CHAPTER X--MUTTERINGS OF A STORM
It was Joe Hurley who saw Betty appear on the porch of the hotel.Perhaps his gaze had been fixed in that direction for that very purpose.It was a vision to draw the eyes of any man hungry for a picture of awell-dressed and modest young woman. Betty Hunt was like nothing thathad ever before stepped out upon the Main Street of Canyon Pass.
"Come on, Willie," urged Hurley, seizing the minister's sleeve. "You'vejarred Judson clean to bedrock. Spare him any more for now. Come on.Your sister is waiting for us to take her to the Great Hope."
Betty was not gaily appareled. Her frock was black and white, and so washer hat. She still remembered Aunt Prudence's death--and that she was aparson's sister! But it was the way the frock was made, and how it andthe hat became her that marked Betty as an object of approval, to themale Passonians at least.
"Such a beautiful day, Mr. Hurley," Betty ventured. "One might think ita respectable country town if only one could forget last night."
She stared at Hurley with accusation. He dropped his head sheepishly.Somehow Betty Hunt put the matter as though it were his fault!
"We're going to change all that in time," said Hunt cheerfully. "Thesepeople are not so bad, Betty----"
"That they couldn't be worse? Yes, I know," retorted his sister.
"Why, Betty!" murmured Hunt, "isn't that a bit uncharitable?"
"I have no thought for charity in a place like this," declared the girl."Such dirt, vileness and disorder I never dreamed of! These people arenot even human! I cannot excuse them. No branch of the human familycould possibly be ignorant enough for us to excuse what I have alreadyseen about me in Canyon Pass."
"Great saltpeter!" murmured Hurley.
"You did not tell my brother the half of it!" she cried, flaring at themining man. "You hid the worst. You only said things in your lettersthat you knew would attract him here."
Joe Hurley started back a step. If a kitten he had stooped to pet hadsuddenly turned and gouged him with its claws he could have been no morestartled.
But Betty Hunt proved herself no kitten. She was usually a veryself-contained and quite unexcited young woman. It was only for a minutethat she allowed her anger to flame out.
"Now, that's enough about that," she pursued, still with a frown. "Thething is done. We are here. I do not believe that Ford will ever behappy in Canyon Pass; and I know I shall not."
"Better not speak so positively, Bet," said Hunt coolly. A brotherseldom is much impressed by his sister's little ruffles of temper. "Youmay have to change your opinion. My belief is that none of us can findhappiness in a new environment. We must take the happiness with us toany new abode."
Hurley was much subdued during their walk through the town. Hisknowledge of girls like Betty was very slight. He had never had a sisterand he could not remember his mother.
Even girls like Nell Blossom had not been frequent events in the miningman's life. His two years spent in the East had been almost as barren offeminine society as his years in the West.
Now, it must be confessed, Betty Hunt had "got him going," to quote hisown thought in the matter. Not that Hurley was of a fickle temperament.But he was not a man to eat his heart out in an utterly impossiblecause.
Nell had shown him plainly that she had no use for him save as anacquaintance. He could not even count himself her friend now, for sinceher return from Hoskins she had seemed more remote from the men ofCanyon Pass than ever before.
So, Joe Hurley had already put Nell out of his mind in that way beforeBetty Hunt had appeared on the scene. And, it seemed, he was fated to beattracted by a distant star. The minister's sister was distinctly ofanother world--and a world far, far above that of Canyon Pass, Hurleytold himself.
It was not Betty's finnicky ways, as her brother bluntly called them,that held the girl from the East so dear in Joe's eyes. It was in spiteof her disapproval of Canyon Pass and all that lay therein. The miningman was deeply interested in the development of the camp. He had donemuch in a business way to improve conditions here. He hoped to do more.
He had quite realized that the place needed something besides modernbusiness methods to raise it out of the slough in which it wallowed as acommunity. This realization, shared with such people as Bill Judson andold Mother Tubbs, had led Hurley to interest the Reverend Willett FordHunt in Canyon Pass. He foresaw the camp in time as well governed aplace as Crescent City.
Betty's scorn and vituperation regarding the shortcomings of the Passactually pained Hurley. Was it so bad as she seemed to think it was?This girl from the East was very positive in her dislike for the placeand its people.
