Produced by Roger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Hunt's arms were around the girl and he held her fast.]
THE HEART OF CANYON PASS
By THOMAS K. HOLMES
Author of _"The Man From Tall Timber" etc._
A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with George Sully & Company Printed in U. S. A.
Copyrighted, 1921 (as a serial).
Copyright, 1921, by GEORGE SULLY & COMPANY
_All rights reserved_ _Printed in U. S. A._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE I. Discontent at Canyon Pass 1 II. Discontent at Ditson Corners 18 III. A Shadow Thrown Before 30 IV. Philosophy Bound in Homespun 38 V. How the Passonians Took It 46 VI. The Approach 58 VII. The First Trick 69 VIII. A Flower in the Mire 78 IX. A Beginning 91 X. Mutterings of a Storm 99 XI. The Storm About To Burst 111 XII. Tolley's Tale 122 XIII. Plans Are Made 130 XIV. The Great Day Arrives 141 XV. Pep and a Little Pepper 152 XVI. Love and Longing 161 XVII. A Battle in a Girl's Heart 169 XVIII. The Shadow on Betty's Path 177 XIX. A Good Deal of a Man 189 XX. Murder Will Out 197 XXI. The Drama of a Lie 211 XXII. A Face in the Storm 219 XXIII. A Great Light Dawns 229 XXIV. The Barrier Down--for a Moment 237 XXV. Understanding 246 XXVI. Threatening Weather 256 XXVII. Several Conclusions 265 XXVIII. Catastrophe 273 XXIX. His Last Card 286 XXX. Clearing Skies 297
THE HEART OF CANYON PASS
CHAPTER I--DISCONTENT AT CANYON PASS
The bluebird was no harbinger of spring at Canyon Pass. Most of theinhabitants had never seen that feathered songster and many had neverheard of it. Incidentally these same Passonians would not have known aharbinger in any case, presuming possibly that it was one of thosenew-fangled nipples for the hydraulic pipes at the Eureka Washings, orsomething fancy that Bill Judson was selling in cans at the Three StarGrocery.
But spring had unmistakably arrived at Canyon Pass when those twoirrepressible pocket-hunters, Steve Siebert and Andy McCann, gottogether their frayed and rusty outfits, exchanged the hard-earned moneyeach had toiled for during the winter over the counter of the Three Starfor supplies and loaded each his burro till the sad-eyed little brutesalmost buckled under the weight of flour, beans, salt pork, coffee, andprospectors' tools.
Each ancient then mounted his moth-eaten cayuse, jerked the towline ofhis objecting burro, and proceeded out of town, Steve making the fordthrough the East Fork, while Andy plodded through the shallows of theWest Fork, both bound down the canyon for the desert country which theyhated with an unbelievably bitter hatred, yet which dragged the old menback to its grim barrens as soon as the spring freshets cleared thecanyon and gulches of winter's accumulation of snow.
Canyon Pass was no beauty spot over which an artist might rave; nor wasthe landscape surrounding it even passably attractive to the eye. Man,in delving for nature's treasures in the rocky headlands and along thebenches of the East and West Forks, had marred past redemption whatlittle beauty of form and color the rugged wedge of land at the head ofthe canyon once possessed.
But on this morning there was a soft blur of blue haze padding the sharpoutlines of the canyon walls and brooding over the higher hills. Thestreams flowing on either side of the town crooned instead of foamingboisterously in their beds, and where they joined to make Runaway River,which followed the bed of the canyon southerly, the thunder of theirwaters seemed hushed.
It was not yet sunrise, but a pearl-gray radiance flooded the town andcanyon as far south as one could see. Lights wavered drunkenly behindthe window-panes of the all-night saloons and dance halls. This enticingspring morning followed the dregs of another riotous night in CanyonPass.
The day before had been pay day at the Eureka Washings and the OreodeCompany's diggings and at most of the major mining prospects in thevicinity. At noon the miners and other workmen had knocked off work,drawn their pay, and, cleaned up and dressed in holiday attire, hadsought the amusement places of the town. From dark till dawn they had asusual torn the town wide open like a paper sack, to quote Bill Judson,as he stood in the doorway of his store and watched the two old desertrats leaving the dulling merriment and drunkenness behind them as theyweaved their several ways out of sight on either bank of Runaway River.
