CHAPTER XI--THE STORM ABOUT TO BURST

There was a strangely paradoxical feeling in the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt's mind. Nell Blossom was a subject of thought he could not escape. He could not wholly overlook her manners and speech; yet he did not feel that she was blameworthy for either.

What chance had this wild blossom of a girl ever had, out in this wilderness, the daughter of a drunken ne'er-do-well, as he had been told, taught from her childhood to sing for her own living and for her father's in the saloons of mining camps? Why, almost any other girl would have gone bad--as bad as could be. And he knew Nell Blossom was not bad.

He really wished he might make Joe Hurley his confidant about the girl, but, harking back to that letter of Joe's in which the latter had spoken so enthusiastically of Nell, the parson felt that his friend was too strongly prejudiced in Nell's favor to risk his criticizing her in any way.

One question recurred again and again to him: What did that man Tolley, who he knew was the proprietor of the Grub Stake saloon and dance hall, mean by commanding Nell to return to his employment?

Betty saw her brother's more serious mien, and it must be confessed, wickedly hoped that the situation as it opened before him here at Canyon Pass was beginning to appall him. How could it do otherwise? Let alone the crudeness and lack of conveniences in their dwelling place, the nature of the people with whom they must associate, and the utter forlornness of life here in the mining town, that last incident as they walked back from the Great Hope Mine should impress Ford with the utter impracticability of his trying to begin a pastorate here.

The awful ruffian who had sworn at the girl--horrid as she seemed to be--shocked Betty beyond expression. And what a look that Nell Blossom, she had asked her brother the singer's name, had given her, Betty Hunt! As unfriendly, as hateful, as though the Eastern girl had done the singer some grievous wrong.

The strange girl had insulted and flouted Ford, too. Betty's loyalty to her brother was up in arms at that, if the truth were told. She could not but admire after all Ford's cool assumption of authority with the ruffian and with the cabaret singer as well. Why, Ford did not seem to be afraid of these people at all. Even Joe Hurley could have been no more sure of himself in such a situation than her brother had proved to be.

For in spite of her disapproval of the mining man she realized that Joe was perfectly able to handle such situations and such rude people with equanimity. But then, he was of this soil. He was of the West. To tell the truth, Betty was inclined to think of Hurley as being quite as bad in manners, speech, and outlook on life as the other people of Canyon Pass.

She would say nothing about all this to her brother. Betty Hunt was quite capable of thinking things out for herself. Prejudiced she had been--and was--against the town and their visit to it; but she did not utterly lack logic. She went to bed that second night in the Wild Rose Hotel with somewhat different thoughts in her mind after all. At least, she did not drag the washstand in front of her locked door as a barrier.

In the morning the mining man appeared at the door of the hotel riding his big bay and leading two other saddled horses. The freight wagons had come in the evening before, and Betty had got her trunks. Out of one she had resurrected the riding habit which she had not worn of late, but which still fitted her perfectly and was chic.

But Betty was daunted by the look of the mount Hurley had selected for her.

"Mr. Hurley!" exclaimed Betty emphatically, "on your honor, is that horse safe?"

"As safe as a church. You hitch him on a railroad track, and he'd only step just far enough aside for the lightning express to go by without shaving him."

She looked at him, both puzzled and disapproving. "I never know when you are serious," she finally said.

"You can bet your last blue chip on the fact that I am taking no chances of a hoss throwing you or cutting up rusty while you're on his back," the man returned earnestly. "Hardscrabble is all right, Miss Betty."

He offered his hand to Betty for her to step into with all the grace of a courtier. He looked up into her eyes, too, as she mounted past his shoulder into the saddle, and his smile was so friendly that she could not help smiling in return.

Hunt swung himself on to his own mount--a rather rangy cayuse that promised speed as well as endurance. Hurley bounded into his own saddle from the step without touching the stirrups until he was seated. Bouncer stood up on his hind legs, snorted, came down stiff-legged, and bucked once just to show that he was in fine fettle. The other horses cantered away from the hotel more sedately.