Then he looked over her head at the quietly smiling face of Hunt. He didnot seem to share his sister's opinion that the Pass was beyondredemption. There was, after all, a quality of sanity and stabilityabout Hunt that bolstered Hurley's hope.
"That boy is all right," thought Hurley finally. "He sees things with aclear eye. And our crudeness doesn't scare him. His sister----Well! whatcould you expect of a pretty, fluffy little thing like her? This placeis bound to look rotten to her at the first. But at that, she may changeher opinion."
In fact, Joe Hurley had determination enough to believe that he was justthe chap who could change these opinions of Betty Hunt! His non-successwith Nell Blossom had not convinced him that he would never be able toattract other girls.
Right at the start Joe had been enamored of the fragile beauty of theparson's sister. Hers was not the robust, if petite, prettiness of NellBlossom. It was a beauty of spirit and character that looked out ofBetty's gray eyes. Her very calmness and primness intrigued the miningman.
Opposite is attracted by opposite. Because he was so open and heartyhimself, Hurley admired the daintiness and delicacy of Betty. Herprimness, even her shrinking from the things to which he was so used inand about Canyon Pass, pleased the young man in a way.
Here was just the sort of girl he desired to establish in his home--areal home--when he got one. Joe Hurley did not propose to live in abachelor shack in the purlieus of Canyon Pass all his life--by no means!He was getting on. The Great Hope was panning out well. It had everypromise of being a big thing in time. He was going to be rich. BettyHunt would grace the head of the table of a millionaire--wear the clothesa prince might buy for his wife--hold the respect and admiration that thehighest lady in the land might claim.
"I've got to have that girl," thought Hurley. "And I'm going after her!"
They climbed the steep road of rolled rock to the highland overlookingthe town and giving them a view to the first turn of the canyon bed ofRunaway River. When the squalid sight of Canyon Pass could be shut outof the mind, even Betty admitted that the dimming light in the canyonlent a fairylike charm to all its ruggedness. It was a slot made bygiants in the hills without doubt. She expressed a desire to see more ofit.
"I'll get you a good cayuse," said Hurley eagerly. "Got any riding dudswith you?"
"I have my habit in one of my trunks."
The Westerner looked at her doubtfully. "Don't know about long skirtsflapping around the legs of these Western critters----"
"Habits are not made with skirts nowadays, Mr. Hurley," Bettyinterrupted coldly. "Fashion--even in the Fenway--demands that thefeminine riding suit shall be mannish."
"Oh! If you ride astraddle," replied Hurley, without realizing that hisphrase shocked her, "we can find you a horse that will fill the bill.I've got one that I ride myself, and I can pick up one for Willie."
"Most agreeable to me, I'm sure," agreed the parson. "I can ride after afashion. Bet got her training at boarding school. If Aunt Prudence knewall her niece got at that institution the dear old lady would have beenshocked."
Betty did not smile. There were things that had happened to her atboarding school that Ford knew nothing about. His words aroused in hermind the carking memory of the secret that had changed Betty Hunt's lifecompletely--the secret that had killed all the sparkle and winsomelightness in the girl's nature. She became sil
ent and after that onlylistened to the talk of the two young men.
Not that she was not interested as they went on and Hurley pointed outthe several claims being worked with the most modern methods of theOreode Company, and the Nufall Syndicate, and by himself and hisassociates at the Great Hope. This mining business was all new to thegirl, and she had an inquiring mind. She did not shrink at all, whenHurley suggested a descent into the shaft and produced slickers andrubber boots and tarpaulins to put on over their clothes.
The man in charge let them down in the bucket, and a gasoline torchshowed them all that there was to see under the surface. Hurleyexplained with pride how he had found and developed the first payinglead in the Great Hope, but that the name of the mine foreshadowed amuch richer vein that he was confident was soon to be opened. Scienceand that "sixth sense" of the miner assured him that the big thing wascoming.
"We're always looking toward El Dorado, we miners," he said with alaugh. "It's hope that keeps us up."
"'El Dorado'--the hoped-for land," repeated Betty softly. And then,standing there in the flickering radiance of the torch, she repeated,while the men were silent, that concluding paragraph of Robert LouisStevenson's essay:
"'O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, traveling ye know not whither! Soon, soon it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop and, but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness, for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.'"
"Amen," Hunt commented seriously.
