Part 3

“Boys,” said the gambler rising, “if you will kindly come down out of the clouds, I will be much obliged to you both, because I have got something to say, and this is just as good a time to say it as any.”

The Auditor resumed his seat at the table. The Governor took up a chair, moved it back deliberately into the shadow of the room and sat down.

“It is like this,” continued the gambler, “we three have stood in for a long time, and I guess we know each other pretty well. We did n't take no oath to stand by each other when we started, but I reckon that is what we calculated to do. Anyway that is what we did do. If we had n't a done it, we would n't have been deuce high in this Southwest. I did n't have no faith in Al's machine when it started; I thought it was a wild goose chase, but I did n't say nothing, because I had nothing to lose. I was broke, and anything coming my way was pure velvet, so I joined in and come out here.

“Since that time we have had our ups and downs, if God's creatures ever had 'em. We have lied a lot, and we've stole some, and we've starved most of the time, and we have been poor and miserable and broke, but we have played fair with each other, and we have never stacked the pack nor dealt from the bottom. Then, one day, the luck turned and we won out through the roof, just like it always does if you stay long enough and keep doubling the bet. You two were elected, and Al appointed me.

“I reckon none of us are going to forget the hell that appointment raised. They said I was an ignorant understrapper, a short card gambler, and a leary element; and it was true, every blooming word of it Then the newspapers pitched into Al; they said that it was to be hoped that the new Governor would now have 'the moral courage to at least suppress the shady member of his machine'--them are the very words; I'll never forget 'em, and they meant me.

“I guess I went to you boys, and told you I had better keep out, but I reckon I did n't put up a very stiff case, because I was hot at the row. I would n't have cared if the howlers had been better men than I was, but I knew they were all just the same kind of cattle--unbranded, straggling steers, gathered up from anywhere but a good place. As for being shady, there was n't a man between the Gila and the Pecos white enough to pass an Eastern grand jury, and as for being a gambler, there was n't a mother's son of the batch that would n't have coppered his soul on a black jack if the bank would have cashed it for a dollar.”

Hergan paused for a moment and looked at the Auditor. Then he added, “Exceptin' of course, you and Al.”

“Then,” the gambler went on: “I guess Al got mad. He made a little speech; we was all there, and it was mighty good talk to hear. He said there had n't been no 'invidious distinctions'--them were his words,--during all the years when nothing had come our way but just one dose of bad luck after another until we reckoned there was n't no God at all,--least ways, if there was any, that He did n't operate south of the Central Pacific Railroad, and now when we had finally landed on our feet, there was n't going to be no 'invidious distinctions.' I am bound to say that it seemed mighty good to hear Al talk like he did, and I went ahead and let him appoint me.”

The Secretary of State moved a little nearer to the table, and an almost imperceptible shadow flitted across his face. “All the time,” he continued, “I knowed it was wrong. I knowed that what the mudslingers were sayin' was gospel. I knowed that I was n't fit for the job no more than a Chinaman is fit for a pope. I knowed that the gambler in me was ground in, and the other was just only rubbed on the outside, and that the gambler part was going to run things,--and it did.”

The man paused for a moment and turned to the Governor. “Now,” he said, “I have come to the point, and it's this: I got into this hole and I am going to get out of it; it's my game now; I am not going to stand any side bets. You have both got to promise me right here that you will keep your hands off this matter,--clear off--unless I say it goes.”

The gambler stopped, rested his arms heavily on the table and looked at his companions. The Virginian and the Executive were silent; both men realized fully the true import of Hergan's demand. He was seeking to prevent any sacrifice on their part; that was all, and if he had been the most skilful diplomat in the world, he could not have moved more adroitly.

The Governor looked up at the massive face of the gambler, marred by evil circumstance and the riot of dissipation, and wondered--as he had wondered many a time before,--at the splendid unselfishness of this man. From whence could have come this flower of nobility? The life of Ambercrombie Hergan had been sterile soil indeed for such a plant as this. How could it be in the economy of men that such princely fidelity obtained alone even without trace of the common attendant virtues?