"They've been doing this for twenty years," added Judson, pointing withhis pipe stem to the disappearing prospectors. "An' to my knowledge andbelief ain't neither of 'em struck a smell of paying color in all thattime."
"That so?" returned Smithy, his gangling clerk, coming outside tostretch and yawn. Smithy had the look of a young man who was still ingrowth and he needed, as Judson said, "all outdoors to stretch in."
"Say! What's the matter with them two old sour doughs? All the time theywas buyin' that stuff they never spoke a word to each other, and if oneof 'em caught a look from t'other he snarled like a wild tagger! They'dhave showed their teeth--both of 'em--if they'd had any left but stubs."
"Ain't spoke, to my knowledge," said the storekeeper, "Steve and Andyain't, in all of these twenty years. 'Fore that they was as thick ashasty puddin' an' throwed in together ev'ry spring--even steven--when theywent prospecting; comin' back yere to Canyon Pass in the fall as happyas a bride and groom returning from the honeymoon."
"What happened? What made 'em so sore on each other?" asked Smithy.
"Don't know. Never did know. Never could find out. 'Twas right after thebig slide. You've heard tell o' that, even if you ain't been here sixmonths?"
"A thousand times," returned Smithy in a bored tone.
"Well, Steve and Andy was perky as blackbirds in a strawyard thatspring. 'Twas twenty years back. They hid out their camp somewhere neartown that time. I always figgered they had a good prospect below there,in the canyon. 'Twas even reported that they took a sample of the rightstuff to the assayer's office. But they was as close mouthed as twinclams in the last stages of hydrophoby.
"Then come the slide. Most of us that was yere then didn't think of muchfor a week or two but whether Canyon Pass was goin' to be left on themap or not. Our stake was yere, and the slide acted like a stopper inRunaway River--like to plugged the old canyon for fair.
"Howsumever, when the channel was more or less clear again and we couldcome down off the roofs of our shacks, Steve and Andy showed up, butfrom different directions, as sore at each other as two carbuncles, andthey ain't never been knowed to speak to one another since. Won't evendrink at the same bar. The only time they come into th
e Three Startogether is the morning they pull stakes for the desert."
Smithy yawned again. Steve Siebert and Andy McCann had now disappearedbeyond outcropping warts of rock at the foot of the canyon walls.
Down the street from the direction of the mining shafts sunk in theheights behind the town strode a well-proportioned young man whosebootsoles rang on the patches of earth out of which the frost had notyet thawed. He was cleanly shaved and clean-looking, and stood more thansix feet tall, with an air of frank assertiveness even in his carriage.He owned a high color under the wind-tan of his countenance, sandy hair,and brown eyes with golden flecks in them when he was amused or when hewas angry.
And Joe Hurley was usually swayed by one emotion or the other. Now heappeared to be amused as he came abreast of the Three Star Grocery.
"What's got you and Smithy up so early, Bill?" he asked.
"Dad burn it, Joe! Don't you know spring has came?"
"Pshaw! I thought I heard a tree-frog last night. So Steve Siebert andAndy McCann have lit out same as usual? We shall miss Steve at the GreatHope."
"Surest thing you know, Joe. They're on their way. And just as sociableas usual." Joe Hurley's eyes flashed with the gleam of fun that made himbeloved of all who did not hate him. But before he could utter a commentthe storekeeper added: "Wasn't you in to the Grub Stake to-night?"
Hurley wheeled to frown suddenly at the flickering lamps of BossTolley's gambling hall and cabaret almost directly across the street.The quick change of emotion reflected in his face betrayed the characterof the man. Hurley was given to sudden impulses, usually spurred by theprimal passions. Yet he was a strong man, too, and kept the lid on thosepassions if he desired.
"Nell's got some new songs," went on Judson slyly. "Right cute they are.She certainly is some songbird, Joe. Dad burn it! She's too good forthose roughnecks."