"You said it," agreed the mining man with that bluff emphasis that didnot shock Betty so much now as it might at the beginning. "That's whatkeeps me going. Stevenson knew what he was writing about. But, we wouldhave considered him a weakling out here, I am afraid. We are inclined tojudge everything here in terms of muscle and brawn."
"But it has been your brains, Joe, not your brawn, that has carried youso far in this work," Hunt declared warmly.
Hurley sighed as they went back to the shaft. "Let me tell you I havehad to use considerable brawn, Willie, in handling these roughnecks thatwork for me."
He laughed again. Joe Hurley could not be sober for long. And his temperexploded when he had to shout at the top of his lungs to attract theattention of the watchmen when they wanted to get up to the surface.
"This feller isn't worth the powder to blow him from here to Jericho,"grumbled Hurley. "I always miss old Steve Siebert when he slopes for thedesert, as he's bound to do every spring. That old desert rat is alwayshere over Sunday to see that everything is all right, when he's on thejob. But he just has to go off prospecting once in so often."
He told them more about Siebert and Andy McCann as they went away fromthe claim. Betty listened as before with quiet interest, but she made nocomment. Hurley was not at all sure that she had enjoyed, or evenapproved of their visit to the mine when she and Hunt parted from him athis own shack, although she thanked him politely.
The walk did not end for Hunt and his sister without a more adventurousincident. The sun had disappeared and the dusk had begun to thicken incorners and by-streets as they approached the hotel. There, at the mouthof a narrow lane, two figures stood, a man and a girl, and their voiceswere sharp and angry.
"That's what I'm telling you," the man's voice drawled, a note in itthat at once raised in Hunt that feeling that any decent man experienceswho hears one of his own sex so address a woman. "You got to come to it,and you might as well come now as later. I got you on the hip--that Ihave. Understand?"
"I understand nothing of the kind, Tolley. You're a bluffer and a beast!And if you don't let me alone----"
"Don't fool yourself," interrupted the man. "I won't let you alone tillyou come back to the Grub Stake. But I won't talk to you about it again.I'll talk to others."
Then the girl told him angrily to do his worst. Betty attempted to passon swiftly; but the young man hesitated.
"Do for goodness' sake come along, Ford!" whispered his sister, lookingback at him.
Back in Ditson Corners--or in almost any other Eastern town--the ReverendWillett Ford Hunt would scarcely have shown his interest in such a sceneon the street, save perhaps to speak to a constable or policeman aboutit.
But there was something here he could not ignore. Nor was it entirelybecause he recognized the angry voice of the girl, although he had notas yet seen her face in the dusk.
"You'll do what I tell you," muttered the bully with an oath, as Huntstepped nearer. "If you don't come back to the Grub Stake to singto-morrow night, I'll let the whole o' Canyon Pass know----"
It was just then that Hunt's hand dropped upon Boss Tolley's shoulder.Nor did it drop lightly. The parson twisted the big man around by onemuscular exertion and looked into his flushed face.
"Don't you think you've said enough to the young lady?" Hunt askedquietly. "You have evidently forgotten yourself."
"What--why, you fool tenderfoot!"
"Suppose you go, Miss Blossom," suggested Hunt with unruffled voice."Let me speak to this man."
But the minister had quite mistaken Nell Blossom's temper. She turned onhim like a shot.
"What are you butting in for, I'd like to know? I can take care ofmyself--always have and always expect to." Then she laughed harshly,turning to Tolley again. "Better beat it, Tolley, or the parson will dosomething to you besides grabbing your hat."
The dance-hall keeper, swearing still, jerked away from Hunt's grasp. Hedid not seek to continue the quarrel, however. He abruptly turned up thealley and disappeared.
"For goodness' sake, Ford!" ejaculated Miss Betty.
Nell Blossom, thus attracted to the other girl, stepped nearer andstared at her. Her own face was unsmiling. If it had not been so reallypretty one might have said it was a black look that she gave Betty. Butit was an impish look, too.
"There are some things you'd better learn if you are going to stay inthis camp, parson," said the singer. "The principal thing is to mindyour own business. If I ever need your help in any little thing, I'llcall on you."
She passed them both, still staring--now with curiosity--at Betty and wenton along the street. Betty seized her brother's arm.
"What a horrid little creature!" she said.