Part 12

I have told you that the next rib of rock broke off sheer and went down in a declivity. Thither Canlan's terror took him; and the last I saw of him was his legs straddled in the run, out in mid-air, as though to take another stride; and then down he went. But it was to Donoghue I turned and strove to raise him. For one fleeting moment he seemed to know me; our eyes met and then the light of recognition passed out of his and he sank back. It was a dead man I held in my arms, and though I had never greatly cared for him, that last glance of his eye was so full of yearning, so pathetic, so helpless that I felt a lump in my throat and a thickness at my heart and as I laid him back again I burst into a flood of tears that shook my whole frame.

A strange, gusty sound in my ear and the feeling of a hot vapour on my neck brought me suddenly round in, if not fear, something akin to it. But I think absolute fear was pretty well a thing I should never know again after these occurrences.

It was Canlan's horse standing over me snuffing me; and when I raised my head he gave a quiet whinny and muzzled his white nose to me. Perhaps in his mute heart the horse knew that these sounds of mine bespoke suffering, and truly these pack-horses draw very close to men, in the hills.

But though the horse brought me back in a way to manliness and calm it was a miserable night that I spent there. I sat up and with my chin in my hands remained gazing vacantly eastwards until the morning broke in my eyes. And behind me stood the horse thus till morning, ever and again touching my shoulder with his wet nose, his warm breath puffing on my cheek.

I was thankful, indeed, more than I can tell you, for that companionship. And now and then I put up my hand and when I did so the beast's head would come gently down for me to clap his nose, and doing so I felt myself not altogether alone and friendless on that hill of terror and of death.

*CHAPTER XX*

_*Compensation*_

From where I sat on the frontage of that hill, the black, treeless mountain behind me, the hurly-burly of the scattered, out-cropping hills and tree-filled basins below me, as the sun came up in my face, my gaze was attracted to a bush upon the incline.

This bush stood apart from the others on the hill, like an advance scout; and as the sunlight streamed over the mountains I saw the branches of it agitated and a bird flew out, a bird about the size of a blackbird. I do not know its name, but it gave one of the strangest cries you ever heard--like this:

"Bob White! Bob White! Bobby White!"

And away it flew with a rising and falling motion and down into the cup below, from where its cry came up again.

It is difficult for me to tell you exactly what that bird meant to me then. My heart that was like a stone seemed cloven asunder on hearing that bird's liquid cry. That there was something eerie in the sound of it, so like human speech, did in nowise affect me. To terror, to the weird, to the unknown I now was heedless. But at that bird's cry my heart seemed just to break in sunder and I wept again, a weeping that relieved me much, so that when it was over I felt less miserable and heartsore. And I prayed a brief prayer as I had never prayed before, and was wondrously lightened after that; and turning to the horse, as men will do when alone, I spoke to it, caressing its nose and pulling its pricked ears. And then it occurred to me that if Donoghue had survived his wound, Apache Kid might still be alive. It had been for Apache, indeed, that I had entertained greater hope.

"Shall we go down to the valley and see if my friend still lives?" I said, speaking to the horse; and just then the beast flung his head up from me and his eyeballs started.

I looked in the direction of his fear--and there was Apache Kid and no other, climbing up from the direction of the bush whence the bird had flown away.

I rushed down the rise upon him with outspread arms, and at our meeting embraced him in my relief and joy, and dragged him up to my fire, and had all my story of my doings of the night, the day, and the night told him, and of Donoghue and of Canlan--a rattling volley of talk, he listening quietly all the while, and smiling a little every time I broke in upon my tale with: "You do not blame me, Apache?"

And then I asked him, all my own selfish heart being outpoured, how it was that I found him here alive.

"As for your accusations," he said, "dismiss them from your mind. In all you have told me I think you acted with great presence of mind and forethought. As for my escape from death, and Larry's, it must have been due entirely to the condition of that reptile's nerves, as you describe him to me."

