Chapter 19

Therefore on the monotonous journey west her nerves relaxed and with a comfortable feeling of security she rehearsed her case as she meant to present it, which was to conclude with an eloquent plea for help. It seemed to her that in spite of the years of estrangement it would be the most natural thing in the world for Burt, when he heard all the facts, to rush to the rescue of his son. Of the result she really entertained no doubt.

But she was reckoning without John Burt. Reasoning that would apply to nearly any other man did not at all fit Bruce's father. Helen had the sensation of having run at full speed against a stone wall when Burt came toward her slowly, leading his saddle-horse through one of the corrals near the unpretentious ranch-house, which she had reached after a long drive.

The amenities to which she was accustomed were not, as the phrase is, John Burt's long suit. He did not raise his hat, extend a hand, or evince the slightest interest by any lighting of the eye. With his arm thrown across his saddle he waited for her to begin, to state her business and be gone.

The broad backs of ten thousand cattle glistened in the sun as they fed inside the John Burt ranch, but owing to his seedy appearance their owner was frequently mistaken for his own hired man. Self-centred, of narrow views, strong prejudices, saving to penuriousness, whatever there was of sentiment, or warm human impulse, in his nature, seemed to have been buried with Bruce's mother. He had not re-married, but this was the only outward evidence by which any one could know that the memory of "his Annie" was as green as the day she died. He never spoke of her nor of his son, and Burt's life seemed to have for its aim the piling up of dollars faster than his neighbors.

Helen grasped something of his character in her swift appraisement. As she returned his impersonal gaze she realized that to him she was simply a female--a person in petticoats who was going to take up his time and bore him until he could get rid of her. She was not accustomed to a reception of this kind; it disconcerted her, but chiefly the magnitude of her task loomed before her.

The sudden, unexpected fear of failure threw her into a panic. The feeling which came upon her was like stage-fright. In the first awkward moment she could scarcely remember why she had come, much less what she had intended to say. But he was too indifferent to notice her confusion and this helped her somewhat to recover her presence of mind.

When she mentioned the distance she had travelled to see him he was entirely unimpressed and it was not until she mentioned Bruce's name that he appeared to realize that she was not an agent trying to sell him a book. Then Helen saw in his eyes his mental start;--the look of resignation vanished and his black brows, so like Bruce's, contracted in a frown.

"He's alive then," Burt's voice was hard.

Helen nodded.

"I've come to see you on his behalf."

"Oh, he's in trouble." His voice had an acid edge. "He wants me to help him out."

"In trouble--yes--but I'm not sure he'd forgive me if he knew I had come."

"Still sore, is he?" His features stiffened.

"Not sore," Helen pleaded, "but--proud."

"Stubborn"--curtly--"mulish. But why should you come to me?"

"Why shouldn't I? You're his father and he needs a helping hand just now more perhaps than he ever will again."

"Being his father is no reason, that I can see. He's never written me a line."

"And you've never tried to find him," Helen retorted.

"He had a good home and he ran away. He was fourteen--old enough to know what he was doing."

"Fourteen!" repeated Helen scornfully throwing diplomacy to the winds at his criticism of Bruce, "Fourteen!--and you judged him as though he were a man of your own age and experience!"

"I made $20 a month and my board when I was fourteen."

"That doesn't prove anything except a difference in ambition. You wanted the $20 a month and Bruce wanted an education."

"He owed me some respect." Burt declared obstinately. At the moment he and Bruce looked marvellously alike.

"And don't you think you owed him anything?" Helen's cheeks were flaming. The last thing she had expected was to quarrel with Bruce's father, but since she was in it she meant to stand her ground. She had made a muddle of it she felt, and her chances of success were slim indeed. "Don't you think a child is entitled to the best chance for happiness and success that his parents can give him? All Bruce asked was an education--the weapon that every child has a right to, to enable him to fight his own battles. I had the best education my parents could afford and at that I'm not bowed down with gratitude for the privilege of struggling merely to exist."

She expected him to reply with equal heat but instead he ignored her argument and with a return to his former manner as though his flare-up of interest had passed, asked indifferently:

"What's he done?"