For the obligations of the law Ambercrombie Hergan had no regard. For the obligations of the citizen he had no regard. Even for the common obligations of morality he maintained the most stolid unconcern. Honesty was a name to him, and right and duty and honor were merely names to him. Yet blooming in the barren garden of this gambler's heart was something fairer than them all.

“Well,” asked Hergan, with a trace of anxiety in his voice, “are you going to promise?”

The Governor arose. “This is a very serious matter,” he said slowly; “we must be given a few minutes in which to decide.”

“That 's fair enough,” replied the gambler. “You two can go into the other room. I'll wait.”

The Auditor and the Executive retired, and the Secretary of State resumed his seat beside the table, the suggestion of a smile on his face, he knew perfectly that if he could secure the promise of his companions it would be maintained inviolate.

Presently the door opened and the two men entered. “Bill,” said the Governor, “we promise.”

The gambler arose, and stretched his long limbs like one relieved from the weight of a crushing burden. Then he turned to his companions. “Boys,” he said almost gaily, “I may as well tell you now that I am going to New York Saturday night.”

“And I may add,” responded the Governor, “that I am going Friday night.”

V

YOU see,” the Governor was saying,” the failure of this bank in San Francisco has wiped out every penny I had in the world. On the fourth day of next March I will be poorer than the ordinary drayman. So poor that I must begin all over again, and I have no heart to do it.”

Miss Marion Lanmar was silent. Her bands rested upon the great aims of the chair in which she was seated. Her face might have been a cast; it was so very motionless.

“I should not mind if it were not for you,” the young man went on. “I mean,”--he hesitated for a moment,--“if I had never seen you; if I had never known you. But now the effort would seem so miserably inadequate, if it were not made for you. I have loved you and lived for you too long. I have grown accustomed to you as the mighty incentive. Every path that I have travelled has had you waiting at the end. Every battle I have fought has seemed to hold your happiness in its balance. Even the meagre gains of all the weary commonplace days have been to me so much or so little added to the kingdom of the queen. So I could have gone on to the end, but now, without you I have no heart at all.”

The man leaned over and rested his arm on the mantel-shelf. “I have read somewhere,” he continued, “how the evil fiend strove to destroy a man whom he hated; how he robbed him of his wealth, of his friends, of his fair fame, and how the man worked on, laughing in the demon's face, and how it all failed, until one morning the evil fiend reached down into the man's heart and plucked the motive out of his life, and then the man threw away his tools and came and sat in the doorway of his shop. I suppose it is all very cowardly, to talk as I am talking, but it would be very much worse, I should think, to deceive myself and you.” The woman did not answer. She was looking into the fire. The little blue flames in the wide fireplace danced up and down upon their bed of coal in impish merriment at all the trouble of men's lives.

Presently the man began again. “Yet a woman cannot wait always,” he said, “and I have no right to ask it of you. I must step aside out of your life and beg to be forgotten. It is a terrible ordeal for one who has gone down into the _melée_ with his lady's colors on his helm to return beaten and overthrown and say, 'This quest is not for me.' It is hard to have the hope of one's life battered out and to live on in the world, and yet men do, and I shall, I presume.

“We are taught in youth that the world is a happy place, and I judge that it is a bit of illusion, like the black goblin and the fairies, and yet we all try very hard to believe the old housewife tales, and cling to them, and give them up grudgingly and with regret. I shall always remember how very sorry I was when I first realized that there really were no fairies. I was only a child, but it made me unhappy for days. It seemed to put all my reckoning out of joint. And so I have always believed that happiness existed in the world, and that it came to men somewhere in their lives about as the beautiful princess comes in the fairy stories. It never occurred to me to doubt its coming. True, it never came, but everything that did come seemed only to prepare a way for its coming at some day farther on. Now I see that this is just an illusion like the others, and I confess that the discovery has jarred me frightfully.”

