CHAPTER XX
GORDON FINDS HIMSELF UNPOPULAR
Macdonald kept his word to Sheba. He used his influence to get Elliotreleased, and with a touch of cynicism quite characteristic went on thebond of his rival. An information was filed against the field agent ofthe Land Department for highway robbery and attempted murder, but Gordonwent about his business just as if he were not under a cloud.
None the less, he walked the streets a marked man. Women and childrenlooked at him curiously and whispered as he passed. The sullen, hostileeyes of miners measured him silently. He was aware that feeling hadfocused against him with surprising intensity of resentment, and hesuspected that the whispers of Wally Selfridge were largely responsiblefor this.
For Wally saw to it that in the minds of the miners Elliot in his ownperson stood for the enemies of the open-Alaska policy. He scatteredbroadcast garbled extracts from the first preliminary report of thefield agent, and in the coal camps he spread the impression that thewhole mining activities of the Territory would be curtailed if Elliothad his way.
In the States the fight between the coal claimants and their foes wasgrowing more bitter. The muckrakers were busy, and the sentiment outsidehad settled so definitely against granting the patents that the NationalAdministration might at any time jettison Macdonald and his backers as asop to public opinion.
It was not hard for Gordon to guess how unpopular he was, but he did notlet this interfere with his activities. He moved to and fro among themining camps with absolute disregard of the growing hatred against him.
Paget came to him at last with a warning.
"What's this I hear about you being almost killed up on Bonanza?" Peterwanted to know.
"Down in the None Such Mine, you mean? It did seem to be raining hammersas I went down the shaft," admitted his friend.
"Were the hammers dropped on purpose?"
Gordon looked at him with a grim smile. "Your guess is just as good asmine, Peter. What do you think?"
Peter answered seriously. "I think it isn't safe for you to take thechances you do, Gordon. I find a wrong impression about you prevalentamong the men. They are blaming you for stirring up all this trouble onthe outside, and they are worried for fear the mines may close and theywill lose their jobs. I tell you that they are in a dangerous mood."
"Sorry, but I can't help that."
"You can stay around town and not go out alone nights, can't you?"
"I dare say I can, but I'm not going to."
"Some of these men are violent. They don't think straight about you--"
"Kindness of Mr. Selfridge," contributed Gordon.
"Perhaps. Anyhow, there's a lot of sullen hate brewing against you.Don't invite an explosion. That would be just kid foolhardiness."
"You think I'd better buy another automatic gat," said Elliot with agrin.
"I think you had better use a little sense, Gordon. I dare say I amexaggerating the danger. But when you go around with that jaunty,devil-may-care way of yours, the men think you are looking fortrouble--and you're likely to get it."
"Am I?"
"I know what I'm talking about. Nine out of ten of the men think youtried to murder Macdonald after you had robbed him and that your nerveweakened on the job. This seems to some of the most lawless to givethem a moral right to put you out of the way. Anyhow, it is a kind ofjustification, according to their point of view. I'm not defending it,of course. I'm telling you so that you can appreciate your danger."
"You have done your duty, then, Peter."
"But you don't intend to take my advice?"
"I'll tell you what I told you last time when you warned me. I'm goingthrough with the job I've been hired to do, just as you would stick itout in my place. I don't think I'm in much danger. Men in general arelaw-abiding. They growl, but they don't go as far as murder."
Peter gave him up. After all, the chances were that Gordon was right.Alaska was not a lawless country. And it might be that the best way toescape peril was to walk through it with a grin as if it did not exist.
The next issue of the Kusiak "Sun" contained a bitter editorial attackupon Elliot. The occasion for it was a press dispatch from Washington tothe effect that the pressure of public opinion had become so strong thatWinton, Commissioner of the General Land Office, might be forced toresign his place. This was a blow to the coal claimants, and the "Sun"charged in vitriolic language that the reports of Elliot were to blame.He was, the newspaper claimed, an enemy to all those who had come toAlaska to earn an honest living there. Under indictment for attemptedmurder and for highway robbery, this man was not satisfied with havingtried to kill from ambush the best friend Alaska had ever known. Inevery report that he sent to Washington he was dealing underhanded blowsat the prosperity of Alaska. He was a snake in the grass, and as suchevery decent man ought to hold him in scorn.
Elliot read this just as he was leaving for the Willow Creek Camp.He thrust the paper impatiently into his coat pocket and swung to thesaddle. Why did they persecute him? He had told nothing but the truth,nothing not required of him by the simplest, elemental honesty. Yet hewas treated as an outcast and a criminal. The injustice of it wasbeginning to rankle.