"Nothing to be ashamed of," Helen answered vigorously, "and everything to be proud of. He's put up a plucky fight but the odds are too strong against him and he's going to lose unless you come to the rescue--quick."

Burt combed the horse's mane with his fingers.

"What's he in--what's he doing?" There was no personal interest in the question.

Helen hesitated for a second, knowing instinctively the effect her answer would have upon him--then she replied with a touch of defiance:

"Mining."

"Minin'!" His tone was full of disgust, much as though she had said gambling or burglary. "I might have known it would be some fool thing like that. No, ma'am," harshly, "by writin' first you might have saved yourself the trip for not a dollar of my money ever has or ever will go into any minin' scheme. I don't speculate."

"But Mr. Burt--" Helen began pleadingly. She had a panicky feeling that she was going to cry.

"It's no use arguin'," he interrupted. "He can't get me into any wild-cat minin' scheme--"

"It isn't a wild-cat mining scheme," Helen defended hotly.

Burt went on--

"If he wants to come home and help me with the cattle and behave himself now that he's fooled away his time and failed--"

"But he hasn't failed." Helen insisted with eager impatience. "He won't fail if----"

"Well he's hard up--he wants money----" Burt spoke as though the fact were a crime.

"A good many men have been 'hard up' and needed money before they succeeded," Helen pleaded. "Surely you know that crises come in nearly every undertaking where there isn't unlimited capital, obstacles and combinations of circumstances that no one can forsee. And if you knew what Bruce has had to fight----"

Helen had expected of course to tell Bruce's father of the placer properties and his efforts to develop them. She had thought he would have a father's natural pride in what Bruce had accomplished in the face of dangers and difficulties. She had intended to tell him of Sprudell, to show him Smaltz's confession, and the options which would defeat Sprudell's plotting, but in the face of his narrow obstinacy, his deep prejudices, she felt the futility of words or argument. She had not for a moment counted upon such opposition; now she felt helpless, impotent before this armor of hardness.

"I don't care what he's had to fight. I'd just as soon put my money in the stove as put it in a mining scheme. There's two things I never do, young lady, and that's speculate and go on people's notes."

"But, Mr. Burt," she begged hopelessly, "If you'd only make an exception--just this once. Go to him--see for yourself that all he needs is a helping hand across this one hard place."

"I got on without any helping hands. Nobody saw me across hard places. I've told you the only way that he can expect to get anything from me."

"Then it's useless, quite, quite useless for me to say any more?" Helen was struggling hard to keep her voice steady to the end. "No matter what the circumstances may be you refuse to do anything for Bruce?"

"That's the size of it--unless he comes back. There's plenty for him to do here." His tone was implacable and he was waiting with a stolid patience for her to go.

"I'm sorry if I've bored you and I shan't inflict you any more. Please remember that Bruce knew nothing of my coming. I came upon my own responsibility. But his success meant so much to him--to me that I--that I----" she choked and turned away abruptly. She dared not even say good-bye.

Burt remained standing by his horse looking after her straight, slender figure as she walked toward the gate. His face was still sphinx-like but there was a speculative look in his shrewd eyes. Bruce's success "meant so much to her," did it? That, then, was why she had come. The distance she had travelled for the purpose of seeing him had not impressed him in the least before.

Helen was halfway to the gate when she stopped to replace the rubber that stuck in the muddy corral and slipped from her heel. Her chin was quivering, her sensitive lips drooped and, feeling that Burt was looking at her, she raised her eyes to his. They were brimming full of tears. She looked for all the world like a sorrowful, disappointed, woe-begone little girl of not more than ten or twelve.

The unconscious pathos of some look or pose grips the heart harder than any spoken word and so it was that this unstudied trick of expression found the vulnerable spot in Burt's armor--the spot which might have remained impervious indefinitely to any plea. It went straight to his one weakness, his single point of susceptibility, and that was his unsuspected but excessive fondness for little girls.

