Part 12

James hurried back to Henry’s rooms, and left Marjy breathlessly watching Aunt Hattie, who was carefully gathering up the scattered papers, and putting them back in their several places; she then closed and locked the safe.

“Oh!” breathed Marjy, in keen disappointment; she had surely thought that she should know where the money was, and her disappointment was great. She was about to turn away and go to her room, she felt so vexed, when her steps were arrested by hearing her aunt say—as though replying to some person:

“Yes, I will! I forgot—Oh, yes! All right!” and with a quick decided step she walked across the room to a great easy-chair; this she carefully turned upon its side; removed one of the casters, and pulled some bills out of the cavity; she appeared to count them carefully, after which she replaced them, putting the caster in the socket as it belonged. Each one was examined in turn, then with a sigh the chair was placed in its proper position and she sank into its depths with the audible words: “Yes, Henry; it is all right!”

Marjy shivered with superstitious awe; silence unbroken reigned save for the ticking of the clock, and the breathing of Aunt Hattie, as she lay back in the chair looking strangely cadaverous.

James quietly let himself into Henry’s room; he still stood like a specter in the middle of the floor; the red glow of the lamp cast a weird light over his pale features, his expression was fixed and intent; his face was turned slightly sidewise, and he held up one hand as one who listens intently: “Yes, that is right; place everything as you found it, and go to your bed!” As he ceased speaking he turned toward his own bed, rested a moment on its edge, then lay down, and drew the covers over himself as though just retiring; he was soon breathing deeply, and like one in natural slumber.

James threw himself into a chair, and slowly puffed a cigar and thought; finally he arose and yawning stretched his limbs. “I’ll see if Marjy has retired; I think I understand this queer tangle, but I’m blest if I understand how to straighten it out!”

He quietly let himself out of the house, and as quietly entered auntie’s front door; Marjy met him in the hall, and drew him into the sitting room.

“Where is auntie?” he asked.

“Gone to her bed; do tell me what happened in Henry’s room!” she said eagerly. She sat looking at him wide-eyed and wondering, while he related all that had occurred.

“Well, tell me, what do you think of it?” she questioned.

He thoughtfully rolled his cigar in his fingers for a few minutes before replying. “I do not quite know; Henry was certainly asleep. Now the question is just this; could he hypnotize your aunt at such a distance, himself being in a somnambulistic state?”

“I do not think that he is conscious of possessing hypnotic power,” said Marjy.

“No, he would doubtless be indignant if one suggested such a thing; but he certainly has that power, and really, I cannot see why he could not use the force just as well in that state as though awake, so long as his mind intelligently directed it; the will power is just as strong as at any time.”

“It is all very strange! Now that we know where the money is, what are we to do about it?”

“I suppose the proper thing to do would be to tell Aunt Hattie all about to-night’s free show!” and he laughed at the recollection.

“I should really be afraid to tell Aunt Hattie; in her present mood there is no saying what she would, or would not do,” said Marjy.

James replied thoughtfully: “That is true; we had best sleep over it; we will talk it over again in the morning.”

James did not return to Henry’s room, he wished to be alone, that he might better solve the problem which confronted him.

He arose the following morning tired, worn out with sleeplessness, and no nearer a solution than when he retired.

Auntie was in a terrible ill humor, the atmosphere seemed surcharged with discord; throughout the whole day everything seemed to go amiss. Marjy was burning with a desire to tell her aunt, alternated with a shivering fear of her disbelief, and consequent sarcastic remarks. James made a vain endeavor to see Henry; no one knew his whereabouts all day; late in the evening he came to the house, looking pale and dispirited. Marjy clasped his hand in cordial greeting; this elicited an angry ejaculation from Aunt Hattie, beyond which she gave no sign that she knew of his presence.

James and Marjy sat looking over some stereoptic views to cover their desire to watch the two, and both were trying to find a suitable opportunity to bring up the subject of the lost money, so as to be able to explain how they came by their knowledge of the hiding place. The attitude of both Henry and auntie was such as to discourage a commencement. At last James wrote on a card: “You will have to tell them; I will corroborate your account.”