He had been standing with his back to where Donoghue lay, and now in the light that took all that black hillside at a bound, I saw a sight that I shall never forget. For there, where should have been the dead man's face, was nought but a skull, and perched upon the breast of the man and licking its chops, showing its front teeth, was one of the great mountain rats.

Apache Kid followed the gaze of my eyes, looked at me again with that knitting of the brows, as in anger almost, or contempt.

"Brace up!" he said sharply.

"Brace up!" I cried. "Is it you who tell me to brace up, you who brought me into this hideous place, you who are to blame for all this! I was a lad when you asked me to accompany you that day at Baker City--it feels like years ago. Now, now," and I heard my voice breaking, "now I am like a man whose life is blighted."

When I began my tirade he looked astonished at first, and then I thought it was a sneer that came upon his lips, but finally there was nothing but kindliness visible.

"I was only trying the rough method of pulling you together," he said, "and it seems it has succeeded. Man, man, you have to thank me. Come," and taking me by the arm and I unresisting, he led me to the cabin.

It was curious how then I felt my legs weak under me, and all the hill was spinning round me in a growing darkness. I felt my head sinking and heard my voice moan: "Oh! Apache, I am dying. This night has killed me!" and I repeated the words in a kind of moan, thinking myself foolish in a vague way, too, I remember, and wondering what Apache Kid would think of me. And then the darkness suddenly closed on me, a darkness in which I felt Apache Kid's hands groping at my armpits, lifting me up, and then I seemed to fall away through utter blackness.

When I came again from that darkness, I stretched out my hands and looked around.

I had been dreaming, I suppose, or delirious and fevered, for I thought myself at home in the old country, imagined myself waking in the dark Hours; but only for a moment did that fancy obtain with me. All too soon I knew that I was lying in the Lost Cabin, but by the smell of the "fir-feathers" on which I lay, I knew that they were freshly gathered, and from the bottom of my heart I thanked Apache Kid for his forethought. For to have wakened in one of these bunks would, I believe, have made me more fevered than I was already. It was night, or coming morning again. The hatch was off the roof, and through that hole a grey smoke mounted from a fire upon the earthen floor. The door was fastened up again.

At my turning, Apache Kid came to me out of the shadows and bent over me; but his face frightened me, for with the fever I had then on me it seemed a monstrous size, filling the whole room. I had sense enough to know from this that I was ill, and looking into that face which I knew my fever formed so hideously, I said:

"Oh, Apache Kid! It would be better to die and have done with it."

"Nonsense, man," he said. "Nonsense, man. There are so many things that you have to live for:" and he held up his left hand, the fingers seeming swollen to the size of puddings, and began counting upon them. "You have a lot of duties to perform to mankind before you can shuffle off. Shall I count some of them for you?" And he put his right forefinger to the thumb of his left hand and turned to me as though to begin; but he thought better of it, and then said he:

"I know you have a lot to do before you can shuffle off. But if you would perform these duties, you must calm yourself as best you can."

"How long have I lain here?" I asked suddenly.

"Just since morning," said he. "A mere nothing, man. After another sleep you will be better, and then we----" he paused then.

"We will do what?" I said.

"We will get out of here and away home," he said, and took my hand just as a woman might have done, and wiped my brow and kept smoothing my hair till I slept again.

From this I woke to a sound of drumming, as of thousands of pattering feet.

It was the rain on the roof. Rain trickled from it in many places, running down in pools upon the floor. The smoke hole was again covered, the fire out, but the door was open, and through it I had a glimpse of the hills, streaming with rain and mist.

Apache Kid sat on one of the rough stools by the door, looking outward, and I called him.

He came quick and eager at my cry.

"Better?" he said. "Aha! That's what the rain does. And here 's the man that was going to die!" he rallied me. "Here, have a sip of this. It is n't sweet, but it will help you. I 've been rummaging."

"What is it?" I asked.

"Just a little nip of cognac. They had that left, poor devils. It's a wonder Canlan----" he continued, and then stopped; doubtless I squirmed at the name.

I took over the draught, and he sat down on the fir-boughs and talked as gaily as ever man talked. All the substance of his talk I have forgotten, only I remember how he heartened me. It was my determination to fight the fever and sickness, that we had nothing in the way of medicines to cure, that he was trying to awaken. And I must say he managed it well.

