The Plunderer Read online

  CHAPTER XIV

  "THOUGH LOVE SAY NAY"

  "Of one thing I am sure," said Dick on the following day, when theybegan to readjust themselves for a decision, "and that is that if wecan find work for them, there isn't a man on the works that I don'twant to keep. They are too true and loyal to lose."

  "We could drive into the blacksmith's tunnel," Bill said; "and I've anidea we might strike something when we pass under that hard cone justabove--well, just about under where Bells is. I saw it yesterday whenwe were up there for the first time. That would give the millman andhis gang something to do. Some of 'em can take out the rest of thegreen lead, and after that drift see if it comes in again. And theothers that can't do anything underground, can turn to and build upthe dam, with a few masons to help, and, when a new wheel comes, themillman will know how to set that all right again. So, you see, wedon't have to lose any of them that has stood by us, so long as Sloanis ready to take his gamble and the hundred thousand lasts. Beforethat's gone, we'll just have to make good. And somehow I feel wewill."

  As if to add to the mental trials of the half-owner of the Croix d'Or,but another day elapsed after this decision and adjustment before hereceived a letter from a Seattle broker offering him a price for hisinterest in the mine. Thus wrote the agent:

  "My client has the timber and water rights of your property in viewmore than anything underground, which, on the advice of experts whohave visited the property in previous years, he seems to regard asworthless. He informs me that you are, to all intents, representingnot only your own interest, but that of the other partner, who placesimplicit confidence in you. I presume that you will therefore beamenable to doing all you can to save from the wreckage of the deadproperty all that is possible in behalf of that partner as well asyourself, and am authorized to make you the extremely liberal offer ofsixty thousand dollars for the full title to the property."

  The price was ridiculously low, and Dick knew it; yet if the mineproduced nothing more, and was, as the experts were supposed to havereported, worthless, the amount was extremely liberal. But for Bill hewould have hesitated to decline such an offer. That worthy, however,threw his head back and roared derisively.

  "Sixty thousand? Sixty thousand! What does that idiot think men whohave dropped a quarter of a million in a property would quit for? Doeshe think that sixty thousand is any saving from a wreck like this hasbeen? Tell him to chase himself--that the tail goes with the hide, andyou'll quit clean whipped, or not at all."

  But Dick was loath to refuse any offer without consulting his superiorin New York, and accordingly wandered off into the hills to think. Itwas late in the afternoon, and he mechanically tramped over the trailto the pipe line, where, when hope ran higher, he had dared to dream.

  The whole situation had become a nerve-racking tragedy of mind andaction. His desperate desire for success after his self-acknowledgmentthat he loved Miss Presby, and then the blows that had been rained onhim and the mine, the failure of the green lead to hold out when ithad at least promised and justified operation--all cumulated into adisheartening climax which was testing his fortitude as it had neverbeen tried before. He was not of those who lack either persistence,determination, or moral bravery; and it was this last characteristic,coupled with a certain maturing caution, which made him question thehonesty of proceeding to lay out, perhaps, the entire hundred thousandvolunteered by Sloan, with such little certainty of returns. Had themoney been his own, he would have taken the chances uncomplainingly;but his judgment told him that, had he been sent to the Croix d'Or asan expert to pass an opinion on the justification of putting a hundredthousand into the ground, under present conditions, he would haveadvised against it.

  He went as far as the reservoir. Its wreckage seemed to mock hisefforts. To rebuild it alone meant big expense in a country whereevery barrel of cement had to be brought in on the backs of packmules, and where stone masons received unduly high wages. The repairsto the plant would not prove so heavy; but after that? None knewbetter than he the trials of expensive prospecting underground, thelong drives to end in nothing, the drifts that tapped no ore, theledges that promised to come in strongly, and led the worker on withhope deferred until his purse was exhausted. The cruelty of natureitself flaunting the golden will-o'-the-wisp in the blackness of theearth.

  He stood on a timber thrown carelessly on the brink of the gorge, andsuddenly thought how it happened to be there, and for what tragicpurpose it had served--a gallows. He shuddered, thinking of thementally distorted wretch who had died at its end, cursing as the menof the Cross pushed him over to gasp and wrench his life away fiftyfeet above the ruin he had wrought. He wondered where the man had beenburied, and hurried back along the pipe line to try and forget thatepisode.

  A little flutter of white from a clump of brush attracted his eyes,and he extracted from the brambles a dainty handkerchief stillfragrant with the personality of the girl he loved. He lifted it tohis lips tightly, and, with a heart that was almost in pain, droppedto the line, and sat on the pipe, bent, and utterly dejected. He satthere for some minutes, and then a sound caused him to straightenhimself with a jerk. The black horse was thundering down the hill ashe had seen it on those other mornings when, looking backward, the"world was young."

