Part 17

He had evidently forgotten about that, for he seemed put out, and then remarked that he would send them his share of the turquoises, still to be disposed of.

"But you----" I began, and he held up his hand.

"I don't want the stuff, anyhow," said he. "Now--don't worry me. Don't ask me questions. What I like about you is that you take me for granted. Don't spoil the impression of yourself you have given me by wanting to know how I will get on, and thinking me foolish for what I intend to do." He looked round on me. "Yes," said he, "I like you. Do you know that the fact that you had never asked me what George Brooks and I were enemies for made me your most humble servant? Would you like to hear that story?"

I nodded.

"Well, well," he said, and laughed. "That makes me like you all the more. You are really interested, and yet are polite enough not to ask questions. Yes--that's the sort of man I like."

But he had no intention of telling me that affair,--just chuckled to himself softly and remarking, "That must remain a mystery," he lapsed again into silence.

And then the train whistled at the last curve, shot into sight, and came thundering and screaming into the depot.

"Oh! Apache Kid," said I, "I cannot go to-day. I must wait till to-morrow."

"That is a pity," said he, "for then you would have to wait here alone all to-morrow. I go West with to-morrow morning's 'west-bound.'"

"Ah, then," said I, "I will go with this one; for I could not stand the loneliness here with you flying away from me."

"No?" he said, half inquiringly; and then he surveyed me, interested, and said again, "No, not so easily as I can stand your departure--I suppose." But he looked away as he spoke.

My belongings lay just in the doorway, ready to hand, and these he lifted, boarding the train with me and finding me a seat. This was no sooner done than the conductor outside intoned his "All aboard!"

Apache Kid snatched my hand.

"Well," said he, "in the language of the country--so-long!"

I had no word to say. I took his hand; but he gave me only the fingers of his, and, whirling about, lurched down the aisle of the car, for the train had already started, and the door swung behind him. I tried to raise the window beside me, but it was fast, and by the time I had the next one raised and looked out, all the depot buildings were in the haze of my tears, in the midst of which I saw half a dozen blurred, waving hands, and though I waved into that haze I do not know whether Apache Kid was one of those who stood there or not.

So the last I really saw of Apache Kid was his lurching shoulder as he passed out of the swinging car.

*CHAPTER XXX*

_*And Last*_

It was with a full heart that I sat down, oblivious of all other occupants of the car. I sat dazed, the rattle of the wheels in my ears, and the occasional swishing sound without, when we rattled across some trestle bridge above a foaming creek hastening down out of the hills. Sunset came, glowing red on the tops of the trees on either hand. The Pintsch lamps were lit, and glimmered dim in that glow of the sunset that filled the coaches. It was not yet quite dark when we left Republic Creek, the gate city of the mountains, behind. The sunset suddenly appeared to wheel in the sky, and piled itself up again to the right of the track. We were looping and twining down out of the hills. I went out onto the rear platform for a last look at them. Already the plains were rolling away from us on either side, billowy, wind-swept, sweet-scented in the dusk. Behind was the long darkness, north and south, of the mountains. I gazed upon it till the glow faded, and the sinister, serrated ridge was only a long, thin line of black on the verge of the prairie.

Then I turned inwards again to the car and lay down to sleep, while we rolled on and on through the night over the open, untroubled plains.

But sleep on a train is an unquiet sleep, and often I would waken, imagining myself still in the heart of the mountains, sometimes speaking to Apache Kid, even Donoghue.

Old voices spoke; the Laughlins, the sheriff, my two fellow-travellers spoke to me in that uneasy slumber, and then I would awaken to answer and find myself in the swinging car alone, and a great rush of emotion would fill my heart.

* * * * *

Two items still remain to be told.

At New York I found the address to which Apache Kid had directed me. A sphinx of a gentleman read the letter I gave him, looked me over, and then asked: "The turquoises? You have them with you?"

I produced the bag, and he scrutinised them all singly, with no change on his face, rang a bell, and bade the attendant, who came in response, to bring him scales. He weighed each separately, touched them with his tongue, held them up to the light, and noted their values on paper. He must have been, indeed, a man Apache Kid could trust.

"Will you have notes or gold?" he asked. "The sum is two hundred thousand dollars, and I am instructed in this note, which as it is open you will know entitles you to half, to pay you on the spot."

I asked for a bill of exchange on the Bank of Scotland. He bowed and obeyed my request without further speech, but when he rose to usher me to the door his natural curiosity caused him to say:

"Do you know how your friend came by these?"

"I do," said I; but I thought to give this quiet man a Roland for his Oliver, seeing he was so much of a sphinx, and I said no more save that.

He smiled.

"Quite right," said he. "And did you leave your friend well?" he asked, smiling on me in a fatherly fashion.

"In the best of health," I said.

"I see I have to remit to Santa Fe," said he. "He did not say where he was going after that, did he? I can hardly expect him to stay there long."

"No, he did not say," I replied.

"Ah! Doubtless I shall hear of him when he thinks necessary," and he bowed me out and shook hands with me at the door.

The second item that still remains to be told is of my opening of the second letter that Apache Kid gave me. There was no difficulty in finding the address of his "people" which this contained. But if the address astonished me, I was certainly less astonished than deeply moved, when, by watching the residence, I found that his mother still lived,--a stately, elderly lady, with silver hair.

By careful inquiries, and by some observation, I found that there were two sisters also in the house, and once I saw all three out shopping in Princes Street, very tastefully but plainly dressed, and it struck me to the heart, with a sadness I cannot tell, to think that here was I, who could step up to them and say: "Madam, your son yet lives; ladies, your brother is alive," and yet to know that my lips were sealed; that for some reason Apache Kid could never again come home.

They noticed me staring at them, and, remembering my manners, I looked away. This intelligence I wrote to Apache Kid (to be called for at Santa Fe), as he had desired. But I never heard any word in reply. The letter, however, was not returned, so I presume he received it.

I do not know whether the fact that I am bound by a promise causes me, in contradictory-wise, to desire all the more to speak to these three of Apache Kid,--how alien his name sounds here in Edinburgh of all places!--but I do know that I long to speak to them. In Apache Kid's younger sister, especially in her winsome face, there is something I cannot describe that moves my heart. Once I saw her with her sister eating strawberries on one of the roof-cafes in Princes Street, whither I had gone with my mother. My mother noticed the drifting of my eyes and looked at the girl and looked back at me and smiled, and shook her head on me, and said:

"She is a sweet girl, but do not stare; you have lost your manners in America!"

She did not understand, and I could not explain. But her words, spoken jestingly, took me back to that conversation with Apache Kid on the stagecoach, after we had left the Half-Way-to-Kettle House, when he delivered his opinion on the transition period in the West; and I wondered if he had yet looked up Carlyle's remark about the manners of the backwoods.

My little fortune had to be explained in some way, but you may be sure I told nothing of the terrors of the journey that we undertook in the gathering of it. The common fallacy that fortunes are to be picked up in America, by any youth who cares to go a-plucking there, helped me greatly with most folk, and I never was required to tell the bloody story of the Lost Cabin Mine.

But now that they who might have wept for my share in that business have gone beyond all weeping and grieving I can publish the tale with no misgivings; for the only fear that haunts me, as I go my ways through the world, is lest I give pain to any of these quiet, cloistered hearts, who, in their blissful and desirable ignorance, live apart in peace, not knowing how barbaric, how sad, how full of unrest, and how blood-bespattered the world still is.