Marjy replied: “Oh, I cannot. It makes me shiver to think of it; they both look so forbidding.”

Henry sat on the corner of a sofa, with his eyes fixed intently on Aunt Hattie; they did not observe this until she arose and stood beside her chair as though waiting; her lips were moving rapidly but inaudibly. Henry, still looking fixedly at her, said slowly: “Speak aloud!” She began repeating the combination, and step by step went through the performance of the previous night, until she had taken the money from its hiding place. Henry at that moment, pale and resolute—though trembling with excitement—commanded her to awaken.

It was most pitiable to see her when she realized her situation; the overturned chair; the casters lying on the floor; the bills grasped in her shaking hands; Marjy and James silently regarding her; Henry, with a look of exhaustion on his face, lay back among the dark cushions. At first she was utterly bewildered; then, as she looked at the bills grasped in her hands, a ray of joy, quickly succeeded by anger, gave her voice: “You think you are awful smart, don’t you? Playing tricks on an old woman! I should like to know what you have been doing to me!” she stormed; then looking at the open safe, and the bills in her hand she began to sob weakly.

“Don’t cry, auntie, it is all right!” said Marjy soothingly.

“No, no! It isn’t right! I remember now—of hiding that money; and to think that I have accused Henry and you of taking it—Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” sobbed she; “I did not remember it until now!” she wailed disconsolately.

Henry came and laid his hand upon her shoulder: “Do not fret, auntie; I think there is no one to blame, if so, it must be my fault. I have always been a somnambulist, and always been ashamed of it—as though I could help it; but I had no idea that I possessed any hypnotic power; in fact I did not believe in the existence of such a force—at least I did not wish to believe it—which in all probability is just what led to this occurrence. You remember that we were speaking of hypnotism the night of the disappearance of the money; Marjy defended the theory, and I opposed it in order to draw her out; some assertions which she made struck me as being very forcible, and I could not rid myself of the thoughts engendered, any more than I could get rid of the repetition of that combination. It has been like a nightmare to me, and each day there had been a shadow of some occurrence of the past night which has persistently evaded me. I have been haunted all this day by something which occurred last night, which seemed like a vivid dream, and I thought I would put it to the test. You cannot be more surprised at the result than I am.”

James and Marjy now came forward: “I think that Marjy and I will also have to make confession; I think that your being able to recall a portion of last night’s events was due to the slight influence which I gained over you; I tried to impress it upon your mind that you must remember what occurred, but I thought that I had failed completely.” He then made a complete explanation, which Marjy fully corroborated. Auntie laughed and sobbed in the same breath: “I’ve been an old crank; but the uncertainty worried me so that I could not help it—and my part of the general confession is that a sense of knowledge—which I could not grasp—tormented me continually, but I would not have confessed it for twice that amount of money. However, “All’s well that ends well.” Marjy, you may have the money to buy a wedding trousseau, and when Henry is my nephew I trust that he will not hypnotize his old aunt, either when he is sleeping or waking.”

HIS FRIEND.

The two log cabins stood on the grassy slopes of opposite mountains, the dark piñons forming a picturesque background; a babbling brook ran between the two, a boundary line of molten silver.

Sam Nesterwood’s door faced north, and Phil Boyd’s door looked south; while they were building the cabins Phil remarked that it looked so much more sociable that way.

When Phil came out in the morning to plunge his wind-browned face into the tin wash basin, filled with cold water from the stream below, he usually saw Sam doing the same; or perhaps, taking the grimy towel off the wooden peg just outside the door, with which he scrubbed his face, and even the tiny bald spot on the top of his head, to a shiny red.

Phil came out as usual one still October morning; the cottonwoods were just turning a soft golden color—fairy gold—in a setting of dark green and gray—autumn’s gorgeous mosaic.

A chipmunk darted saucily by, and just beyond reach sat up chattering a comical defiance; a lone bluebell nodded in the wind, swaying from side to side seeking its vanished companions; blood-red leaves peeped out from under dry grasses, or decked the sides of a gray bowlder.