With surprise I found myself sitting up and smoking a cigarette while he sat back nursing a knee, laughing on me and saying:

"Smoking a cigarette! A sick man! Sitting up--and inhaling, too--and blowing through the nose--a sick man--why, the thing's absurd!"

I looked and listened and smiled in return on him, and some thought came to me of what manner of man this was who ministered so kindly to me, and also of how near death's door he himself had been.

"How are you?" I asked. "Where was it you said you had been wounded? I fear I was so sick and queer that I have forgotten everything but seeing you again."

"I?" he said. "Oh, I have just pulled myself together by sheer will-power. I have a hole in my side, filled up with resin. But that's a mere nothing. It 'll hold till we get back to civilisation again, or else be healed by then. Thank goodness for our late friend's shaky hand." And at these words it struck me, thinking, I suppose, how narrowly Apache had missed death, that Canlan might be alive despite his fall.

Apache read the thought before I spoke. He nodded his head reassuringly, and said:

"We are safe from him. He will trouble us no more. I have seen, to make sure."

"I think I should be ashamed of myself," said I, "for giving in like this."

"Nonsense," said he. "You were sick enough last night, but you are all right now. Could you eat a thin, crisp pancake?--I won't say flapjack. A thin, crisp pancake?"

I thought I could, and found that he had a few ready against such a return to my normal. As I ate, he meditated. I could see that, though he spoke gaily enough, there was something on his mind. He looked at me several times, and then at last: "Do you think you could stand bad news?" he asked.

I looked up with inquiry.

"It's a fizzle, this!" he snapped; and then he told me that sure enough the three original owners of the mine had "struck something." But the ore, according to Apache Kid's opinion of the samples lying in the cabin, was of such a quality that it would not repay anyone to work the place.

"O," he said, "if there was a smelter at the foot of the mountains, I don't say it would n't repay to rig up a bucket-tramway and plant; it's not so very poor looking stuff; but to make a waggon road, or even a pack-road, from here, say, to Kettle River Gap or even to Baker City and use the ordinary road there for the further transportation--no, it would n't pay. We might hold this claim all our lives and the country might never open up this way while we lived; and what would we be the better for it all?"

It mattered little to me. My soul was sick of it all.

"Of course, that's the black side," he broke off. "Again, this valley might be opened up--other prospects put on the market--and down there in that valley you 'd live to see the smoke of a smelter smelting the ore of this little place of yours." He paused again. "But I doubt it," he said.

"So it's a fizzle?" I said half-heartedly.

"Yes," said he. "That is, practically a fizzle. As the country is at present it does n't seem to me very hopeful. But of course I am one of those who believe in big profits and quick returns. It is perhaps scarcely necessary for me to tell you of that characteristic of mine, however, unless the excitement of your recent experience has caused you to forget the half-told story I was spinning to you when friend Canlan interrupted us. Man, how it does rain! And this," said he, looking up, "is only a preamble. If I 'm not in error, we 're going to have a fierce night to-night. The storm-king is marshalling his forces. He does n't often do it here, but when he does he does it with a vengeance. I think our best plan is to get the holes in this roof tinkered. I see the gaps round about have been blocked up recently. Was it you did that?"

I told him that the tinkering was Canlan's doing, to prevent an inroad of the rats, should we have slept in the place.

"Thanks be unto Canlan," said he. "We 'll start on the roof."

At this task I assisted, standing on the wabbly stool and filling up the crevices.

It was when thus employed that in a cranny near the eaves I saw a piece of what looked like gunnysacking protruding and catching hold of it it came away in my hand and there was a great scattering to the floor--of yellow raindrops, you might have thought; but they fell with a dull sound. I looked upon them lying there.

"What's that?" I cried. But indeed I guessed what these dirty yellow things were.

Apache Kid scooped up a handful and gave them but one glance. He was excited, I could see; but it was when he most felt excitement that this man schooled himself the most.