  "I saw you, Mr. Townsend," Miss Presby said as he assisted her toalight, and her voice was sympathetic and grave. "You are unhappy. Idon't blame you. I have heard all about it, and--well, I have had tofight an hourly impulse to come to you ever since I heard the news.Oh, my friend, believe me, I am so sorry! So sorry!"

  He could not reply, lest his voice betray the emotions aroused by herkindly sympathy. All his yearnings were fanned to flame by the cadenceof her voice and the softness of her eyes. Mechanically he resumed hisplace on the pipe, and she seated herself by his side, half-facinghim. Her slender foot, booted, braced against the ground, and almosttouching his heavy miner's boot, tapped its toe on the sward as if shewere impatient to find words.

  "It has been a little tough," he said; "but it seems less hard to menow that I know you care."

  He had blundered in his first words to the beginning of dangerousheights, and his pulses gave a wild throb when he glanced up at herand saw a light in her face, in her eyes, in her whole attitude, thathe had never surprised there before. Words, unuttered, leaped hotlyfrom his heart; a mad desire to tell of his love, of the visions hehad seen in the air, on the blue of the peaks, in the cool shadows ofthe forests, in the black depths hundreds of feet under the ground. Ofhow the Croix d'Or had come to represent, not financial success, but abattle for her, and his love.

  His face went white, and he bit his dry, twisting lips, and clenchedhis hands until they hurt.

  "Not now!" he savagely commanded himself. "Not now!"

  She appeared to be thinking of something she had to say, and her firstwords rendered him thankful that he had held his tongue, otherwise hemight never have known the depths of the girl seated there by hisside.

  "I don't want you to think me forward," she said quietly; "but I havewanted for the last two days to ask you something. It makes it easiernow that I know you know, that--that I care for it. What areyour--your--how are your finances?"

  She had stammered it out at last, and, now that the conversation hadbeen led in that direction, he could speak. He sat there quietly, asif by a comrade, and told her all. Told her of his boyhood, hisfather's death, and that he, in his own right, had nothing in theworld but youth and a half-ownership in the Croix d'Or, whichthreatened to prove worthless. He voiced that dread of wasting hisbacker's money when he had none of his own to put with it, meetingdollar for dollar as it was thrown into the crucibles of fate. Hestopped at last, a little ashamed of having so completely unbosomedhimself, for he was by habit and nature reticent.

  "You have made it a great deal easier for me," she said, with anassumption of gayety. "I can say what I've been thinking of for twodays without spludging all over my words."

  She laughed as if in recollection of her
previous embarrassment, andagain became seriously grave, and went on:

  "They say my father is a hard man. At times I have been led to believeit; but he has been a good father to me, and I appreciate it and hisworries more, after a four years' absence in an Eastern school,and--well, perhaps because I am so much older now, and better able tojudge leniently. I have never known much of his business from hislips. It is one subject on which he is not exactly loquacious, asprobably you know."

  Again she laughed a little, grim laugh. Dick had opened his lips tosay that he had never met her father, when she continued:

  "On the day I met you first, up here by your pipe line, the day youalmost ended my bright young career by starting a half-ton bowlderdown the hill--don't interrupt with repeated apologies, please--I hadmy birth anniversary. I was twenty-one, and--my own boss."

  "Congratulations, belated, but fervent."

  "Thank you; but you again interrupt. On that day when I went home, myfather, in his customary gruff way, turned back just as he was goingto the office where he lives at least eighteen hours out of everytwenty-four, and threw in my lap a bank-book. 'Joan,' he said, 'you'reof age now. That's for you. It's all yours, to do just what you dam'please with. I have nothing to do with it. If you make a fool use ofit, it'll be your fault, not mine. I'm giving it to you so that ifanything happened to me, or the Rattler, you'd not be helplesslybusted.'"

  He jumped to his feet with an exclamation.

  "The Rattler! The Rattler! And--and your name is Joan and not Dorothy,and you are Bully Presby's daughter?"

  He was bewildered by surprise.

  "Why, yes. Certainly! Didn't you know that--all this time?"

  "No!" he blurted. "There is a Dorothy Presby, and a----"

  "Dorothy Presby!" She doubled over in a gust of mirth. "The daughterof the lumberman over on the other side. Oh, this is too good to keep!I must tell her the next time I see her. After all these months, youstill thought----"

  Again her laughter overwhelmed her; but it was not shared by Dick, whostood above her on the slope, frowning in perplexity, thinking of thestrange blunder into which he had been led by the words of poor oldBells, his acceptance of her identity, his ignorance that Bully Presbyhad kith or kin, and of the mine owner's sarcastic references andveiled antagonism throughout all those troubled months preceding.