Phil looked cheerfully around; he snapped his fingers at the saucy squirrel, and laughed at the blinking, black eyes; looking across at the opposite cabin he bawled, “Hello, Sam!”

“Hello yourself!” retorted Sam. This had been the morning salutation, never varied, though all the summer months. Each evening after their day’s work they met at one or the other cabin to compare rock; to talk over a lucky strike, or the mishap of a mutual acquaintance, not that much sympathy was expended or needed.

“Jim’s claim has petered out; he’s out about six months’ work, and all his money.”

“You don’t say! Oh, well, Jim won’t stay broke very long; he’s a hustler.” It was not from want of sympathy, but because of a confidence begotten of this hard life, much as the sparrow might argue, “having never wanted for food, I shall be always fed.”

Later in the morning Phil climbed the steep trail which led to his claim high upon the mountain side. The days were perceptibly growing shorter, and it was quite dark when he came down this October evening. Halfway down the trail he thought he heard a groan.

His halting foot dislodged a stone, and sent it crashing down the mountain side; the rushing sound of a night hawk overhead; the melancholy hoot of an owl in the piñons; the bark of a coyote in the distance, all seemed but to accentuate the silence.

As I have said, night had fallen, coming suddenly, as it ever does in the mountains; no dewy, tender twilight as in lower altitudes; the sun hanging low in the western sky seems phantasm-like to drop behind the distant peaks; a chill wind whistles through the piñons like a softly sung dirge; darkness settles down like a pall—and it is night.

Phil thought that he must be mistaken, and again started on his homeward way; the groaning was repeated almost at his very feet.

He searched vainly, but could find no person, nothing to account for the sound.

Dead silence had fallen again. Phil shivered, “This wind is mighty cold!” he muttered, his hand shaking, his teeth inclined to chatter. He took off his hat to wipe the perspiration from his brow, which had gathered in great drops notwithstanding the chill wind; he cast a furtive glance behind him; it was all so terribly uncanny. “Oh! O—h!” came again at his very feet; he gave a frightened start, and an involuntary ejaculation: “Great God!” then gathered himself together and renewed his search, this time rewarded by finding Sam lying under the shelter of a rock badly wounded.

It was a hard task to carry him down that steep trail, and Phil said, pityingly, many times, “It’s awful rough, pard, but there’s no help for it.”

He carried him into the cabin, and laying him on his bed, built a fire, and with a touch gentle as that of a woman bathed and dressed his wound.

He found that a bullet had plowed a ragged furrow down his leg, and shattered the smaller bone halfway between the knee and the ankle.

Phil had a little knowledge of surgery; these nomads of the hills are often far from surgical aid, and of a necessity attain a degree of skill in such matters. Having made his patient as comfortable as possible, Phil lay down on the floor, rolled in a single blanket, to rest until morning.

* * * * *

The autumn days crept by in drowsy calm—a stillness deeper and more sad than in lower altitudes; the whistle of the late bird as he calls to his mate to hasten their migration is unheard here; the shrill notes of the cicada, which fills the autumn days in the moist, odorous woods is unknown in these barren heights; the dry, stubbly bunch grass, the gray, dusty sage brush harbors no insect life save an occasional lonely cricket, and even these are strangely silent. No birds flit from tree to tree save the magpies, with their gorgeous black and white plumage, and their harsh discordant cries, and these are only seen along the streams. An occasional hawk sails above the piñons in graceful curves, or darts downward like an arrow shot from a bow. All else is silent and lifeless.

The sun lies white and brilliant over all; the long shadows lie on the gray ground as though painted there; the tiny streams hurry between their rocky banks, as though in haste to get away from a too cloudless sky.

Long stretches of hills rise and fall away, dry, desolate and gray; a weird loneliness and beauty lies over all—the grandeur of desolation.

The leaves had fluttered down to the bare earth, and a few flakes of snow had been tossed about by the nipping wind, ere Sam Nesterwood was able to tell the story of his accident. He was riding up the trail to a claim he thought of relocating; he considered the broncho he rode “all right,” but some reminiscence of his forefathers, some prompting of the wild blood which is never wholly subdued, must have possessed the animal, for without the slightest warning, head down, back arched like an angry cat, he bucked outrageously.

