CHAPTER XII
THE OTHER MAN
Dr. Slavens stood at the door of the parlor to meet her as she cametoward him, a little tremor of weakness in her limbs, a subconsciousconfession of mastery which the active feminine mind might have deniedwith blushing show of indignation.
The clothiers of Meander had fitted Slavens out with a very good sergesuit. Tan oxfords replaced his old battered shoes. A physician haddressed the cut on his forehead, where adhesive plaster, neatly holdinggauze over the cut, took away the aspect of grimness and gravity whichthe bloody bandage of the morning had imparted. For all his hard fight,he was quite a freshened-up man; but there was a questioning hesitationin his manner as he offered his hand.
Her greeting removed whatever doubt that William Bentley's assurance ofher fidelity might have left. She took his hand between both her own andheld it so a little while, looking into his eyes without the reservationof suspicion or distrust.
"We believed you'd come in time all along," said she.
"You believed it," he replied softly, not the faintest light of a smileon his serious face; "and I cannot weigh my gratitude in words. There isan explanation to be made, and I have saved it for you. I'm a beast tothink of food just now, perhaps, but I haven't eaten anything sinceyesterday evening."
"You can tell me afterward, if you wish," she said.
Through the meal they talked of the others, of who had come to Meander,who had gone home; of June and her mother and the miller's wife. Nothingwas said of the cause of his absence nor of his spectacular arrival justin the second remaining to him to save his chance.
"I noticed a road running up toward the mountain," said he when they hadfinished. "Shall we walk up that way?"
Out past the little cultivated gardens, where stunted corn was growingin the futile hope that it might come to ear, they followed the roadwhich led into the mountain gorge. A rod-wide stream came plunging downbeside the way, bursting its current upon a thousand stones here andthere, falling into green pools in which the trout that breasted itsroaring torrent might find a place to pant.
Here, in an acre of valley, some remnant of glacier had melted after itsslow-plowing progress of ten million years. The smooth, round stoneswhich it had dropped when it vanished in the sun lay there as thicklystrewn as seeds from a gigantic poppy-boll. And then, as the gorge-wedgenarrowed, there were great, polished boulders, like up-peeping skulls,and riven ledges against which Indian hunters had made their fires inthe old days. And on the tipping land of the mountainside, and thelittle strips where soil lodged between the rocks, the quaking-asp grewthick and tall.
There in a little nook among the trees, where trampling touristshad eaten their luncheon upon a flat stone and left the bags andpickle-bottles behind them, they sat down. At that altitude thesunshine of an afternoon in late August was welcome. A man whippingthe stream for trout caught his tackle in some low branches not tenfeet from where they sat, and swore as he disentangled it. He passedon without seeing them.
"That goes to illustrate how near a man may be to something, and notknow it," said the doctor, a smile quickening his grave face for amoment. "This time yesterday I was kicking over the rubbish where agambling-tent had stood in Comanche, in the hope of finding a dime."
He stopped, looked away down the soft-tinted gorge as if wrapped inreminiscent thought. She caught her breath quickly, turning to him witha little start and gazing at his set face, upon which a new, strangesomberness had fallen in those unaccounted days.
"Did you find it?" she asked.
"No, I didn't," he answered, coming out of his dream. "At that hour Iknew nothing about having drawn the first number, and I didn't know thatI was the lucky man until past midnight. I had just a running jump atthe chance then, and I took it."
"And you won!" she cried, admiration in her eyes.
"I hope so," said he, gazing earnestly into her face.
Her eyes would not stand; they retreated, and a rush of blood spreadover her cheeks like the reserve of an army covering its withdrawal fromthe field.
"I feel like I had just begun to live," he declared.
"I didn't see you arrive this morning," she told him, "for I turned andwent away from the land-office when they opened the window. I couldn'tstand it to see that man Peterson take what belonged to you."
He looked at her curiously.
"But you don't ask me where I was those two days," said he.
"You'll tell me--if you want me to know," she smiled.