He was temperamentally an optimist, but depression rode with him to thegold camp and did not lift from his spirits till he started back nextday for Kusiak. The news had been flashed by wire all over the UnitedStates that he was a crook. His friends and relatives could give noadequate answer to the fact that an indictment hung over his head.In Alaska he was already convicted by public opinion. Even the Pagetswere lined up as to their interests with Macdonald. Sheba liked him andbelieved in him. Her loyal heart acquitted him of all blame. But it wasto the wooing of his enemy that she had listened rather than to his.The big Scotchman had run against a barrier, but his rival expectedhim to trample it down. He would wear away the scruples of Sheba bythe pressure of his masterful will.
In the late afternoon, while Gordon was still fifteen miles from Kusiak,his horse fell lame. He led it limping to the cabin of some miners.
There were three of them, and they had been drinking heavily from a jugof whiskey left earlier in the day by the stage-driver. Gordon was intwo minds whether to accept their surly permission to stay for thenight, but the lameness of his horse decided him.
Not caring to invite their hostility, he gave his name as Gordon insteadof Elliot. He was to learn within the hour that this was mistake numbertwo.
From a pocket of the coat he had thrown on a bed protruded the newspaperGordon had brought from Kusiak. One of the men, a big red-headed fellow,pulled it out and began sulkily to read.
While he read the other two bickered and drank and snarled at eachother. All three of the men were in that stage of drunkenness when aquarrel is likely to flare up at a moment's notice.
"Listen here," demanded the man with the newspaper. "Tell you what,boys, I'm going to wring the neck of that pussyfooting spy Elliot ifI ever get a chanct."
He read aloud the editorial in the "Sun." After he had finished, theothers joined him in a chorus of curses.
"I always did hate a spy--and this one's a murderer too. Why don't someone fill his hide with lead?" one of the men wanted to know.
Redhead was sitting at the table. He thumped a heavy fist down so hardthat the tin cups jumped. "Gimme a crack at him and I'll show you, byGod."
A shadow fell across the room. In the doorway stood a newcomer. Gordonhad a sensation as if a lump of ice had been drawn down his spine. Forthe man who had just come in was Big Bill Macy, and he was looking atthe field agent with eyes in which amazement, anger, and triumph blazed.
"I'm glad to death to meet up with you again, Mr. Elliot," he jeered."Seems like old times on Wild-Goose."
"Whad you say his name is?" cut in the man with the newspaper.
"Hasn't he introduced himself, boys?" Macy answered with a cruelgrin. "Now, ain't that modest of him? You lads are entertaining thatwell-known deteckative and spy Gordon Elliot, that renowned king o
fhold-ups--"
The red-headed man interrupted with a howl of rage. "If you're tellingit straight, Bill Macy, I'll learn him to spy on me."
Elliot was sitting on one of the beds. He had not moved an inch sinceMacy had appeared, but the brain behind his live eyes was taking stockof the situation. Big Bill blocked the doorway. The table was in frontof the window. Unless he could fight his way out, there was no escapefor him. He was trapped.
Quietly Gordon looked from one to another. He read no hope in the eyesof any.
"I'm not spying on you. My horse is lame. You can see that for yourself.All I asked was a night's lodging."
"Under another name than your own, you damned sneak."
The field agent did not understand the fury of the man, because hedid not know that these miners were working the claim under a defectivetitle and that they had jumped to the conclusion that he had come to getevidence against them. But he knew that never in his life had he beenin a tighter hole. In another minute they would attack him. Whether itwould run to murder he could not tell. At the best he would be hammeredhelpless.
But no evidence of this knowledge appeared in his manner.
"I didn't give my last name because there is a prejudice against me inthis country," he explained in an even voice.
He wondered as he spoke if he had better try to fling himself throughthe window sash. There might be a remote chance that he could make it.
The miner at the table killed this possibility by rising and standingsquarely in the road.
"Look out! He's got a gat," warned Macy.
Gordon fervently wished he had. But he was unarmed. While his eyesquested for a weapon he played for time.
"You can't get away with this, you know. The United States Governmentis back of me. It's known I left the Willow Creek Camp. I'll be tracedhere."
Through Gordon's mind there flashed a word of advice once given him bya professional prize-fighter: "If you get in a rough house, don't waitfor the other fellow to hit first."
They were crouching for the attack. In another moment they would be uponhim. Almost with one motion he stooped, snatched up by the leg a heavystool, and sprang to the bed upon which he had been sitting.
The four men closed with him in a rush. They came at him low, theirheads protected by uplifted arms. His memory brought to him a picture ofthe whitewashed gridiron of a football field, and in it he saw a visionof safety.
The stool crashed down upon Big Bill Macy's head. Gordon hurdled thecrumpling figure, plunged between hands outstretched to seize him, andover the table went through the window, taking the flimsy sash with him.