The man's voice wavered for a moment; then it grew stronger. “I don't quite see how the world can ever seem a beautiful place after to-night. The sky may be very blue indeed, but the man whose eyes ache will not look up to see it. The birds may sing gloriously in the trees, but the man whose heart is an empty house will not care at all.”

Randal stopped and looked down at the woman. He noticed how very soft and heavy her brown hair was, and how delicate and slender her hands were. He noted vaguely, too, the artistic effect of the folds of her gown and the shadows on her face.

“Marion,” he said, “If I did not love you better than any other thing in the world, I would not be urging these bitter arguments against my own happiness. I would not be so desperately anxious about your welfare. I should not be so fearful of the future. I should take the chance without the hesitation of a moment. But the very depth of my love makes me a coward. I could not bear to see you subject to all the evil things that come with poverty. I know what a frightful plight it is--how it crushes out the sweetness and the nobility of one's life, how it squeezes the heart, day after day, until it finally becomes a dry husk in one's breast.”

Randal's voice was now thick with emotion. “Marion,” he said, “do you hear me? Do you believe me?”

The woman's hands tightened on the great arms of the chair, and for a moment she was silent; then she began to speak, slowly and distinctly.

“I do not know.” she said. “I must have time to think. Yet I have believed you all these years. I must believe you now. Yes, I do believe you now. But you are wrong, frightfully wrong. You forget that a woman is a human being with a heart. You think I am afraid of the world, afraid of poverty, afraid of life as God makes it, as God wills it; that I am a fragile something that the rain and the sunlight would ruin if it touched; that I am a something more or less than you, a something that requires ease and luxury and all the gilded stage-setting of wealth--and you are wrong. If I love you, of what value to me are all those other things without you? If I love you, it is not all these things I want--it is you. I ask you to answer this, and by what is true in your heart, know what is true in mine: Would you be happy with all that wealth can give you and without me?”

“No,” said the man, “not after to-night. No.”

“No more would I,” added the woman.

The heart, as it is said, speaks clearer to the heart when tongues are silent, and it is said that grief and happiness when riding high in their meridian have no need for the cumbrous medium of language.

After a long silence, Miss Lanmar began again. “Men cannot understand,” she said; “a woman's heart is so miserably strange. Things either slip around it, leaving no mark at all, or they sink in and become a very part of the woman's heart itself. There is no middle ground; no half joy; no middle hurt. So it comes about that if one's image creeps into her heart, it must remain. True, the world may never know; the world is very stupid. But for all that, the woman's heart will hold its tenant, and when she is alone or in the dark, she will know and feel its presence. It may be that the woman will pray to be rid of the evil thing, or it may be that she will pray to hold it always as a gift of good, but be that as it happens, the woman's heart will remain forever helpless to evict its tenant.

“Is it strange, then, if I love you, that I should want to go with you and live with you, and be with you always, and make your joys and your burdens my joys and my burdens, and have a share and an interest in everything that comes to you? Is it strange that I should hold wealth or place or even honor as nothing against you? Is it strange that I should be miserable, thoroughly, utterly miserable with every other thing in the world, and you denied?”

The woman's voice faltered and broke; her hands relaxed, and began to slip from the great arms of the chair. The man came over, and knelt down beside her and put his arms around her.

“Marion, dear heart,” he said, “you do love me. You will trust me a little while,--just a little while?”

The woman's head slipped down on his shoulder. “Love you!” she murmured, “I have always loved you. Surely I shall always love you. But when you are gone, the world is so empty, so miserably empty!”

VI

I THOROUGHLY appreciate everything I you have mentioned, Mr. Hergan,” said the clerk Parks, “but it is quite impossible. Mr. Mason is entirely inaccessible. I should not dare interrupt him.”

“Look here, my friend,” responded the gambler. “I have heard this same talk every day for the last week, and it don't go any longer. I have got to see this lawyer, and I have got to see him now. Do you understand me?”

