Читать книгу The Lost Cabin Mine - Frederick Niven - Страница 9

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sense of exhilaration filled me, as I strolled down town that evening, which I can only ascribe to the rare atmosphere of that part of the world. It was certainly not due to any improvement in my financial condition, nor to any hope of "making my pile" speedily, and to "make a pile" is the predominating thought in men's minds there, with an intensity that is known in few other lands. I was pondering the story of the Lost Cabin Mine as I went, and in my own mind had come to the decision that Apache Kid and his comrade knew the whereabouts of that bonanza. Canlan, I argued, if he knew its locality at all, must have come by his news before he fell in with his rivals on the waggon road, for after that, according to the hotel-keeper's narrative, he had had no speech with the dying man.

I was in the midst of these reflections when I turned into Baker Street, the main street of Baker City. There was a wonderful bustle there; men were coming and going on either sidewalk thick as bees in hiving time; the golden air of evening was laden with the perfume of cigars; indeed, the blue of the smoke never seemed to fly clear of Baker Street on the evenings; and the sound of the many phonographs that thrust their trumpets out from all the stores on that thoroughfare, added to the din of voices and laughter, rose above the sounds of talk, to be precise, with a barbaric medley of hoarse songs and throaty recitations. So much for the sidewalks. In the middle of the street, to cross which one had to wade knee-deep in sand, pack-horses were constantly coming and going and groaning teams arriving from the mountains. To add to the barbarous nature of the scene, now and again an Indian would go by, not with feathered head-dress as in former days, but with a gaudy kerchief bound about his head, tinsel glittering here and there about his half-savage, half-civilised garb, and a pennon of dust following the quick patter of his pony's hoofs. I walked the length of Baker Street and then turned, walking back again with a numb pain suddenly in my heart, for as I turned right about I saw the great, quiet hills far off, and beyond them the ineffable blue of the sky. And there is something in me that makes me always fall silent when amidst the din of men I see the enduring, uncomplaining, undesiring hills. So I went back to the hotel again, and without passing through the bar but going around the house, found the rear verandah untenanted, with its half dozen vacant chairs, and there I sat down to watch the twilight change the hills. But I had not been seated long when a small set man, smelling very strongly of whisky, came out with his hands thrust deep in his pockets, and, leaning against one of the verandah props, looked up at the hills, spitting at regular intervals far out into the sand and slowly ruminating a chew of tobacco.

"Canlan, for a certainty," I said to myself, when he, looking toward the door from which he had emerged, attracted by a sudden louder outbreak of voices and rattling of chairs within, revealed to me a face very sorely pock-marked, as was easily seen with the lamplight streaming out on him from the bar. On seeing me he made some remark on the evening, came over and sat down beside me, and asked me why I sat at the back of the hotel instead of at the front.

"Because one can see the hills from here," said I.

He grunted and remarked that a man would do better to sit at the front and see what was going on in the town. Then he rose and, walking to and fro, flung remarks to me, in passing, regarding the doings in the city and the mines and so forth, the local gossip of the place. He had just reverted to his first theme of the absurdity of sitting at the rear of the house when out came Apache Kid and Donoghue and threw themselves into the chairs near me, Donoghue taking the one beside me which Canlan had just vacated. If Canlan thought a man a fool for choosing the rear instead of the front, he was evidently, nevertheless, content to be a fool himself, for after one or two peregrinations and expectorations he drew a chair to the front of the verandah and seated himself, half turned towards us, and began amusing himself with tilting the chair to and fro like a rocker. The valley was all in shadow now, and as we sat there in the silence the moon swam up in the middle of one of the clefts of the mountains, silhouetting for a brief space, ere it left them for the open sky, the ragged edge of the tree-tops in the highest forest.

Apache Kid muttered something, Donoghue growled, "What say?" And it surprised me somewhat to hear the reply: "O! I was only saying 'with how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies.' It's lonesome-like, up there, Larry."

"Aye! Lonesome!" replied Larry with a sigh.

A fifth man joined us then, and, hearing this, remarked: "A man thinks powerful up there."

"That's no lie," Donoghue growled, and so the conversation, if conversation you can call it, went on, interspersed with long spaces of silence, broken only by the gurgling of the newcomer's pipe and Canlan's "spit, spit" which came quicker now. Men are prone in such times as these to sit and exchange truisms instead of carrying on any manner of conversation. Yet to me, not long in the country, there was a touch of mystery in even the truisms.

"I never seen a man who had spent much time in the mountains that was just what you could call all there in the upper story," said the man with the juicy pipe.

"Nor I," said Donoghue.

"They 're all half crazy, them old prospectors," continued the first, "and tell you the queerest yarns about things they 've seen in the mountains and expect you to believe them. You can see from the way they talk that they believe 'em themselves. But I don't see why a man should lose his reason in the hills. If a man lets his brain go when he 's up there, then he don't have any real enjoyment out of the fortune he makes—if he happens to strike it."