Hurley nodded slowly but did not show Judson his face at once, stillwatching the pale lights of the honkytonk fighting the advancing glow ofthe dawn. The storekeeper had not lived sixty-five years--thirty years ofthem right here in Canyon Pass--without gaining a pretty keen insightinto human nature. He did not have to see that scowl on Joe Hurley'sface. He knew what Joe was ruminating.
"And 'tain't only roughnecks that our Nell's too good for," pursuedJudson finally. "The pizenest snakes, they tell me, is the prettiest.An' kids are tickled to look at pretties. Nell's only a kid after all."
"You're right, Bill!" ejaculated the mine owner with a snap of his jawsand his eyes sparking from no good humor.
He glanced balefully at the Grub Stake, his face set grimly, almostthreatening.
There were fitful strains of music from within and still some clatter offeet and voices. Boss Tolley made it his boast that his show continueduntil the last reveler left.
The Grub Stake was a sprawling, T-shaped structure with the long bar andgaming tables in the shank of the T, the dance hall and stage at therear. Beside the main entrance was the sign: "Check Your Guns and SpursHere," and at the short counter presided a young woman in a sleevelesssilk jersey and kneelength satin skirt, who dealt out brass checks andairy persiflage indiscriminately.
The rosewood bar, behind which Boss Tolley and his three barmen sweatedat the height of the revelry, had cost a fortune to freight over thetrail to Canyon Pass. The gaudy oil painting which hung back of the bar,to hear Boss Tolley tell it, had cost him a second fortune.
Dick Beckworth, who was Tolley's chief dealer at the tables of chance,was a privileged character. He was supposed to be a "killer" with theladies. He dressed his long curls and heavy black mustache as carefullyas he did his sleek and slender person. Cream-colored flannel shirt, aflowing tie, velvet jacket and broadcloth trousers tucked intopatent-leather boots, and a Mexican sombrero heavy with silver cord totop this ensemble, he made a picture to rival the squalid painting overthe bar.
The night had been strenuous at the tables, but the gambling fever hadnow abated. Dick lolled gracefully in the armchair at his empty tablewith half-closed eyes, smoking a cigarette. Around a table near thearchway between the barroom and the hall was a noisy group of miners,but they were no longer playing. Their glasses had just been refilled atthe bar.
The rasping chords of a hard-working male quartette beyond the archwayrepeated a syncopated rhythm for the entertainment of the patrons of thetables.
From beneath the arch into the barroom stepped suddenly an astonishinglybrilliant figure--a figure engraved as sharply as a cameo against theblue mist of tobacco smoke that now drifted in a thin haze throughoutthe barnlike place. The group of miners about the first table roared agreeting.
"Nell! Nell Blossom! The blossom of Canyon Pass!"
"Give us a song of your own, Nellie!" added one burly miner, swayingfrom his seat toward her, a maudlin smile on his face.
The girl's smiling expression changed swiftly to one of flaring fury.She swept past the miners and headed straight for Dick Beckworth, whohad watched the incident with a little smile flickering about his lips.The girl's face was still ablaze. She needed no rouge or lipstick in anycase to lend it color.
"Dick," she said tensely, "I hate this place!"
"I've already told you I hate to see you in it," he rejoined withapparent frankness. "Singing and dancing for these roughnecks is farbeneath you."
The flame of her anger gradually waned as she gazed down into his face.His usual calmness was somewhat ruffled by her near presence. NellBlossom held a certain influence over him that "Dick the Devil"--hisboasted cognomen among his admirers--was loath to acknowledge.
But she was sweet enough and pretty enough as she stood there to stirthe most placid heart. Even the tawdry costume she wore could notdetract from her charm, the red silk blouse with the V-shaped cut at theneck, belted velvet skirt to the tops of tiny riding-boots on tiny feet,her clustering curls of a golden-brown color crowned by a "cowgirl"hat--all worn as a costume in which to sing "Pony Boy," and "Cheyenne,"which popular hits had finally reached Canyon Pass.
"I hate this place, Dick," she said again, now wearily dropping into achair at his elbow.