"When I returned to the Hotel Metropole, even more ragged anddiscreditable-appearing than I was when you saw me this morning," heresumed, "the proprietor's wife asked me where I'd been. I told her Ihad been on a trip to hell, and the farther that experience is behind methe stronger my conviction that I defined it right.
"When I left you that night after we came back from the river, I wentout to look for young Walker, all blazing up, in my old-time way ofgrabbing at things like a bullfrog at a piece of flannel, over what youhad said about a man not always having the sense and the courage to takehold of his chances when they presented.
"Walker had talked to me about going in with him on his sheep-ranch,under the impression, I suppose, that I had money to invest. Well, Ihadn't any, as you know, but I got the notion that Walker might set meup with a flock of sheep, like they do in this country, to take care ofon shares. I had recovered entirely from my disappointment in failing todraw a claim, as I thought, knowing nothing about the mistake intelephoning the names over.
"I used to be quick to get over things that were based on hope thatway," he smiled, turning to her for a second and scarcely noting how sheleaned forward to listen. "Just then I was all sheep. I had it plannedout ten years ahead in that twenty minutes. When a man never has hadanything to speculate in but dreams he's terribly extravagant of them,you know. I was recklessly so.
"Well, I was going along with my head in the clouds, and I made a shortcut to go in the back way of the biggest gambling-tent, where I thoughtWalker might be watching the games. Right there the machinery of myrecollection jumps a space. Something hit me, and a volcano burst beforemy eyes."
"Oh, I knew it! I knew it!" she cried, poignant anguish in her wailingvoice. "I told that chief of police that; I told him that very thing!"
"Did you go to that brute?" he asked, clutching her almost roughly bythe wrist.
"William Bentley and I," she nodded. "The chief wouldn't help. He toldus that you were in no danger in Comanche."
"What else?" he asked.
"Go on with the story," said she.
"Yes. I came back to semiconsciousness with that floating sensationwhich men had described to me, but which I never experienced before, andheard voices, and felt light on my closed eyes, which I hadn't the powerto open. But the first thing that I was conscious of, even before thevoices and the light, was the smell of whisky-barrels.
"Nothing smells like a whisky-barrel. It's neither whisky nor barrel,but whisky-barrel. Once you have smelled it you never forget. I used topass a distillery warehouse on my way to school twice a day, and thesmell of whisky-barrels was part of my early education; so I knew.
"From the noise of voices and the smell of the barrels I judged that Imust be behind the stage of the variety-theater tent, where they keptthe stock of whisky for the bar. In a little while I was able to pick upthe identity of one of the voices. The other one--there were two of themnear me--belonged to a man I didn't know. You have heard us speak, whenwe were back in camp, of Hun Shanklin, the gambler?"
She nodded, her face white, her lips parted, her breath hanging betweenthem as by a thread.
"It was his voice that I heard; I was coming stronger every second. Imade out that they were talking of my undesirable presence in thatcommunity. Shanklin owed me a grudge on account of a push that I gavehis table one night when he was robbing a young fool with more moneythan brains by his downright crooked game. That shove laid the oldrascal's scheme bare and kept him out of several thousand dollars thatn
ight.
"I supposed until last night that his sole object in assaulting me inthe dark was to pay off this score; but there was another and moreimportant side to it than that. Shanklin and the fellow with him,whoever it was, knew that I was the winner of Number One, and theywanted me out of the way.
"I'm not clear yet in my mind just why; but they must have had someinside information ahead of others in Comanche that I, and not Peterson,was the lucky man, as reported first. For that extra wasn't out then."
"It was all a swindle, the extra," she hastened to explain. "That editorknew all the time who Number One was. He held your name back just so hemight sell a lot more papers. We found out about it after we camehere."
"Of course Shanklin was in with him some way. They're all crooks," thedoctor commented.
"Perhaps the other man was that wicked chief of police," said she. "Iwouldn't consider him above it."
"Nor I," Slavens admitted. "But I don't know; I never heard him speak. Ithought I heard that other voice this morning here in Meander, but I'mnot sure. I'll be listening. I must get on with my yarn, and I warn younow that I'm going to tax your credulity and try your confidence beforeI'm through.