The moon was drifted far upward now and all the frontage of the hill was tipped with light green, among the darker green, where the trees that soared above their neighbours caught the light. "And there must be lots of fortunes lying there thick if one knew where to find them," continued the talker of truisms.

"Where?" said Apache in a soft voice.

"In the mountains, in the mountains," was the reply.

"Why do you ask where?" said Donoghue sharply. "Do you think if this gentleman knew where to find 'em he would be sitting here this blessed night?"

I felt my heart take a quicker beat at that. Knowing what I knew of three of these men here I began to see what Mr. Laughlin meant by the "game" they were playing.

"O, he might," said Canlan, now speaking for the first time since Apache's arrival.

"That would be a crazy thing to do," said Donoghue. "That would—a crazy thing—to set here instead of going and locating it."

"O, I don't know about crazy," said Mike. "You see, he might be waiting to see if anybody else knew where it was."

The soft-footed Chinese attendant appeared carrying a lamp which he hung up above our heads, and in the light of it I saw the face of the man whose name I did not know, and he seemed mystified by the turn the conversation had taken. I was looking at him now, thinking to myself that I too would have been mystified had I not been posted in the matter that afternoon, and suddenly I heard Donoghue say: "By God! he knows right enough, Apache," and a gleam of light flashed in my eyes. It was the barrel of a revolver, but not aimed at me. It was in Donoghue's hand, and pointed fairly at Canlan's head. With a sudden intake of my breath in horror I flung out my hand and knocked the barrel up. There was a little shaft of flame, a sharp crack and puff of bitter smoke, and next moment a clatter of feet within and a knot of men thronging and craning at the door, while the window behind was darkened with others shouldering there and pressing their faces against the glass.

"O you——" began Apache, and "What's this?" cried Laughlin, coming out, no coward, as one might imagine, but calm enough and yet angry as I could see.

"What in thunder are you all rubber-necking at the door there for?" cried Apache Kid, springing up.

"Was it you fired that gun?" challenged the landlord.

"No, not I," cried Apache so that all could hear. "Not but what I was the cause of it, by betting my partner here he could n't snap a bat on the wing in the dusk. I never thought he'd try it, but he's as crazy——"

"I crazy!" cried out Donoghue; and to look at him you would have thought him really infuriated by the suggestion; but they knew how to play into each other's hands.

All this time I sat motionless. The stranger rose and passed by, remarking: "This ain't my trouble, I guess," and away indoors he went among the throng, and I heard him cry out in reply to the questions: "I don't know anything about it—saw nothing—I was asleep—I don't even know who fired."

"Haw! Did n't even wake in time to see whose pistol was smoking, eh?"

"No," cried he, "not even in time for that."

"Quite right, you," cried another. But the trouble was not yet quite over on the verandah, for Laughlin, with his little eyes looking very fierce and determined, remarked: "Well, gentlemen, I can't be having any shooting of any kind in my hotel. Besides, you know there 's a law ag'in' carrying weapons here."

"No there ain't!" cried Donoghue. "It's concealed weapons the law is against, and I carry my gun plain for every man to see."

Canlan had sat all this while on his seat as calm as you please, but suddenly the crowd at the door opened out and somebody said: "Say, here 's the sheriff, boys," and at these words two men sprang from the verandah; the one was Donoghue, and Canlan the other. I saw them a moment running helter-skelter in the sand, but when the sheriff made his appearance they were gone.

The sheriff had to get as much of the story as he could from the proprietor, who was very civil and polite, but lied ferociously, saying he did not know who the men were who had been on the verandah.

"I know you, anyhow," said the sheriff, turning on Apache Kid. "Allow me, sir," and walking up to Apache Kid he drew his hand over his pockets and felt him upon the hips.

Then I knew why Canlan, though entirely innocent in this matter, had fled at the cry of "sheriff." He, I guessed, would not have come off so well as Apache Kid in a search for weapons.

At this stage of the proceedings the Chinese attendant passed me, quiet as is the wont of his race, and brushed up against Apache Kid just as the sheriff turned to ask Mr. Laughlin if he could not describe the man who had fired the shot. "I ain't been out on the verandah not for a good hour," began the landlord, when Apache Kid broke in, "Well, Sheriff, I can tell you the name of one of the men who was here."

"O!" said the sheriff, "and what was his name?"

"Mike Canlan," said the Apache Kid, calmly.

"Yes," said the sheriff, looking on him with narrowing eyes, "and the name of the other was Larry Donoghue."

"Could n't very well be Larry," said Apache Kid. "Larry was drunk to-night before sunset, and I believe you 'll find him snoring in room number thirty at this very moment."

The sheriff gazed on him a little space and I noticed, on stealing a glance at Mr. Laughlin, that a quick look of surprise passed over his colourless face.

There was a ring as of respect in the sheriff's voice when, after a long, eye-to-eye scrutiny of Apache Kid, he said slowly: "You 're a deep man, Apache, but you won't get me to play into your hands."