Nell Blossom possessed one of those rare complexions that remind one ofnothing so much as a ripe Alberta peach. The crimson of her cheeks wasvivid, but tinted away into the creaminess of her satin skin. Her lipswere not too red. Her nose was a nose to be proud of without beinglarge. Her ears were visible and like the blossoms of the dogwood treein texture and coloring.
"You know how I feel, Nell," said Dick, with a calm that belied hisheartbeats. "I'm sick of all this, too." He gestured gracefully with thehand that held his cigarette. A jewel sparkled on that hand. "CanyonPass is a dirty hole. If you say the word we'll get out of it. I've madea good stake. My rake-off has given me a full poke at last. We'll goaway from here, and I'll get into some paying business. I'll never turna card again--for Boss Tolley or any other man. I mean it!"
The girl was looking straight into his eyes. He met that searching gazeas inscrutably as he had learned to endure the scrutiny of his opponentat the poker table.
"Do you mean it, Dick?"
"Just that." He nodded. "As I told you yesterday, say the word and we'lllight out--now--this morning. You don't know much about the world outsideof Canyon Pass, Nell, but I'll show it to you. And I love you--love youlike the devil!"
There was a force in his final phrase, although he did not stir in hischair, that made her tremble. A vivid flush slowly dyed her cheeks andthroat. It passed, to leave her blue eyes humid and her lips smiling.
"If you don't believe me--"
"I do," she interrupted. "I believed you yesterday. My saddlebags areall packed, Dick, and I'm ready just whenever you are."
A sudden electric tremor passed through the man's nerves. He veiled hiseyes for a moment that she might not see what flared into them. He rosewith her.
"Get into your riding clothes and we'll start. I'll meet you with myhorse in half an hour," he said almost sternly.
But his eyes now answered her look of gratef
ulness and adoration withwhat she thought was a reflection of her own chaste desire.
So it came about that two other riders left Canyon Pass on this springmorning while the sun still lingered abed, and, crossing the West Forkan hour behind Andy McCann, unlike him chose the wagon-track to thesummit of the canyon wall on that side of Runaway River.
"Which way do we go, Dick? To Crescent City?"
"South," he returned, without looking at her.
"We-ell. Lamberton is further but there's a parson there, too. That'sanother reason why I've come to hate Canyon Pass. It isn't decent likeother towns--or even up-to-date. It never had a church or a parson. It'sgot everything else--saloons, gambling halls, honkytonks, stores, a bank,a hotel, a stamp mill, an express office, even a school, such as it is.But it's heathen--plumb heathen, Dick."
He smiled at her then, rather a superior smile. "It's not the onlymining town that answers your description."
"I know it," Nell rejoined. "But I want to see the other kind of towns.Mother Tubbs says Canyon Pass ain't got no heart, and she's right. Shesays she can't even tell when Sunday comes, only that Sam always comeshome drunk that day. This is Sunday, Dick. It's a good day on which tobegin a new life."
"Oh, life's all right," the gambler said easily. "Take it as you findit, Nell."
They came up into the sunlight on the rim of the canyon wall. Once onthe level trail their horses broke into a canter. They could look downat certain points into the sink of the canyon where Runaway River foamedin its narrow channel. They spied Steve Siebert with his outfittraveling on the river trail. McCann, of course, they could not see, forthe canyon wall on this side was almost sheer.
Ahead, as they rode on, was the Overhang--that monstrous projectioncapping the scarp of the cliff, left ages ago when the canyon wasroughed out by the glacial floods to threaten the pass below with utterextinction if its bulk ever fell. Parts of it had fallen some twentyyears previous. This was the "big slide" which had for a time choked theriver channel with soil and rubble and threatened to flood out CanyonPass.
The scar on the steep slope of the west wall down which that slide hadfallen was now masked by a hardy growth of scrubby trees and brush. Butthe two old prospectors never passed the place, either going out of orreturning to Canyon Pass, without keenly studying the scar.