"I lay there gathering strength while they talked about putting me away,like a man who had been choked. I couldn't see them when I opened myeyes, for they were back of me somewhere, moving the barrels and boxesaround. There was a lantern standing on the ground near my head, and thethought came to me that if I could knock it over and put it out I mightmake a stagger for the outside and get clear of them. So I upset it.
"The thing didn't go out. It lay on its side, burning away the same asever, but the move I had made tipped it off to them that I wasn't allin. I heard Shanklin swearing as he came toward me, and I picked up whatstrength I had, intending to make a fight for it. I wasn't as brisk as Ibelieved myself to be, unluckily, and I had only made it to my kneeswhen they piled on to me from behind. I suppose one of them hit me witha board or something. There's a welt back there on my head, but it don'tamount to anything."
"The cowards!" she breathed, panting in indignation.
"I wish we could find a name in some language that would describe them,"said he; "I've not been able to satisfy myself with anything thatEnglish offers. No matter. The next thing that I knew I was beingdrenched with icy water. It was splashing over my head and running downmy face, and the restorative qualities of it has not been overrated byyoung ladies who write stories about fainting beauties for themagazines, I can hereby testify. It brought me around speedily, althoughI was almost deaf on account of a roaring, which I attributed to thereturn circulation in my battered head, and sickened by an undulating,swirling motion by which I seemed to be carried along.
"I felt myself cramped, knees against my chin, and struggled to adjustmy position more comfortably. I couldn't move anything but my hands, andexploration with them quickly showed me that I was in a box, rathertight on sides and bottom--one of those tongue-and-groove cases such asthey ship dry goods in--with the top rather open, as if it had beennailed up with scraps. The water was splashing through it and drenchingme, and I knew in a flash, as well as if they had told me what they weregoing to do, what they had done. They had carted me to the river andthrown me in."
"The canyon! The canyon!" said she, shuddering and covering her facewith her hands. "Oh, that terrible water--that awful place!"
"But I am here, sitting beside you, with the sun, which I never hopedto see again, shining on my face," he smiled, stroking her haircomfortingly, as one might assuage the terror of a child.
Agnes lifted her head in wondering admiration.
"You can speak of it calmly!" she wondered, "and you went through it,while it gives me a chill of fear even to think about it! Did you--cometo shore before you entered the canyon?"
"No; I went through it from end to end. I don't know how far the rivercarried me in that box. It seemed miles. But the canyon is only two mileslong, they say. The box floated upright mainly, being pretty wellbalanced by my weight in the bottom, but at times it was submerged andcaught against rocks, where the current held it and the water poured inuntil I thought I should be drowned that way.
"I was working to break the boards off the top, and did get one off,when the whole thing went to pieces against a rock. I was rolled andbeaten and smashed about a good bit just then. Arms were useless. Thecurrent was so powerful that I couldn't make a swimming-stroke. My chiefrecollection of those few troubled moments is of my arms being stretchedout above my head, as if they were roped there with the weight of mybody swinging on them. I supposed that was my finish."
"But you went through!" she whispered, touching him softly on the arm asif to recall him from the memory of that despairing time.
"I came up against a rock like a dead fish," said he, "my head abovewater, luckily. The current pinned me there and held me from slippingdown. That saved me, for I hadn't strength to catch hold. The pressurealmost finished me, but a few gasps cleared my lungs of water, and thathelped some.
"There is no need for me to pretend that I know how I got on that rock,for I don't know. A man loses the conscious relation with life in such apoignant crisis. He does heroic things, and overcomes tremendous odds,fighting to save what the Almighty has lent him for a little while. ButI got on that rock. I lay there with just as little life in me as couldkindle and warm under the ashes again. I might have perished of thechill of that place if it hadn't been that the rock was a big one, bigenough for me to tramp up and down a few feet and warm myself when I wasable.
"I don't know how far along the canyon I was, or how long it was afterday broke over the world outside before the gray light sifted down tome. It revealed to me the fact that my rock of refuge was about midwayof the stream, which was peculiarly free of obstructions just there. Itseemed to me that the hand of Providence must have dashed me against it,and from that gleam I gathered the conviction that it was not ordainedfor me to perish there. I could not see daylight out of either end ofthe canyon, for its walls are winding, and of course I had nothing buta guess as to how far I had come.
