*CHAPTER XXVII*
_*The Beginning of the End*_
I feel somehow that I have to apologise for "giving in" that way. Ishould have liked to figure before you like a cast-iron hero. But whenI set out to tell you this story I made up my mind to tell the truthabout all those concerned in it--myself included.
I could not understand how Apache Kid kept so fresh through it all.But, of course, you remember what he told me of his life, and he was, asthe saying is, "hard as nails." Yet he avoided commiserating me on mycondition, being a man quick enough to understand that I resented thisbreak-down. He even went the length of telling me, as he sat in myroom, that he felt "mighty rocky after that trip," himself. And whenthe doctor pronounced that I might get up, he told me that I was gettingoff very easily.
On two points I had to question Apache Kid and his answers to myquestions gave me a further insight into his character. The first ofthese matters was regarding the wealth we had brought with us from theLost Cabin Mine.
"I have done nothing about it yet," said he. "I thought it advisablefor us to go together to the bank."
I looked my surprise, I suppose.
"Then you have no idea what it amounts to yet?" I asked.
"No," said he. "You know it will neither increase nor diminish withwaiting."
"But why did you wait?"
"O," he said lightly, "if a man cannot wait for his partner gettingwell, and do the thing ship-shape, he must be very impatient."
"You don't seem anxious, even, to know what you are really worth."
"I fear not," said he. "O, man, can't you see that once we know, to afive-cent piece, what all that loot is worth, we are through with theadventure and there's no more fun to be had? I'm never happy when I geta thing. It's in the hunting that I find relief."
But there fell a shadow on his face then.
I asked him if Miss Pinkerton was still in Baker City. I declare, heblushed at the very mention of her name. I could see the red tinge thebrown of his cheeks.
I often wondered, when Apache Kid spoke, just what he was reallythinking. He did not always say what he thought, or believe what hesaid. He had a way, too, of giving turns to his phrases that might havegiven him a name for a hardness that was not really his.
"O," he said, "she heard that you were ill and wanted to come and lookafter you, but you were babbling not just of green fields, exactly--youwere babbling of Hell--and I can never get over a foolish idea thatearly in youth was pumped into me that women do not know about Hell andshould not know. I thought it advisable to prevent her coming to seeyou--and hear you."
I felt my own cheeks tingle to think that I had been raving such ravingsas he hinted at.
"And did Mrs. Laughlin----" I began.
But Mrs. Laughlin herself replied, coming quietly into the room.
"Yes, yes," she said, and laughed. "Mrs. Laughlin heerd it all," andthen she turned on Apache Kid. "And Mrs. Laughlin was none the worse o'hearing it, Apache Kid," she said, "not because she 's old, but becausein gettin' up in years she 's learnt how to weigh things and know thegood from the bad, even though the good does look bad. Oh! I know whatyou are thinking right now," she interrupted herself. "You 're thinkin'you might remark I don't have no call to talk 'cause I heerd you talkin'just now without you knowin'----"
"Madam----" began Apache Kid, in a courteous voice, but she would notpermit him to speak.
"I was coming along in my stocking soles, in case the lad was sleeping,"and she plucked up her dress to disclose her stockinged feet, "and Iheerd by accident what you was talkin'. And I 'm going to tell you, Mr.Apache Kid, that you 're a deal better a man than you pretend."
It was, to me, an unlooked-for comment, for her manner was almostbelligerent.
"You had it pumped into you, you says! O! An old woman like meunderstands men well. It's you sarcastic fellows, you would-besarcastic fellows, that have the kind, good hearts. And you talk thatway to kind of protect them."
I saw Apache Kid knitting his brows; but, as for me, I do not knowenough of human nature to profess to understand all that this wise womanspoke.
"Take you care, Apache Kid," she said, and shook her finger at him, andeven on her finger, as I noticed, there were freckles, and on the backof her hand. "Take you care that you don't get to delude yourself intohardness, same as you delude men into thinking you a dangerous sort o'fellow--a kind of enigma man."
"I am afraid I don't follow you," said Apache Kid.
"But you do follow me," she said. "All you want to do is to letyourself go--let that bit of yourself go and have its way--that bit thatyou always make the other half of you sit and jeer at!"
She paused, and then shaking her finger again remarked solemnly:
"Or you 'll maybe find that the good, likeable half o' you ain't a halfno longer, only a quarter, dwindled down to a quarter, and the half ofyou that puts up this bluff in the face of men becomes three-quarterthen. I 'm thinking I would n't like you so good then, Apache Kid! Notbut what I 'd be----" she hesitated, "sorry for you like," she said.
"To win your sorrow, Mrs. Laughlin," said he, looking on her solemnly,"would be a desirable thing."
She gazed at him a long while, and to my utter astonishment, for I didnot quite understand all this, there were tears in her eyes when shesaid, as to herself, "Yes, you mean that."
She sighed, and then said she: "What you need is to settle down with agood, square, honest girl. If I was younger like myself----" she brokeoff merrily.
Apache Kid looked her in the face with interested eyes.