Sam was too good a rider to be easily thrown, but the unexpected movement threw his pistol from his belt; it struck the pommel of the saddle, discharging its contents into his leg, and although it felt as though red-hot iron tore through the flesh, he still retained his seat; then he must have fainted, for he knew no more until near nightfall. When consciousness returned he was lying on the ground; he felt chilled through, and his limb was so stiff and sore that he could scarcely move. He sought to get nearer to a large rock for shelter from the cold wind; it had by this time grown quite dusk, and beneath the rock was so dark that he could not see, thus he rolled into the hole beneath, where Phil found him.

During all the time of Sam’s illness, Phil each day climbed the rugged trail to work for a neighboring miner, letting his own assessment work wait, while he earned the money to pay doctor’s bills, buy medicines, supply Sam with books to read, and delicacies to tempt his appetite. Phil denied himself all but the barest subsistence. Sam smoked cigars, read books, and ate the most expensive delicacies, as though such things were no more than his right.

Thus affairs went on until near the beginning of February. Sam was practically well, but he made no effort to get about.

Phil had bought a great easy-chair for him in the first stages of his convalescence, and he sat in the coziest corner, and piled the fireplace high with wood, although Phil had to “snake” it more than half a mile down the steep mountain side.

* * * * *

It was a bitter night; the wind blew bleak over the hills, driving the little snow that had fallen before it, so many needle like points, which left the face stinging with pain. Just at nightfall it had grown warmer, and the scudding clouds began to drop their fleecy burden, a fairy mantle over all the rugged hills.

Phil came home covered with snow, his long mustache ridiculously lengthened by icicles, his eyebrows white as those of Father Time.

He set his lunch pail down moodily, and shook himself much as a spaniel shakes the water from his shaggy coat; he threw himself on a bench before the fire with a tired sigh; and rested his elbows on his knees, his chin dropped in his upturned palms.

Sam shivered as some of the flying particles of snow struck him.

“Can’t you be a little more careful; you’ll give me my death of cold yet!” he grumbled.

“I did not intend to wet you,” answered Philip very gently, not changing his position.

“You must be down in the dumps! What is the matter with you?” said Sam irritably.

This habit of half-grumbling and fault-finding had become so common with Sam that Phil made no reply. After a minute’s silence, he began again:

“Aren’t we going to have any supper to-night? It’s most infernal monotonous sitting here alone all day with nothing to read, and not even a square meal.”

Phil arose wearily, and began laying the cloth on the table; soon the bacon was sizzling merrily, the teakettle bumping the lid up and down for very joy, and the fragrance of coffee filled the room.

Phil took from the box nailed against the wall a small dish of peaches, a couple of slices of cake, and a little cheese, which he put beside Sam’s plate.

“Supper is ready,” said he gravely.

Sam arose lazily, and Phil wheeled his easy-chair up to the table; then poured out the coffee, and drew up his own rough bench. He offered a slice of the bacon to Sam, before helping himself.

“No,” said Sam testily, “I’m tired of bacon. I hate the very smell of it. I do wish I could have something decent to eat!”

Phil made no reply, but ate his bread and bacon, and drank his coffee in silence. Sam leaned back in his chair, his head resting on the cushion, and looked at Phil from under half-closed eyelids. “Your countenance is an appetizer! You are about as cheerful as a tombstone!” a curious anxiety underlying his sneering tone.

As Phil did not reply, he continued: “Can’t you open your clam shell, and spit out your grievance? I suppose I have offended your saintship in some way, ’though what I’ve done except to stay all alone and put up with all sorts of discomforts is more than I know,” the questioning tone in the first part of his speech shading off into a sullen grumbling toward the end.

Phil lifted his gloomy face.

“I have given you no reason for that kind of talk; I can’t grin very much when some galoot has jumped my claim,” he replied slowly.

“You don’t say! Who the deuce——”

“The name marked on the new stake is Jim Redmond, but that don’t count much,” answered Phil despondently.

“I suppose you think I’d be sneak enough to do it,” retorted Sam, the strange, questioning look deepening in his eyes.