"There was no foothold in the cliffs on either hand that I could see,and the pounding of that heavy volume of water down the fall of thecanyon seemed to make the cliffs tremble. I had to get ashore againstthe cliff-side, somehow, if I ever intended to get out, and I intendedto get out, no two ways about it. I might drown if I plunged in, but Imight not. And I was certain to starve if I stuck to the rock. So I tookoff my coat, which the river had spared me, and let myself down from thelower end of the rock. I had that rolling and thrashing experience allover again, still not quite so bad, for there was daylight to cheer meevery time my head got clear of the water.
"There's no use pulling the story out. I made it. I landed, and I foundthat I could work my way along the side of the cliff and over the fallenmasses by the waterside. It wasn't so bad after that.
"My hope was that I might find a place where a breach in the cliff wouldoffer me escape that way, but there was none. The strip of sky that Icould see looked no wider than my hand. I saw the light at the mouth ofthe canyon when it was beginning to fall dusk in there. I suppose it wasalong the middle of the afternoon."
"We were over there about then," said she, "thinking you might have gonein to try for that reward. If we only had known!"
"You could have come over to the other end with a blanket," said he,touching her hand in a little communicative expression of thankfulnessfor her interest. "There is a little gravelly strand bordering the riverat that end. After its wild plunge it comes out quite docile, and nothalf so noisy as it goes in. I reached that strip of easy going just asit was growing too dark for safe groping over the rocks, and when I gotthere my legs bent like hot candles.
"I crawled the rest of the way; when I got out I must have been a sightto see. I know that I almost frightened out of his remaining wits asheep-herder who was watering his flock. He didn't believe that I camethrough the canyon; he didn't believe anything I said, not even whe
n Itold him that I was cold and hungry."
"The unfeeling beast!"
"Oh, no; he was just about an average man. He had a camp close by, andlet me warm and dry myself by his fire; gave me some coffee and foodwhen he saw that I wasn't going to hurt him, but I don't believe he shutan eye that entire night. He was so anxious to get rid of me in themorning that he gave me an old hat and coat, and that was the rig I worewhen I returned to Comanche."
"The hotel-keeper gave you the message that we left?" she asked.
"He was surly and ungracious, said he didn't know where you were. I wasof the opinion that you had turned my baggage over to him, and that hefound it convenient to forget all about it."
"We brought it here--it's in my room now; and we told him when we leftwhere we were going, Mr. Bentley and I."
"Well, what little money I had was in my instrument-case," said he. "SoI was up against it right. I knew there was no use in lodging acomplaint against Shanklin, for I had no proof against him, and nevercould convince a jury that I was in my right mind if I should tell mystory in court. So I let that pass."
"It was a miraculous deliverance from death!" Agnes exclaimed, takingher breath freely again. Tears mounted to her eyes as she measured Dr.Slavens' rugged frame as if with a new interest in beholding a commonpattern which had withstood so much.
He told her of meeting Mackenzie, and of finding the lost die; of theraid they had made by means of it on Shanklin's money; of his discoveryof the midnight extra in the pockets of the gambler's coat.
"So there you have it all," said he, smiling in embarrassment as if therelation of so much about himself seemed inexcusable. "Anyway, all ofthe first part of the story. The rest is all on dry land, and notinteresting at all."
"But you hadn't had time to look over the land; you didn't know the goodlocations from the worthless," said she. "How did you pick out the claimyou filed on?"
"Well, there's a little more of the story, it seems, after all. Therewas a plot between Shanklin and another to file Peterson on a certaintract and then buy him out, I suppose."
He told her of the telegram signed "Jerry," and of Shanklin's reply.
"So I concluded," he said, "that if the land described by their numberswas valuable to them it would be valuable to me. That my guess was good,I had proof when I filed. The chap who was piloting Peterson up to thewindow, and who I suspect was the 'Jerry' of the message, wanted to knowwhere I got the figures. He wasn't a bit nice about it, either."