The distinct picture that was firmly fixed in his unimaginative mind before Bruce was born was still there; the picture of that little girl with flaxen hair that had blue ribbons in it, with a laughing mouth that had tiny sharp teeth like pearls, and who was to come dancing to meet him with her arms outstretched each time that he rode into the yard. That the dream was never realized was one of the real disappointments of Burt's life. Inexplicably he saw that little girl again as he looked at Helen's upturned face with its quivering chin and swimming, reproachful eyes.

John Burt had a queer feeling of something wilting, crumbling inside of him, something hard and cold giving way around his heart. He could not have explained it, it was not his way to try, but he took an impulsive step toward her and called out:

"Wait a minute! Go on in the house till I put up my horse, I'll hear what you have to say."

XXVII

UNCLE BILL IS OSTRACIZED

Uncle Bill Griswold sat by the window in the office of the Hinds House where he could watch the stage road, and, as usual this winter, he was sitting by himself. It was thus that Ore City punished reticence.

Uncle Bill was suspected of _knowing something_--of having _business_--of his own--and keeping it to himself. A display of friendly interest in his affairs having received no encouragement and various lines of adroit cross-examination having been successfully blocked, Ore City was forced to regard his stubborn reserve as a hostile act for which it was tacitly agreed he should be disciplined. Therefore it withdrew its own confidences and company. Uncle Bill was shunned, left alone to enjoy his secret. The heavy hand of Public Opinion was upon him. Socially he was an outcast. Conversation ceased when he approached as if he had been a spy. Games of solo, high-five, and piute went on without him and in heated arguments no one any longer asked his views.

This latter offense however was only an aggravation of the real one which dated back to the memorable occasion when Wilbur Dill had asked his opinion of the "secondary enrichment." It was held that a man who would tell the truth at a time like that was a menace to the camp and the sooner he moved on the better.

In the early spring the old man had disappeared into the mountain with powder, drills, and a three months' grub-stake. He had told no one of his destination, and when he had returned the most he would say was that he had "been peckin' on a ledge all summer." He sent samples of his rock outside but did not show the assays. He wrote letters and began to get mail in blank, non-committal envelopes and added to the general feeling of exasperation by always being at the desk before even the clerk had time to make out the postmarks. Oh, he was up to something--that was certain--something that would "knock" the camp no doubt. They wouldn't put it past him.

If Uncle Bill felt his exile or harbored resentment at being treated like a leper he was too proud to give any sign.

There had been but little change in the Hinds House in a year. Only a close observer would have noted that it had changed at all. There was a trifle more baling-wire intertwined among the legs of the office chairs and a little higher polish on the seats. The grease spots on the unbleached muslin where Ore City rested its head were a shade darker and the monuments of "spec'mins" were higher. The Jersey organ had lost two stops and a wooden stalagmite was broken. "Old Man" Hinds in a praiseworthy attempt to clean his solitaire deck had washed off the spots or at least faded them so that no one but himself could tell what they were. The office was darker, too, because of the box-covers nailed across the windows where a few more panes had gone out. Otherwise it might have been the very day a year ago that Judge George Petty had lurched through the snow tunnel jubilantly announcing the arrival of the stage.

Only this year there was no snow tunnel and the Judge was sober--sober and despondent.

His attitude of depression reflected more or less the spirit of the camp, which for once came near admitting that "if Capital didn't take holt in the Spring they _might_ have to quit."

"Anyway," Yankee Sam was saying, lowering his voice to give the impression to Uncle Bill at the window that he, too, had affairs of a private nature, "I learnt my lesson good about givin' options. That were our big mistake--tyin' ourselves up hand and foot with that feller Dill. Why, if a furrin' syndicate had walked in here and offered me half a million fer my holdin's in that porphory dike I couldn't a done a stroke of business. Forfeit money in the bank after this for Samuel. But if ever I lays eyes on that rat--" Yankee Sam glared about the circle--"you watch my smoke! Mind what I tell you."

"What about the deal he give me on The Prince o' Peace?" demanded Lannigan. "Look what he cost me! The money I spent on them stamps writin' to know what was doin' would a kept me eatin' for a month. Maybe you think because I don't roar much I ain't angery. If I had the price I'd hire somebudy regalar to help me hate that feller!"