Halfway up the height had been a shelf with a hollow behind it--an idealspot for a secret camp, for it could be observed neither from the trailon the opposite side of the river nor from the rim of the west wall ofthe canyon. Buried as this shelf had been by the slide, Steve Siebertand Andy McCann now marked the spot--and what it hid--and then glancedsardonically at each other across the foaming river. They snarled ateach other like a pair of toothless old wolves. The fruit of their jointtoil that lay behind that slide, one could not reach, and the othercould not compass. The secret had festered in their hearts and poisonedthe very souls of the two ancients for these twenty years.
Above, the two in the plane of sunshine and freer air rode along thebrink of the Overhang.
"Say!" Dick said jerkily. "Let's not go to Lamberton--not direct."
"What?"
There was a sharp note in her voice. She turned in her saddle to facehim. Her gaze narrowed. Was there after all a doubt in the very depthsof Nell's soul about the man?
"I know a fine place--better hotel than at Lamberton--really a nice placeto stop. We can reach it before night. Hoskins. You know?"
He still spoke nervously. Nell's gaze no more left his face. She saidevenly, as though her mind was quite placid again:
"There's no parson at Hoskins, either."
He darted her another side-glance. How was she taking it? Was she, afterall, going to be "sensible?" Nell was seventeen, but a woman grown.
"Shucks, honey," Dick said, putting out a hand to touch her for thefirst time. "We'll ride on and find a parson later. We're in no rush.We're out for a grand, good time--"
She pulled her horse across the path with a fierce jerk of thebridle-rein, and so escaped the defilement of his touch. Her right handclutched the handle of her quirt, the knuckles bone-white.
"Do you mean--you won't marry me?"
Dick smiled his most disarming smile, his brown eyes even twinkled. Thatfrank and humorous look was what had first won his advantage with NellBlossom.
"Shucks, honey," he drawled again. "Why so serious? Don't worry aboutthat. I'm free to confess I'm not a marrying man. Seen too much troublefor both parties when they are tied to one another with any silly stringof the law. It's love that will hold us together."
"That's heathen, Dick!" she exclaimed hotly. "Just as heathen as CanyonPass."
"Nonsense!" He laughed. "You're just as safe with me, whether we'remarried or not."
Which might have been quite true, but Nell stared at him, her expressionas inscrutable as his own when he worked behind the green table. Dickthe Devil was a shrewd gambler, but Nell Blossom had played pokerherself ever since she could read the pips on the cards. And she hadbeen fighting her own battles in harsh environment and against menalmost from the same tender age. Her cold rage now sprang from the factthat he should so mistake her character.
"Come on, honey!" he said coaxingly.
The quirt came up slowly; then it sang through the air.
"You dog, you! Dick the Devil is your true name! And I thought--"
The man, shouting an oath, dragged his mount backward. The lashdescended, missed his handsome face, but seared the horse across itsneck.
Squealing, the animal leaped to one side--to the verge of the out-thrustlip of the Overhang. The gambler wheeled him again, seeking to savehimself.
"Do you want to murder me--you wildcat!" he cried angrily.
There was a sudden crack, like the slapping of one board upon another.Between the plunging horse and the girl a gap yawned in the earth.Frost, the early rains, or perhaps time itself, had weakened this bit ofthe Overhang. A patch no larger than a good-sized dining table brokeaway and slid outward.
The scrambling, wild-eyed horse and the shrieking, white-faced mandisappeared with it. The girl held in her own mount with a firm hand.The flare of insane anger faded from her blue eyes. But her countenancesettled into a harsh and unlovely expression.
Yet she slipped down from her saddle, quieted her horse with a word, andstepped recklessly to the crumbling edge, trying to see down the face ofthe cliff.
She could mark no trace of horse or rider. She could no longer hear therumble of the falling debris. An icy horror gripped her. He was gone!
Finally she drew back from the brink. She looked about at the landscape,but there was not a human being to be seen. She slowly mounted her horseagain.
Something besides a terrible disaster had happened here at the brink ofthe Overhang. Something had happened to Nell Blossom so great, sosoul-racking, that she would never be altogether the same girl again. Itis a dreadful thing for one so young to find its love-idol shattered.
After a little Nell started her mount, but she did not ride back towardCanyon Pass.