  If she were Bully Presby's daughter, he might never gain her father'sconsent, though the Croix d'Or were in the list of producers. Hethought of that harsh encounter on the trail, and his assertion thathe was capable of attending to his own business and asked neitherfriendship nor favor from any man under the skies; of Bully Presby'sgruff reply, and of their passing each other a second time, in thestreets of Goldpan, without recognition. The girl in front of him, sounlike her father save for the firm chin and capable brow, did notappear to sense his perturbation.

  "Well," she said, "it doesn't matter. I am not jeal---- I'm not anydifferent--just the same. Come back here and sit down, please, while Igo ahead with what I wish to say."

  The interlude appeared to have rendered her more self-possessed.

  "So, on that day I met you, I became quite rich. That money has restedin a bank, doing neither me nor any one else any benefit. I think Ihave drawn one check, for twenty-five dollars, just to convince myselfthat it was all reality. And I am, in some ways, the daughter of myfather. I want my money to work. I'm quite a greedy young person, yousee. I want to lend you as much of that money as you need."

  "Impossible!"

  "Not at all. I have as much faith in you, perhaps more, than thisMister Sloan, of whom I'm a trifle jealous. I want to have a share inyour success. I want to make you feel that, even if I'm not thedaughter of a lumberman, I am, and shall have a right to be,interested in--in--the Croix d'Or."

  "Impossible!"

  "It isn't any such thing. I mean it!"

  "Then it's because I haven't made it plain to you--haven't made youunderstand that even now I am thinking, to preserve my honor, oftelling Mr. Sloan that it is too much of a venture. If I shoulddecline to venture his money, why should I----?"

  "Refuse mine? That's just it. His money you could decline. He isn't onthe ground. He doesn't know mines, mining, or miners. I know them all.I am here. I know the history of the Cross from the day it made itsfirst mill run. I went five hundred feet under ground in a Californiamine when I was a month old. I've run from the lowest level to the topof the hoist, and from the grizzlies to the tables, for at least tenyears of my life. I've absorbed it. I've lived in it. Had I thestrength, there isn't a place in this, or any mine, that I couldn'tfill. I'm backing my judgment. The Croix d'Or will prove good withdepth. It may never pay until you get it. The blowing of your dam, theloss of your green lead, and all of those troubles, don't amount tothat."

  She snapped a thumb and forefinger derisively, and went on before hecould interject a word, so intent was she on assisting him andencouraging him, and proving to him that her judgment, throughknowledge, was better than his.

  "Borrow my money, Dick, and sink."

  The name came so easily to her lips! It was the first time he had everheard her utter it. It swept away his flying restraint even as theflame of powder snaps through a fuse to explosion; and he made asudden, swinging step toward her, and caught her in his arms savagely,greedily, tenderly fierce. All his love was bursting, molten, tospeech; but she lifted both hands and thrust herself away from him.

  "Oh, not that!" she said. "Not that! I wish you had not. It robs me ofmy wish. I wanted you to take my money as a comrade, not as my---- Oh,Dick! Dick! Don't say anything to me now, or do anything now! Pleaselet me have my way. You will win. I know it! The Cross must pay. Itshall pay! And when it does, then--then----"

  She stood, trembling, and abashed by her own words, before him. Slowlythe delicacy of her mind, the romanticism of her dreams, the great,unselfish love within her, fluttering yet valiant, overwhelmed himwith a sense of infinite unworthiness and weakness. He took his hatfrom his head, leaned over, and caught one of the palpitant hands inboth his own, and raised it reverently to his lips. It was as if hewere paying homage to heaven devoutly.

  "I understand," he said softly, still clinging to the fingers, everythrob of which struck appealingly on his heartstrings. "Forgive me,and--yet--don't. Joan, little Joan, I can't take your money. It wouldmake me a weakling. But I can make the Cross win. If it never had achance before, it will have now. It must! God wouldn't let it beotherwise!"

  "Help me to my horse," she said faintly. "We mustn't talk any more.Let us keep our hopes as they are."

  He lifted her lightly to the saddle, and the big black, withcomprehending eyes, seemed to stand as a statue after she was in herseat. The purple shadows of the mountain twilight were, with a softand tender haze, tinting the splendid peak above them. Everything wasstill and hushed, as if attuned to their parting. She leaned low overher saddle to where, as before something sacred, he stood with partedlips, and upturned face, bareheaded, in adoration. Quite slowly shebent down and kissed him full on the lips, and whispered: "God blessyou, dear, and keep you--for me!"

  The abrupt crashing of a horse's hoofs awoke the echoes and the worldagain. She was gone; and, for a full minute after the gray old rocksand the shadows had encompassed her, there stood in the purpletwilight a man too overcome with happiness to move, to think, tocomprehend, to breathe!