“Oh, yes,” replied the clerk, with a faint smile, “I understand you perfectly, but it is entirely useless to urge the matter any farther. The business with which Mr. Mason is at present engaged is of great magnitude. He would not permit an interview at all. I am very sorry, but, of course, I can do nothing for you.”

The gambler did not respond. For a few moments he was silent. Then he put his hands into the inside pocket of his coat and drew forth a rather battered leather pocket-book. He held the pocket-book under the table, opened it slowly, and selecting a fifty-dollar bill from among a number of others, laid it gently on the table.

“There,” he said, “is my ante. I want in the game.”

The eyes of the clerk began to contract slowly at the corners.

“My dear man,” he said, “I should like to do this for you, but I don't see how I can. I don't believe Mr. Mason would even listen to me just now. I don't----”

“Wait,” responded the gambler; “I sweeten it.”

Thereupon he selected another bill from the pocket-book and spread it out carefully beside the other upon the table.

The little bald clerk began to drum on the chair with his fingers. His eyes wandered from the money to the door of Mason's private office, and back again. Presently he turned to the gambler.

The Hon. Ambercrombie Herman held up two fingers. “Don't call,” he said, “I tilt it to one hundred and fifty.” And he added another bill to the two, and pushed the money across the table to the clerk. Then he closed the pocket-book deliberately and replaced it in his coat.

Parks arose, picked up the money without a word, and passed into Randolph Mason's private office, closing the door carefully behind him. In a very few moments the clerk returned. He came up dose to the gambler and put his hand confidentially on his shoulder.

“My friend,” he said, in a low tone, “you are not a fool. I have told some lies to get you this interview. Look sharp, and say as little as possible.”

“What lies?” asked the gambler, arising.

“Such as were useful,” responded the clerk. “Quite too tedious to enumerate. Please walk into Mr. Mason's office, sir, and remember that you are my brother-in-law. Answer the questions which are put to you, and don't volunteer talk. It is n't wise.”

The gambler opened the door to Randolph Mason's private office and entered.

VII

HE Secretary of State came slowly down the steps from Randolph Mason's office. At the entrance to the great building he stopped and looked up and down the busy, jostling thoroughfare. It had been but a few years since he was a grain in this vortex, and now that past seemed ages removed. He was not conscious of anything of interest in the very familiar scene. Just why he had stopped to look, this man would not have been quite able to explain. In truth, he was striving to obtain his mental bearings. He had been flung violently upon another view point, and he was endeavoring to comprehend the loom of this new land. His sensations were not unlike those of one who but an hour before had gone into the operating room of a surgeon, walking as he believed to his death, and now returned with the tumor dissected out, and the hope of life big in his bosom. The world was an entirely different place from what it had been some hours before, and the gambler's steps were firmer, and his ancient careless spirit had returned.

At this moment, as it pleased Fate, a cab stopped before a broker's office on the opposite-side of the street, and the Governor stepped out. The gambler darted across and caught his companion by the shoulder. The Governor turned suddenly.

“Well,” he said, in astonishment, “is this an assault _vi et armis?_”

“No,” said the gambler. “It's worse than that, Al. It's a mandamus. You are not to go in that broker's office.”

“Not to go in?” echoed the Executive. “Why not?”

“Al,” said the gambler, grinning like a Hindoo idol, “I said this here was a mandamus. I guess the judge don't ever explain 'why not' in a mandamus.”

“Good chancellor,” replied the Governor, with mock gravity, “I resist the order.”

“On what ground?” said the lion. Ambercrombie Hergan, with such a sage judicial air as might obtain with a truck horse.

“First,” replied the Governor, “that the mandamus was improvidently awarded. Second, that the Court issuing the writ was without jurisdiction. And, third, that the act sought to be restrained is not entirely ministerial, but one largely within the discretion of the officer.”

“All them objections,” said the gambler, “this Court overrules.”