"Francis," said he, "there is, as many great men have written, compensation in all things. I think our journey will not be such a folly after all."

"These are gold nuggets?" said I. "Our fortunes are----" and then I remembered that I had already received my wages and that none of this was mine. "Your fortune is made," said I, correcting myself.

He smiled a queer little smile at my words.

"Well," he said, "if this indicates anything, my fortune is made in the only way I could ever make a fortune."

"Indicates?" I said. "How do you mean?"

"Pooh!" said he, turning the little, brass-looking peas in his hand. "These would hardly be called a fortune. Even a bagful of these such as you have unearthed don't run to very much. There is more of this sort of stuff in our cabin," said he.

I was a little mystified.

"Search!" he said. "Search! That is enough for the present. If our labours are rewarded, then I will give you an outline of the manner and customs of the Genus Prospector--a queer, interesting race."

We thought little now of filling up the holes in that cabin. It was more a work of dismantling that we began upon, I probing all around the eaves, Apache Kid picking away with one of the miners' picks, beginning systematically at one end of the cabin and working along.

"Here," I cried, "here is another," for I had come upon just such another sack and quickly undid the string.

"Why, what is this?" said I. "What are these?"

He took the bag and examined a handful of the contents--the green and the blue stones.

"This," said he, "is another sign of the customs of these men. This was Jackson's little lot, I expect; the man the Poorman boys picked up. Jackson was a long time in the Gila country."

"But what are they?" I said.

"Why, turquoises," replied Apache Kid.

"Turquoises in America?" I said.

"Yes," said he, "and a good American turquoise can easily match your Persian variety."

He went over and sat down upon his stool.

"I don't like this," said he, disgustedly, and I waited his meaning. "Fancy!" he cried, and then paused and said: "Fancy? You don't need to fancy! You see it here before you. When I say fancy, what I mean is this: Can you put yourself, by any effort of imagination, into the ego of a man who has a fortune in either of his boot-soles, a fortune in his belt, a fortune in the lining of his old overcoat, and yet goes on hunting about in the mountain seeking more wealth, grovelling about like a mole? Can you get in touch with such a man? Can you discover in your soul the possibility of going and doing likewise? If you can, then you're not the man I took you for."

"They did n't get these turquoises here, then?" I said.

"Oh, no! I don't suppose that there is such a thing as a turquoise in this whole territory. Don't you see, we've struck these fellows' banking accounts? Did you ever hear of a prospector putting his whole funds in a bank? Never! He 'll trust the bank with enough for a rainy day. The only thing that he 'll do with his whole funds is to go in for some big gamble, such as the Frisco Lottery that put thousands of such old moles on their beam ends. In a gamble he 'll stake his all, down to his pack-horse. But he does n't like the idea of putting out his wealth for quiet, circumspect, two-a-half per cent interest. He 'd rather carry it in his boot-soles than do that any day."

Up he got then, and really I must leave it to you to decide how much was pose, how much was actual in Apache Kid, when he said:

"I think we had better continue our search, however, not so much for the further wealth we may find as to satisfy curiosity. It would be interesting to know just how much wealth these fellows would n't trust the banks with. Let us continue this interesting and instructive search."

For my part, I, who heard the ring in his voice as he spoke, think he was really greatly excited, and to talk thus calmly was just his way.

*CHAPTER XXI*

_*Re-enter--The Sheriff of Baker City*_

"Pardon the question," said Apache Kid, looking on me across the hoard, he sitting cross-legged upon one side, I sprawled upon the other, "but do you feel no slightest desire stealing in upon you to possess this all for yourself?"

I stared at him in astonishment, so serious he was.

"It does not even enter your head to regret my return from the dead?"

"Apache!" I exclaimed.

He chuckled to himself.

"I fear," said he, "that you are of too refined a nature for this hard world. I predict that before you come to the age of thirty you will be aweary of its cruelty--always understanding when I say world that I mean the men in the world. I have to thank you for not suggesting that that was the way in which I used the word. It wearies me to have the obvious always iterated in my ears. So you feel no hankerings to see me dead?"