“Oh, come off, Sam! What is the use of talking that kind of stuff? I’m not quite so suspicious as that; why, you haven’t been up the trail in months,” answered Phil, with a kindly look.

“No; and my name is not Jim Redmond; but you ought to have done your assessment work; you can’t very well blame him, whoever he may be.”

“No; p’raps not,” said Phil slowly, and it seemed somewhat doubtingly; then he added: “What makes me sore is that it was looking so good. Well, there’s no use in wearing mourning, I suppose;” and he tried to laugh cheerfully. After supper, notwithstanding the inclemency of the night Phil trudged patiently the long six miles into town, that Sam might have the coveted books, and a tender steak for his breakfast.

Sam evinced no desire to return to his own cabin; on the contrary he said, in his peculiarly soft tones, “I guess we’d better finish the winter together, hadn’t we, Phil? I’m not very strong yet, and one fire will do for both; of course I’ll put up my share of the grub.”

“Oh, that’s all right; I’m glad of your company,” replied Phil.

Sam must have considered his company a sufficient compensation, for he contributed nothing toward the expense of living; he took the most and the best of everything; the choicest of the food; the only chair; the warmest corner of the fireplace; and the only good bed. If he ever saw Phil’s self denial, he made no sign. If Phil ever thought him selfish, he did not show it; that which he gave he gave royally.

One evening Phil came in from work; it was bitter cold; the stars snapped and twinkled; the frost showed a million glittering points in the white moonlight; the ground cracked like tiny pistol shots; the wind whistled shrilly, and cut like a whiplash.

Phil shook himself, and threw off his cap and coat:

“This is a scorcher and no mistake,” he stretched out his hands basking in the warmth.

Sam had hovered over the fire all day, reading. He leaned back in his chair, a tantalizing light in his eyes.

“You’ve been working the Mollie Branscome,” he asserted, rather than asked.

Phil nodded his head. Sam continued: “I say, Phil, is Mollie Branscome your sweetheart, that you named your claim after her?”

Phil colored painfully, but after a minute he replied dryly: “It must be information you’re seekin’; I wasn’t aware that it concerned anyone but myself.”

Sam laughed sneeringly.

“Awful close with your little romance!”

To Phil it was a romance; and in giving the name to his claim he but obeyed the impulse to have it ever on his lips. “Mollie,” his manner of speaking it was ever a caress.

Sam laughed, and passed the remark off as a joke.

One day Sam brought Phil a letter from his old father, asking him to come home, as he was very ill and wished to see him once more before he died. Phil turned the letter over thoughtfully, and Sam hastened to say: “I tried to get on to the horse, and he jumped sideways and dumped the whole pile of mail into the dirt; it’s an awful mess, but I couldn’t help it,” apologetically.

“Oh ’t wasn’t that! but the old man’s writing don’t look natural. I am afraid he is pretty bad.” He pulled his mustache thoughtfully for a few minutes.

“I don’t just see how I can manage it. I have just about money enough to get there, but none to return,” said he.

Sam leaned back in his chair, blowing a long cloud of smoke meditatively. Finally he said: “I had an offer for the Little Darling this morning; you go, if you want to, and I’ll make the deal, and send you a fifty; you can pay it after you come back.”

Phil’s face lit up with a pleasant smile.

“Sam, it’s awful good of you!” he exclaimed impulsively.

“Oh, I’m always willing to do a favor when I can,” nonchalantly, seeming to be utterly forgetful of all that Phil had done for him; unmindful that at this very moment he was smoking Phil’s tobacco, warming himself at Phil’s fire, and this moment contemplating the eating of the food of Phil’s providing. His manner of speaking would imply that this was but one more of many benefits of his conferring.

As Phil was leaving to go to his father, Sam said:

“I’ll take good care of everything for you.”

“All right! thanks, and good-by!” called Phil heartily.

Phil’s father was very much surprised to see him; no message had been sent; and he was well but none the less glad to see Phil.

Phil wrote to Sam at once, but as he received no reply wrote again and again.

He did not need money, as his father had given him more than enough, but he feared that some ill had befallen his friend.