"I wish I knew just what you were like, just how you spoke and actedwhen you were--in the position you have suggested as desirable."
"Would you have had me?" she said.
"I would perhaps have failed to know you possessed all these qualitiesyou do, for you would never have shown them to me."
"Would I not?" said she. "Well, I show myself now; and if you object toyoung girls not showing their real selves, you begin and set 'em theexample. You go down to the Half-Way House and show that Miss Pinkertonyour real self, and----"
"Mrs. Laughlin!" he said. "I would not have expected this----"
"Why!" she cried, "I'm old enough to be your grandmother. Well, well!I see the lad is all right; that's what I came up for, so I 'll get awaydown again."
"Laughlin has certainly a jewel of a wife," said Apache Kid, after shedeparted, and that was all on the matter.
Miss Pinkerton herself was not mentioned again by either of us, and theother subject of our talk we settled two days later, when I, having "gotto my legs" again on the day following that chat, accompanied Apache Kidto the jail where the sheriff unlocked the safe for us and gave us ourproperty, which he had in keeping.
The horse, I heard then, had been returned to the livery stable fromwhich Canlan had hired it.
All that the sheriff had to say on the matter of our property was to theeffect that though two of the Lost Cabin owners had been often enoughknown to say that they had no living relative, the other--Jackson--wassupposed to have a sister living.
"If you want to do the square thing," said he, "you ought to advertisefor her."
Apache turned to me.
"I forgot that," said he; "I forgot to tell you," and he drew anewspaper from his pocket. "Don't you get the 'Tribune,' Sheriff!"
He opened the paper and pointed to his announcement for relatives of J.E. Jackson.
"I have put it in this local rag," said he, "and a similar one in adozen leading papers over the States, and in three of the smaller papersin his own State. I heard he was an Ohio man."
The sheriff held out his hand.
"I once reckoned," said he, "that we 'd be ornamenting a telegraph polein Baker City with you, but now I reckon we will see you sheriff ofCarson City, sure."
Apache Kid took the proffered hand and shook it; but he showed me deeperinto himself again when he said in a dry voice:
"I don't think, Sheriff, that there will be any real need for you tocongratulate me any oftener than you have done already, on finding outfurther mistakes you have made in your attempts to discover my realcharacter."
And so saying we went out; and as I shook the sheriff's hand I noticedthat he took mine absently. I think he was pondering what my friend hadsaid.
"One grows weary of patronage," said Apache Kid to me as we ploddedalong the deserted streets to the bank.
"Deserted streets?" you say. Yes, deserted. For an "excitement" hadsprung up at Tremont during my ten days in bed. As we passed the hotelson our way to the bank, the hotels that had always been thronged andfull of voices, the doors always on the swing, we saw now on theverandah of each of them one solitary man, with chair tilted back andfeet in the rail. These were the worthy proprietors, each figuring onthe chances of Baker City booming again, each wondering if he shouldfollow the rush.
As we passed the corner of the street in which "Blaine's joint" hadstood, I noticed above the door and window a strip of wood lesssun-scorched than the rest. That was where the famous canvas sign hadbeen, rolled up now and carted off with the coffee-urn to this other"city" that had depopulated Baker City. The stores, of course, werestill open; for the city which is centre for five paying mines can neverdie. It may not always _boom_, with megaphones in every window andcigar smoke curling in the streets, but it will not _languish_.
Still, it was not the Baker City that I knew of yore, and as we enteredthe door of the bank, carrying our bullion, it struck me that thestage-setting was just in keeping with the part we played; for as ApacheKid had said--when we knew our wealth the adventure would be over. Thiswas the last Act, Scene I. And I felt a quiver in my heart when thethought intruded itself, even then, that Scene II (and last) would be afarewell to Apache Kid.
Slowly the teller in the bank weighed out our nuggets, scanning usbetween each weighing over his gold-rimmed glasses and noting down theamounts on his writing pad.
"Grand total," said he, and paused to awaken the thrill of suspense,"forty thousand dollars."
"Forty thousand dollars," thought I, "and fifteen hundred in notes, thatmakes forty-one thousand five hundred."
"A mere flea-bite," Apache said.
"I beg your pardon?" said the teller, astonished.
"A mere flea-bite," repeated Apache Kid. "Look at that," and he held upa turquoise in his fingers. "Don't you think a man would give forty-onethousand five hundred for a bagful of these?"
"A bagful?" said the teller.
Apache nodded.
"Do you wish to dispose of some of these, too?" the teller asked.
"No, thanks," said Apache Kid. "They go to an eastern market."
"An eastern market!" Did that mean that Apache Kid was going east? WasI to have his company home? Home I myself was going. But he--as Ilooked at his brown face, the alert eyes puckered at the side with longlife in the sunshine, the lips close with much daring (and I think justa little hard), the jaws firm with much endurance, and thatself-possessed bearing that one never sees in the civilised East, I knewhe was not going back East.
The tiny gold ear-rings might be removed, but the stamp of the man couldnot; and men of that stamp are not seen in cities.