I made no reply, and he chuckled again and then looked upon our trove.

We made certain we had found it all--the first bag of small nuggets of which I told you, the bag of turquoises, two more bags of larger nuggets, and three separate rolls of dollar and five-dollar bills. The bills amounted to a hundred and fifty dollars--a mere drop in the bucket, as Apache said. It was the two bags of larger nuggets and the bag of turquoises that were the real "trove," but Apache Kid would not hazard a guess of their value. All that he would say then, as he weighed them in his palm, was: "You are safe, Francis--you need no more run with the pack." I did not at the moment understand his use of the word "pack," but his next words explained it.

"The only way," said he slowly, rolling a cigarette with the last thin dust of tobacco that remained in his pouch, so that he had to shake it over his hand carefully, "the only way that I can see to prevent that world-weariness coming over you is for you to acquire a sufficiency to live upon, a sufficiency that shall make it unnecessary for you to accept the laws of the pack and rend and tear and practise cunning. I think, considering such a temperament as yours, I should call off with our old bargain and strike a new one with you--half shares."

I heaved a deep sigh. I saw myself returning home--and that right speedily--I saw already the blue sea break in white foam on the ultimate rocks of Ireland, the landing at Liverpool, the train journey north, the clean streets of my own town through which I hastened--home.

"Ah, these castles," said Apache Kid, after a pause which I suppose was very brief, for such thoughts move quickly in the mind. "They can all be built now."

Then he leant forward; and he was truly serious as he looked on me.

"But one thing you will do in return," he said, and it was as the sign of an agony that I saw on his face. "You will do that little bit of business for me that I asked you once before?"

He paused, hearkening; and I too was on the alert. The squelching of a horse's hoofs was audible without.

"Our pack-pony," said I; "it has come down for shelter, I expect."

He rose and walked to the door.

"Chuck that stuff under your bed!" said he, suddenly.

I made haste, with agitated hands, to carry out the order, and as I bent to my task I heard a voice that seemed familiar say:

"Apache Kid, I arrest you in the name of----"

The remainder I lost, for Apache Kid's cheery voice broke in:

"Well, well, Sheriff--this is an unexpected pleasure! Come in, sir; come in; though I fear we can offer but slender----"

"All right," I heard the sheriff say. "Glad to see you take it so well." And with a heavy tramp entered the sheriff of Baker City, booted and spurred and the rain running in a cascade from his hat, the brim of which was turned down all around.

"Donoghue," he said, "Larry Donoghue, I arrest you in-- Say! Where's Donoghue, and what are you doin' here, you, sir?"

This latter was of course to me.

"Donoghue you can never get now," said Apache Kid. "He will be saved the trouble of putting up a defence. But won't you bring in your men?"

"Is that your hoss along there on the hill under that big tree?" said the sheriff.

"That," said Apache Kid, "was Canlan's horse, I believe."

The sheriff hummed to himself.

"So," he said quietly, "just so. There ain't any chance o' Canlan dropping in here, is there?"

"None whatever," said Apache Kid, calmly.

"So," said the sheriff. "Well, I guess them pinto broncs of ours can do very well under that tree. That bronc of Canlan's seemed some lonesome. Seemed kind o' chirped up to see others o' his species. They 'll do very well there till we get dried a bit."

He looked again at me and shook his head mournfully.

"You look kind of sick," he said, "but it's all right. Don't worry. You 'll only be in as a witness."

"Witness for what?" I asked.

"Murder of Mr. Pinkerton, proprietor of the Half-Way House to Camp Kettle."

Apache interrupted:

"Do you happen to have such a thing as quinine about you, Sheriff?"

"Sure," said the sheriff: "always carry it in the hills."

"Give my friend a capsule," he said, "and defer all this talk."

"Murder of Mr. Pinkerton!" I cried; but just then the sheriff stooped and lifted a slip of paper from the floor.

"Literature!" he said. "Keepsake _pome_ or what?"

Then I noticed his firm, kindly eyebrows lift. He turned to Apache Kid.