They spattered through the West Fork and went into the canyon along the river trail. There was not a soul in sight but themselves when they turned the first out-thrust of the cliff. Runaway River brawled in its bed. The huge, threatening cap of the Overhang cast its shadow almost to the opposite wall. The mighty rocks, the deep cracks in which the brush clung with tenuous roots, the wind-wrung, anguished, stunted trees, all held the visitors spellbound. Such a devil's slot in the hills they could never have imagined without actually seeing it.

"Suppose that should fall?" Betty broke out pointing up at the frowning cap of the cliff.

"That's what we are supposing all the time, Miss Betty," replied Hurley quietly. "Part of it did fall about twenty years ago. That was long before my time, of course. But Bill Judson and some of the other old-timers can tell you about it. It came pretty near ringing the death-knell for Canyon Pass."

"Backed up the river into the town, did it?" asked the logical Hunt.

"I'll say it did! And over the town. Judson says it was so deep over his store that he went out from the headlands in a flatboat and grappled through the skylight of his joint for tobacco out of the showcase. Takes that old-timer to spread it on thick," and he chuckled.

"But is it likely to happen again?" cried Betty.

"Any day--any hour--any minute," repeated Hurley quietly. "There are thousands of tons of stuff up there that may fall. Choke the canyon half-wall high. If it does, there'll be a lake here that'll furnish water enough to irrigate blame near all of the Topaz Desert--believe me. Canyon Pass will have to go into raising frogs or such," and he laughed.

"Oh! I felt that it was a dangerous place to live in," murmured Betty.

"Great saltpeter!" exclaimed Hurley again. "No worse than folks who live on the sides of volcanoes in Italy, for instance. Or in the earthquake belt along the Pacific coast. Pshaw!"

"But--but there is so much room out here, Mr. Hurley," cried Betty. "Why not choose a safer place in which to establish a town?"

"The mines and washings. Gold established Canyon Pass. It isn't a beautiful spot, but it's handy. We got to just keep on hoping that the Overhang doesn't fall."

"There is a place where some of it has fallen--and recently," Hunt broke in, with some gravity.

Half blocking the trail, and bulking along the river's edge for perhaps ten yards, was a heap of gravel and soil on which no grass or other verdure grew. Looking up the sloping canyon wall they could trace the downfall of this small slide for more than half the distance to the summit.

"What is that sticking out of it?" asked Betty. "A stick?"

Hurley sniffed like a bird-dog that has just raised a covey. He was to windward of the heap. Hunt had forced his mount nearer from the other side.

"That is not a stick," he said quietly. "It looks to me like----"

Hurley ejaculated something that was very near an oath. He flung himself out of his saddle and strode over the rubble. He stopped and examined the thing Betty had seen, even touching it with his gauntleted hand.

"Never heard of this," he muttered. "Odd, I must say!"

"What is it?" asked Hunt.

"A horse's leg. Been pecked clean by the vultures--not by coyotes, or the bones would be torn apart. Well!"

"Oh, there has been a dreadful accident here! Is somebody buried under that pile of gravel?" demanded Betty.

"Not likely. Just a cayuse. Maybe a wandering critter. Happened to be right here--taking a drink at the riverside, maybe--when the slide fell. Or it might have been the cause of the slip. Came down with it," Hurley explained in jerky sentences. "The weight of the hoss might have broke off a piece of the Overhang and--here he is!"

This seemed to satisfy him. He went back to his own horse and mounted again.

They rode several miles farther, but Joe Hurley did not seem quite so volatile as usual. Was he "studying" on the buried horse by the riverside? At least, when they rode back toward noon, he fell behind at the point where the small landslip had landed, halting his horse beside it for a moment. He overtook his friends in a short time, however, but did not say anything.

As they sighted the ford again, down from the upland on this side came a dashing and brilliant-hued figure--a girl on a cream-colored pony. Hunt recognized Nell Blossom at first glance.

