distance—dim, shadowy forms sprawled in the lounge chairs with the yellow-lit and open door behind shining out on the blue night, and over them was the lamp that always hung there in the evenings, where the parrot's cage hung by day.

When I came on to the verandah I picked out Apache Kid at once.

A man who evidently did not know him was saying:

"What do you wear that kerchief for, sir, hanging away down your neck that way?"

There were one or two laughs of other men, who thought they were about to see a man quietly baited. But Apache Kid was not the man to stand much baiting, even of a mild stamp.

I think few of the men there, however, understood the nature that prompted him when he turned slowly in his chair and said:

"Well, sir, I wear it for several reasons."

"Oh! What's them?"

"Well, the first reason is personal—I like to wear it."

There was a grin still on the face of the questioner. He found nothing particularly crushing in this reply, but Apache went on softly: "Then again, I wear it so as to aid me in the study of the character of the men I meet."

"O! How do you work that miracle?"

"Well, when I meet a man who does n't seem to see anything strange in my wearing of the kerchief I know he has travelled a bit and seen the like elsewhere in our democratic America. Other men look at it and I can see they think it odd, but they say nothing. Well, that is a sign to me that they have not travelled where the handkerchief is used in this way, but I know that they are gentlemen all the same."

There was a slight, a very slight, exulting note in his voice and I saw the faces of the men on the outside of the crowd turn to observe the speaker. I thought the man who had set this ball a-rolling looked a trifle perturbed, but Apache was not looking at him. He lay back in his chair, gazing before him with a calm face. "Then again," he said leisurely, as though he had the whole night to himself, "if I meet a man who sees it and asks why I wear it, I know that he is the sort of man about whom people say here,—in the language of the country,—'Don't worry about him; he 's a hog from Ontario and never been out of the bush before!'"

There was a strained silence after these words. Some of the more self-reliant men broke it with a laugh. The most were silent.

"I'm a hog—eh? You call me a hog?" cried the man, after looking on the faces of those who sat around. I think he would have swallowed Apache Kid's speech without a word of reply had it not been spoken before so large an audience.

"I did not say so," said Apache Kid, "but if I were you, I would n't make things worse by getting nasty. I tried to josh a man myself this afternoon, and do you know what I did? I called in on him to-night to see whether he had savveyed that I had been trying to josh him. I found out that he had savveyed, and do you know what I did? I apologised to him——"

"D' ye think I 'm going to apologise for askin' you that question?"

"You interrupt me," said Apache Kid. "I apologised to him, I was going to say, like a man. As to whether I think you are going to apologise or not—no."

He turned and scrutinised the speaker from head to toe and back again.

"No," he repeated decidedly. "I should be very much surprised if you did."

"By Moses!" cried the man. "You take the thing very seriously. I only asked you——" and his voice grumbled off into incoherence.

"Yes," said Apache Kid. "I have a name for being very serious. Perhaps I did answer your question at too great length, however."

He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he looked at him, that every one else followed suit; and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and went indoors.

I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over to me.

"Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?" he asked quietly.

"Certainly," said I. "We don't start from here, then?"

"No. That's to say, we don't leave the haunts of men here. It is better not, for our purpose. Have you seen Canlan to-night?"

I told him no, but that I had been out for my evening constitutional and not near the city.

"He does n't seem to be at this hotel to-night. I must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if he's in town. If I see him anywhere around town, I may not come back here to-night. If I don't see him, I 'll look in here later in the hope of rubbing against him. So if you don't see me again to-night, you 'll understand. To-morrow at noon, the Kettle River Gap stage."

But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an appearance all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere my friend had "rubbed against" Canlan.

I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had, somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker City, after all, despitefully though it had used me.

"You should stay on a bit yet," said Mrs. Laughlin, when I told her I was going. "You can't expect just to fall into a good job right away on striking a new town."

"I should never have come here," I explained, "had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman who was once in the city. The fact is, my people at home did not like the thought of me going out on speck, and the only man in the country I knew was in Baker City. But he had moved on before I arrived."

"And where do you think of going now?" she asked.

I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered truthfully:

"Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country. Mining never took my fancy. I believe there are some ranches on the Kettle River."

"Oh, a terrible life!" she cried out. "They 're a tough lot, them Kettle River boys. They 're mostly all fellows that have been cattle-punching and horse-wrangling all their lives. They come from other parts where the country is getting filled up with grangers and sheepmen. I reckon it's because they feel kind o' angry at their job in life being kind o' took from them by the granger and the sheepmen that they 're so tough. Oh! they 're a tough lot; and they 've got to be, to hold their own. Why, only the other day there a flock o' sheep came along on the range across the Kettle. There was three shepherds with them, and a couple of Colonel Ney's boys out and held them up. The sheep-herders shot one, and the other went home for the other boys, all running blood from another shot, and back they went, and laid out them three shepherds—just laid them out, my boy (d'ye hear?)—and ran the whole flock o' sheep over into a cañon one atop the other. Ney and the rest only wants men that can look after their rights that way——"

How long she might have continued, kindly enough, to seek to dissuade me, I do not know. But I was forced to interrupt her and remind her I should lose the stage.

"Yes," she said, "I might just have kept my mouth shut and saved my breath. You lads is all the same. But mind what I say," she cried after me, "you should stay on here and rustle yourself a good job. You 're just going away to 'get it in the neck.' Maybe you 'll come back here again, sick and sorry. But seein' you 're going, God bless you, my lad!" and I was astonished to see her green eyes moist, and a soft, tender light on her lean, freckled face.

"So-long, then, lad, and good luck to you," said her better half. "If you strike into Baker City again—don't forget the Laughlin House."

I was already in the street, half turning to hear their parting words, and with a final wave I departed, and (between you and me) there was a lump in my throat, and I thought that the Laughlin House was not such a bad sort of place at all to tarry in.

In Baker Street, at the very corner, I saw Apache Kid advancing toward me, but he frowned to me and, when he raised his hand to his mouth to remove his cigar, for a brief moment he laid a finger on his lip, and as he passed me, looking on the ground and walking slowly, he said: "You go aboard the stage yourself and go on."

There was no time to say more in passing, and I wondered what might be the meaning of this. But when I came to where the stage-coach stood, there was Canlan among the little knot of idlers who were watching it preparing for the road. He saw me when I climbed aboard, and, stepping forward, held out his hand. "Hullo, kid," he said, "pulling out?"

"Yes," said I.

"Goin' to pastures green?"

I nodded.

"Well, I want to thank you. I bin keepin' my eyes open for you since that night. I want to thank you for that service you done me. Any time you want a——" but I did not catch his last words. The driver had mounted the box, gathered up the "ribbons," sprung back the brake, and with a sudden leap forward we were off in a whirl of dust. I nodded my head vigorously to Canlan, glad enough to see that he was only anxious to be friendly and to thank me for the service I had rendered him instead of embarrassing me with questions as to my destination.

Away we went along Baker Street and shot out of the town, and there, just at the turning of the road, was Apache Kid by the roadside, and he stood aside to let the horses pass. The driver looked over his shoulder to make sure that he got on safely, but there was no need to stop the horses, for with a quick snatch Apache Kid leapt aboard and sat down, hot, and breathing a little short, beside me.