"I hold that he's worse than robbed me!" Judge Petty struck his knee with a tremulous fist. "He took one whole year off'n my life, that's what he's done--pure murder, ain't it? Expectin' to sell every mail, all summer, and then bein' disappinted has shore took it out of me. Made an ol' man of me, as you might say, as was hale and hearty. I might have knowed, too; you had only to look in his face to see what he was! 'Crook' was wrote all over him. There's a law for the likes o' Wilbur Dill--false pretenses."

"Law!" contemptuously. "Pa" Snow spent more of his time downstairs now in a rocking chair upholstered with a soogan, where he could vent his bitterness at short range. Disappointment over the sale of "The Bay Horse" had made a socialist of him. "The law--a long way we'd get havin' the law on him! The law's no use to the poor man--he's only got one weapon he can count on; and while I've never set out to let no man's blood, if that skunk ever pokes his nose inside these premises he'll find a red-hot _Southerner_ waitin' for him!" Mr. Snow looked so altogether ferocious that Ore City more than half believed him.

"Seems like everything this year has been agin us." The despondent voice behind the stove sounded hopeless. "Burt's proposition fizzlin' out on the river is goin' to hurt this camp wonderful. It's surprisin' how fast the news of a failure gits around among Capital. I knew the way he was startin' in to work--in fact I told him--that he never could make nothin'."

"When I first went down to work for him I advised steam but he goes ahead, and look what's happened--broke down and you can gamble he won't start up again." Lannigan added confidently as though he spoke from personal knowledge--"Them stockholders is done puttin' up money."

"I warned him about the grade he was givin' them sluice-boxes--I went to him first off, didn't I?" Yankee Sam looked around for confirmation. "Do you mind I said at the time he wasn't warshin' that dirt fast enough?"

"Anyhow," declared the Judge querulously, "he ought to 'a piped it off. T'were a hydraulickin' proposition. He could handle it just twice as fast at half the cost. I sent him down word when I heard what he was doin'."

"And wastin' money like he did on all them new style riffles--expanded metal and cocoa matting! Gimme pole riffles with a little strap-iron on the top and if you can't ketch it with that you can't ketch it with nothin'."

"Mostly," said Ma Snow who had come up behind the critic's chair unnoticed, "you've ketched nothin'." She went on in her plaintive voice:

"It's a shame, that's what it is, that Bruce Burt didn't just turn over his business to you-all this summer. With shining examples of success to advise him, like's sittin' here burnin' up my wood t'hout offerin' to split any, he _couldn't_ have failed. Personally, I wouldn't think of makin' a business move without first talkin' it over with the financiers that have made Ore City the money centre that it is!"

"Everybody can learn something," Yankee Sam retorted with a show of spirit.

"Not everybody," Ma Snow's voice had an ominous quaver, "or you'd a learned long ago that you can't knock that young man in my hearin'. _I_ haven't forgot if _you_ have, that the only real money that's been in the camp all Summer has come up from the river."

"We wasn't sayin' anything against him personal," the brash Samuel assured her hastily; but Bruce's champion refused to be mollified.

"What if he _did_ shut down? What of it?" She glared defiance until her pale eyes watered with the strain. "I don't notice anybody here that's ever had gumption enough even to start up. What do you do?" She answered for them--"Jest scratch a hole in the ground, then set and wait for Capital to come and hand you out a million. I dast you to answer!"

It was plain from the silence that no one cared to remove the chip on Ma Snow's shoulder.

"I hear he aims to stay down there all winter alone and trap." Judge Petty made the observation for the sake of conversation merely, as the fact was as well known as that there were four feet of snow outside or that the camp was "busted."

"And it's to his credit," Ma Snow snapped back. "When he's doin' that he ain't runnin' up board bills he cain't pay."

"It's as good a place as any," admitted the Judge, "providin' he don't go nutty." He raised his voice and added with a significant look at Uncle Bill: "Bachin' alone makes some fellers act like a bull-elk that's been whipped out of the herd."