“But,” continued the Executive, “in this case the mandamus cannot lie. I move to quash the writ.”

“But it does lie,” asserted the powerful devotee of fortune, hooking his arm through that of the Executive and turning him down the street, “and she can't be squashed.”

The Governor had observed the very great change in the man, and knowing the Honorable Ambercrombie Hergan, he knew that this erratic person had chanced upon some solution for his dilemma--strange and but half-practical, the Governor had no doubt, but certainly not commonplace, and so he made no further offer of resistance.

“Al,” said the gambler, hurrying his companion through the crowded street, “do you know where you are going?”

“I have n't the slightest idea,” observed the Governor, with greatest unconcern.

“Well, I'll tell you. You are going first to the hotel, then to the railroad, then to the Southwest, and you have just fifty-nine minutes between you and the train.”

The Governor stopped short. “I can't go, Bill. I must sell these stocks.”

“That's just the point,” said the gambler. “You aint going to sell them stocks. That's why I issued this here mandamus.” And he seized the Executive by the arm and fairly dragged him across the street.

“Bill,” protested the Governor, “Bill, this is all nonsense. It don't go.”

“Everything goes,” said the gambler. “Come on. We have lost three of them fifty-nine minutes already.”

VIII

THE Emporium of Crawley was not quite a trading-place as the Greek root of the word would indicate, unless transactions in which the unwary bartered his gain for experience, and the great unscrubbed of the Southwest pitted their wage against the riot of dissipation, could be held to partake of the nature of commerce. It was a fad with Crawley to assert that his Emporium was a clearinghouse,--a rather grim jest, heavy with truth. Indeed, all the currency of this primitive land seemed to pass, sooner or later, through the mammoth establishment of First Class Crawley, and in season and out of season as the dollar went through, a portion paused and remained in the fingers of the proprietor. And for this, also,--as the common-law pleader would put it,--truth clung to the pet declaration of Crawley.

When the population gathered night after night under the roof of his Emporium, their troubles came also; and when the smoke grew thick and the tanglefoot whiskey began to assert itself, there were other things to clear up beside matters of currency. Matters of consequence and matters of no consequence were cleared by the same rapid, drastic measures. Bad men here decided who was the worst or the best, as they were pleased with the term. The henchmen of rival cattle kings submitted the vexatious question of a brand on a stray heifer to this court of instant resort and quick decision, and other concerns of the citizen, affecting perhaps his truth, or honor, or ability for a vice, were determined suddenly and for all time without the wrangling of counsel or the tedium of courts.

If a Mexican was so short sighted as to slip his knife into a tenderfoot, some one shot the Mexican, and the crowd “lickered up.” If the faro dealer killed his man, it was usually because the man needed killing, and certainly the faro dealer was the best judge of this. On the contrary, if one shot the dealer, this was considered a public calamity, demanding an explanation, since the dealer was a _quasi_ public functionary, and the convenience of the citizen required that the game should continue. One's life was perhaps the cheapest thing below the Central Pacific Railroad, and it was entirely the duty of the individual to see that it was maintained. If one was unsteady on the trigger, or caught napping on the draw, one was held to have died by virtue of contributory negligence.

To be sure there was law, and machinery for its execution; but the machinery was liberal, and had ideas of its own, and the law adhered with supreme unconcern to its maxim--_De minimis non curat lex_.

First Class Crawley had been splendidly trained for the duties of his position. If Fortune had been moving of design, she could not have schooled him better for such a life. Some thirty years before, he had been a sutler with the Army of the Potomac--not the sutler of romance, but the sutler of reality; following the army bravely, but at such a distance to the rear as to be at all times extremely safe, and exacting for his valuable public service every gain that human ingenuity could discover. It was no wrong in the mind of Crawley to cheat the common soldier out of his eyes; belike the soldier would be shot on the morrow, and then all opportunity to cheat him would cease, and if prior opportunity had not been seized and enjoyed, Crawley would regret.