"Hi, Nell!" shouted Hurley, raising his hand and arm, palm out, in the Indian peace sign.

She scarcely nodded to him, but she grinned elfishly as she rode down into the shallows and her pony's flying feet spattered them all at the river's edge. She scarcely seemed to give Hunt and his sister a glance. She plied the quirt that hung from her wrist, and the cream-colored pony recklessly forded the stream and climbed the further bank.

"How impolite," murmured the Eastern girl, brushing the drops from her sleeve.

"She's a little devil," agreed Hurley frankly. "That's the lady I was telling you of, Willie. She's as wild as a jack rabbit."

Hunt nodded soberly. He made no other comment. As they rode up into Main Street they heard wild yells and hootings from the far end, then the pattering of a pony's rapid hoofbeats. Back toward the ford tore the cream-colored pony bearing the bizarre figure of the cabaret singer.

Now Nell rode without touching the bridle reins. She swung the whip and cracked it sharply. In the other hand she gripped a six-shooter of practical size and weight.

"What is the matter with that crazy creature?" asked Betty.

Hurley merely laughed. Nell Blossom approached at a wild gallop. Men appeared at the doors of various stores and saloons along the street and yelled their delight.

"Ye-yip! Yip-py-yip!" shrieked the appreciative audience. "Oh, you Nell! Ye-_yow_! Git out o' town!"

The girl, her face glowing, her hair flying from under her hat, her whole figure electric with life and abundance of spirit, rode faster and faster. As she approached the front of the Grub Stake she saw the slouching figure of its proprietor backed against the wall by the door, smoking. He grinned evilly at the rider.

Nell pressed the trigger. Five staccato shots whistled skyward. The sixth ruffled the lank hair on Boss Tolley's head and splintered the door frame just above it!

The divekeeper dodged and crouched, as though expecting another bullet. He almost slunk into his barroom. Then he realized that the girl had made a show of him and was riding on, applauded by the laughter and shrieks of the onlookers.

He whirled, and, lifting both hands, shook the clenched fists after the flying Nell. He was almost apoplectic with rage. He burst forth:

"You crazy, derned hoptoad of a gal! Somebody ought to grab you off that animal. Shootin' at folks thataway! Is that what you done when you drove poor Dick Beckworth over the edge of the Overhang?"

The incoming trio of riders--Hurley, Hunt and Betty--were almost opposite the Grub Stake as Tolley emitted these words. In a flash the mining man was out of the saddle and standing in front of the startled Tolley.

"What do you mean, you miserable scoundrel?" demanded Joe in so threatening a tone that Tolley fell back against the side of the building again. "What do you mean about Dick Beckworth?"

Hunt had spurred his own horse nearer. He feared Joe would do something rash. The rolling, bloodshot eye of the divekeeper expressed fear of the other; but he was too much enraged to call caution to his aid at that moment.

"I mean what I say," he rumbled. "You don't know it, and nobody else in Canyon Pass, I reckon, knows it but me. But I know that derned crazy gal was the cause of Dick Beckworth's end. And a mean end it was."

"Dick the Devil, _dead_?"

"That's what he is," said Tolley with less vehemence. He sensed that it would not be wise to be so vociferous with Joe Hurley's eyes glaring into his own. "Dick come to a mighty mean end. I seen it; but I didn't know what it meant."

"It's more likely you killed him, Tolley--if he's dead. Or did you have him gunned by Tom Hicks or some other of your friends?" demanded Hurley sharply.

"I never! Poor Dick wasn't expectin' nawthin', I allow. That crazy gal----"

"Be blamed easy how you bring Nell's name into this," muttered Hurley, his hand upon the butt of his own gun.

Hunt leaned from his saddle and laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. Hurley did not look back--he knew better, for there was likewise a gun at Boss Tolley's belt.

"All right, Willie," the mining man said. "Let's listen to what this rat has to say. But be blame careful, Tolley, that you don't raise your voice too high. If you do, I'll certainly maul you a pile."