"It takes about four months before you begin to think that somebudy's layin' out in the brush watchin' you--waitin' to rob you even if you haven't got anything to steal but a slab of swine-buzzum and a sack of flour. The next stage," went on the citizen behind the stove speaking with the voice of authority, "is when you pack your rifle along every time you go for a bucket of water, and light you palouser in the middle of the night to go around the cabin lookin' for tracks. Yes, sir," emphatically, "and the more brains you got the quicker you go off."

"You seemed about the same when you got back as when you left that time you wintered alone on the left fork of Swiftwater," Ma Snow commented.

"Like as not you remember that spell I spent t'other side of Sheep-eater Ridge when I druv that fifty foot tunnel single-handed into the Silver King?"

"You've never give us no chance to forgit it," responded an auditor. "We've heard it reg'lar every day since."

"I hadn't seen nobody fer clost to three months," Lemonade Dan continued "when a feller come along, and says: 'I'd like to stop with ye but I'm short of cash.' I counted out a dollar-thirty and I says 'Stranger,' I says, 'that's all I got but it's yourn if you'll stay!'"

"And you'll jump for a new seed catalogue or an Agricultural Bulletin like it was a novel just out," contributed Yankee Sam from his experience. "I've allus been a great reader. I mind how I come clost to burnin' myself out on account of it the fall of '97 when I was ground-sluicin' down there on Snake river. I had a tidy cabin papered with newspapers and one week when 'twere stormin' I got interested in a serial story what was runnin'. It started back of the stove and they was an installment pasted in the cupboard, they was a piece upside down clost to the floor so I had to stand on my head, as you might say, to read it, and the end was on the ceilin'. One evenin' I was standin' on a box with my mouth open and my neck half broke tryin' to see how it come out when I tipped the lamp over. I'm a reg'lar book-worm, when I gits where they's readin'."

"I mind the winter I bached on Crooked Crick I tamed a mouse," ventured Lannigan. "He got so sociable he et out of my fingers."

"He shorely must have been fond of you." Ma Snow looked fixedly at Lannigan's hands. "Mistah Hinds," turning sharply upon that person, who was endeavoring by close inspection to tell whether the last card was a king or queen, "the bacon's froze and there ain't a knife in yoah ol' kitchen that will cut."

"Yes ma'am," murmured Mr. Hinds, hoping against hope that the statement was not a command with his luck just beginning to turn and a sequence in sight.

"If there ain't an aidge on one of them butcher knives that'll cut bread when I start in to get supper--"

But Ma Snow did not deliver her ultimatum. In the first place it was not necessary, for the cowed owner of the Hinds House knew perfectly well what it was, and in the second, Uncle Bill arose suddenly and stood on tiptoe looking through the window in something that approached excitement. Nothing ordinary could jar Uncle Bill's composure--chairs went over in the rush to join him at the window.

The stage was coming--with passengers! It was almost in--they could hear the driver's--"Git ep, Eagle! Git ep, Nig! Git ep--git ep--git ep!" There was luggage on behind and--Yankee Sam's voice broke as though it were changing when he announced it--a female and two men!

Was this Uncle Bill's secret? Had he known? They could learn nothing from his face and his mouth was shut so tight it looked as if he had the lock-jaw.

Who was she? Where was she from? Did she have any money? Was she old or young? Delicacy forbade them to go outside and look straight at a strange lady but a dozen questions rose in every mind. Then simultaneously the same thought came to each. Moved by a common impulse they turned and stared suspiciously at Uncle Bill. Could it be--was it possible that he had been advertising for a wife? Luring some trusting female from her home by representing himself as a mining man forced to reside in this mountain solitude near his valuable properties? Ore City knew of cases like it; and he was just about the age to begin writing to matrimonial bureaus.

Speculation ended abruptly. A sharp intake of breath--a startled gasp ran through the tense group as a pair of nimble, yellow legs flashed from beneath the robes and the citizens of Ore City saw the smiling face of Wilbur Dill! They turned to each other for confirmation lest their own eyes deceive them.

Mr. Dill stamped the snow from his feet, flung open the door and beamed around impartially.

"Well, boys--" he threw off his opulent, fur-lined coat--"it's good to be back."