So saying he stepped over to me and for the first time addressed me. "As for you, my lad, I have n't asked you any questions, because it's better that the like of you don't get mixed up at all in these kind of affairs, not even on the right side." He laid his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly fashion, "I 've had my eye on you, as I have my eye on everybody, and I know you 're an honest enough lad and doing your best to get a start here. I ain't even blaming you for being in the middle of this, but you take the advice of a man that has been sheriff in a dozen different parts of the West, and when you see signs of trouble just you go away and leave it. Trouble with a gun seldom springs up between a good man and a bad, but most always between two bad men."

"Is that my character you are soliloquising on?" said Apache Kid. The sheriff turned on him and his face hardened again. "For Heaven's sake, Apache," he said, "if you and Canlan both know where the Lost Cabin is, why can't you have the grit to start off? If he follows you, well, you can fix him. It'll save me a job later on."

"Well, for the sake of the argument," said Apache, "but remember I 'm not saying I know, suppose he followed up and shot me out of a bush some night?"

"I'd be mighty sorry," said the sheriff, "for I think between the pair of you he 's a worse man for the health of the country."

A boyish look came over Apache Kid's face that made me think him younger than I had at first considered him. He looked pleased at the sheriff's words and bowed in a way that betokened a knowledge of usages other than those of Baker City.

"Thank you, Sheriff," he said. "I 'll see what can be done."

Off went the sheriff smartly then, without another word, and Apache Kid turned to me.

"I 've got to thank you for preventing——" he began, and then the Chinaman appeared beside us. "Well, Chink?"

"Maybe that littee jobee woth half a dollah, eh?"

"Did Donoghue give you nothing for bringing the message?"

"Oh, no," and a bland smile. "Mishadonah think you give me half a dollah."

"Well, it was certainly worth half a dollar; but remember, if I find out that Donoghue gave you anything,——"

"Oh yes," said the Chinaman, with a slight look of perturbation, "Mishadonah he gave me half-dollah."

Apache Kid laughed. "Well," he said, "you don't hold up your bluff very long. However, here you are, here's half a dollar to you all the same—for your truthfulness."

I experienced then a feeling of great disgust. Here was this Chinaman lying and wheedling for half a dollar; here just a few minutes gone I had seen murder attempted—and for what? All occasioned again by that lust for gold. And here beside me was a man with a certain likableness about him (so that, as I had observed, even the sheriff, who suspected him, had a warm side to him) lying and humbugging and deceiving. I thought to myself that doubtless his only objection to Larry Donoghue's attempt at murder was because of the prominence of it in this place and the difficulties that would have ensued in proving Larry guiltless had the attempt been consummated. "This man," said I to myself, "for all that likableness in his manner, the kindly sparkle of his eyes, and the smile on his lips, is no better than the hang-dog fellow he sought to shield—worse, indeed, for he has the bearing of one who has had a training of another order." And then I saw Mrs. Laughlin's red head and freckled face and lean, lissome form in the doorway. She was beckoning me to her, and when I made haste to see what she wanted with me she looked on me with much tenderness and said: "You want to remember what the sheriff said to you, my lad. Take my advice and leave that fellow out there alone for to-night. He's a reckless lad and from the way he is talking to you he seems to have taken a fancy to you. But you leave him alone. He 's a deep lad, is Apache Kid, and for all his taking way he leads a life I 'm sure neither his mother would like to see him in, nor your mother (if you have one) would like to see you taking up. There's some says he's little better than the fellow he gets his name from. I 'm sorry for you lads when I see you getting off the trail."

So what with the words of the sheriff and this well-meant talk and my own disgust at all these doings, I made up my mind to keep clear of these three men and not permit my curiosity regarding the Lost Cabin Mine to lead me into their company again. But when I went up to my room, before going to bed, I counted my remaining money and found that I had but seven dollars to my name. I thought to myself then that the Lost Cabin Mine would be a mighty convenient thing to find. And in my dreams that night I wandered up hill and down dale seeking for the Lost Cabin and engaging in hand-to-hand conflicts with all three of these men, Canlan, Donoghue, and the Apache Kid. It was on awakening from one of these conflicts that I lay thinking over all that I had heard of that mysterious Cabin and all that I had seen of the three principally connected with it. Revolving these thoughts in my mind, it occurred to me that it was an unaccountable thing, if all three knew the situation of the mine, that the two who were "partners" should not simply start out for it and risk being followed up and shadowed by Canlan. They were always two to one and could take watch and watch by night lest Canlan should follow and attempt to slay them from the bushes; for that, it would appear, was the chief danger in the matter.

Canlan's dread of starting alone I could understand. Then suddenly I sat upright in bed with the sudden belief that the truth of the matter was that Canlan, and Canlan only, knew of the mine's situation. "But that again can't be," said I, "for undoubtedly Donoghue meant murder to-night and that would be to kill the goose with the golden eggs." I was no nearer a solution of the mystery but I could not dismiss the matter from my mind. "I believe," said I to myself, "that instead of having nothing to do with this Lost Cabin Mine I will yet find out the truth of it from these men. Who knows but what I, even I, may be the one for whom the mine with all its treasure waits?"