A swift pallor overspread Agnes Horton's face; a look of fright stood inher eyes.
"Was he a tall man, dark, with heavy eyebrows?" she inquired, waitinghis answer with parted lips.
"That fits him," said he. "Do you know him?"
"It's Jerry Boyle, the Governor's son. He is Walker's friend; Walkerbrought him to camp the day after you disappeared. He had an invitationfor Mrs. Reed and her party from his mother--you know they had beenexpecting it. And he said--he said----"
"He said----"
"That is, he told Walker that he saw you--_drunk_ at two o'clock thatmorning."
"Hum-m," rumbled the doctor, running his hands through his hair. "Hum-m!I thought I knew that voice!"
He got to his feet in his agitation. Agnes rose quickly, placing herhand on his arm.
"Was he the other man?" she asked.
"Well, it's a serious charge to lay against the Governor's son," hereplied, "but I'm afraid he was the other man."
There was such a look of consternation in her face that he sought tocalm her.
"He's not likely to go any further with it, though," Slavens added.
"Oh, you don't know him. You don't know him!" Agnes protestedearnestly.
He searched her face with a quick glance.
"Do you?" he asked, calmly.
"There is something bad in his face--something hiding, it seems to me,"she said, without show of conscious evasion.
"I'll call him, no matter what move he makes," Slavens declared, lookingspeculatively across the gorge. "Look how high the sun is up the wallover yonder. I think we'd better be going back."
"Oh, I've kept you too long," she cried in self-reproach. "And to thinkyou were in the saddle all night."
"Yes; I lost the trail and rode a good many miles out of the way," saidhe. "But for that I'd have been on hand an hour sooner."
"Well, you were in time, anyway."
"And I've drawn blindly," he laughed. "I've got a piece of land marked'Grazing,' on the chart. It may be worth a fortune, and it may be worthtwenty cents an acre. But I'm going to see it through. When are yougoing to file?"
"My number comes on the fifth day, but lapses may bring me in linetomorrow," she answered. "Smith, the stage-driver, knows of a pieceadjoining the one he has selected for himself, if nobody 'beats him toit,' as he says. He has given me the numbers, and I'm going to take hisword for it. About half of it can be irrigated, and it fronts on theriver. The rest is on the hills."
"I hope you may get it. Smith ought to know what's good in this countryand what isn't. When you have it you'll lead on the water and plant therose?"
"And plant the rose," she repeated softly.
"Don't you think," he asked, taking her hand tenderly as she walked byhis side, "that you'd better let me do the rough work for you now?"
"You are too generous, and too trusting in one unknown," she faltered.
The beat of hoofs around the sharp turn in the road where it led outinto the valley in which Meander lay, fell sharp and sudden on theirears. There the way was close-hemmed with great boulders, among which itturned and wound, and they scarcely had time to find a standing-placebetween two riven shoulders of stone when the horseman swept around theturn at a gallop.
He rode crouching in his saddle as if to reach forward and seize somefleeing object of pursuit, holding his animal in such slack control thathe surely must have ridden them down if they had not given him theentire way. His hat was blown back from his dark face, which bore ascowl, and his lips were moving as if he muttered as he rode. Abreast ofthe pair he saw them where they stood, and touched his hat in salute.
In the dust that he left behind they resumed their way. Dr. Slavens haddrawn Agnes Horton's hand through his arm; he felt that it was cold andtrembling. He looked at her, perplexity in his kind eyes.
"That's the man who stood with Peterson at the head of the line," hesaid.
"Yes; Jerry Boyle," she whispered, looking behind her fearfully."Let's hurry on! I'm afraid," she added with the ineffectiveness ofdissimulation, "that I've kept you from your sleep too long. Togetherwith your awful experience and that long ride, you must be shattered forthe want of rest."
"Yet I could stand up under a good deal more," he rejoined, his thoughtstrailing Jerry Boyle up the shadowy gorge. "But I was asking you, beforethat fellow broke in----"
She raised her hand appealingly.
"Don't, please. Please--not now!"