CHAPTER XX

THE ONLY CHANCE

“The rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his captor.”

Silently the white man drew back.

The Indian stepped into the cabin and softly closed the door.

Edwards waited for his visitor to speak, while the red man gazed at him with a hint of that fleeting, shadowy smile of cruel pleasure and satisfaction.

“I returned from Tucson this afternoon,” he said at last. “I came back to my place another way, over the mountains from the south. When the sun was gone I came down here to you.”

Edwards did not know what to say. He realized that Natachee’s visit, at that hour of the night, was more than a mere social call. He felt that for some reason he, the white man, had suddenly become of more than mere passing interest to the Indian. Recalling the Indian’s manner at the time of their last meeting, he waited anxiously for what was to come. He managed to murmur a few commonplace words of welcome.

Natachee said gravely:

“I have something to tell you--something which I think will be of interest.”

Edwards nervously offered a chair.

When they were seated, the Indian said:

“Perhaps I should tell you that I went to Tucson in your interest.” He smiled as he added: “In your interest--and for _my_ pleasure.”

“I can’t see how my interests have anything to do with your pleasure,” returned the white man, stung by the touch of mockery in the Indian’s tone.

“No? I suppose you can’t. But you will understand presently,” said the other, as if he enjoyed the situation and would prolong the pleasure it afforded him to witness the white man’s uneasy fears.

“Suppose you explain yourself and be done with it,” said Edwards shortly.

“You white men are all so impatient,” murmured Natachee with taunting deliberation. “Really, you should learn a lesson of patience from the Indians. An Indian has need to be patient. He must wait and watch, long and untiringly, for his few opportunities, and then when his opportunity at last comes he must not fail through ill-advised haste to make the most of it. The white man squanders his pleasures as he squanders his wealth. With reckless, headlong, swinish eagerness to drink his fill at one gulp; he spills his cup of happiness before he has really tasted it. The Indian takes his pleasures with careful deliberation, as he compels his enemies to bear the pain of the torture, and so he enjoys in its fullness, to the last drop, whatever drink his gods are pleased to set before him.”

“For God’s sake say what you have come to say and be done with it!” cried Edwards.

The Indian laughed.

“Many a white man, in the old days, has begged an Indian to end it all quickly and have done with it. But,” he added with triumphant insolence, “the rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his captor. I, Natachee the Indian, in my own way will tell you, Donald Payne, what I have come to say.”

As the Indian spoke that name, the man, known as Hugh Edwards, sprang to his feet with a cry.

Natachee watched the effect of his words with cruel satisfaction.

When the Indian’s victim had gained some control of his tortured nerves and had dropped weakly into his chair again, the red man said with savage irony:

“I regret, in a way, that Miss Hillgrove is not here to listen to my story.”

The white man, with his head bowed in his hands, winced.

“It would add much to my pleasure if I could watch her enjoying it with you.”

Hugh Edwards groaned as one in torment.

“But all that in good time,” continued the Indian. “I must explain now how it came about that the rabbit, Donald Payne, is under the paw of the Indian fox.

“When Sheriff Burks described the criminal who escaped from the California penitentiary I saw a possible opportunity that promised me, Natachee, no little pleasure and satisfaction--an opportunity for which I have been waiting. Miss Hillgrove’s agitation, her going to you, and your own action, confirmed my opinion as to where the convict who had so far escaped the officers was to be found. But I realized that it might be well to learn more. Thinking it unwise to appear too interested before the sheriff, I went to Tucson--first making sure that you would be here when I returned. In the white man’s city, clothed properly in the white man’s costume, with careful white man’s manners, I was permitted to search the files of the white man’s newspapers, and, thanks to my white education, to read the shameful account of this escaped convict’s crime.

“I learned how Donald Payne, a promising young business man and a graduate of the California University, had held an important position of trust in a certain investment company. This company had been specifically planned and organized to attract the savings of small investors. Its appeal was to the better class of workmen, who out of their meager earnings were ambitious to put by something for the better education of their children--widows, with a little life insurance money upon the income of which they must exist--school-teachers, who must save against that dread day when they could no longer work--stenographers, clerks, and that class of poor whose education and tastes were above their earnings, and in whose hearts hope was kept alive by the promise of safe and honest returns from their hard-saved pennies. Every dollar in that institution of trust represented honest human effort and worthy ambition and heroic selfsacrifice.

“Oh, it was a white man’s enterprise, born of a white man’s devilish cunning, and carried out with a white man’s remorseless cruelty to its damnable end. When the people’s confidence had been won, and they had been persuaded to place enough of their savings in the hands of these spoilers to make it worth while, the company failed. The investors lost everything. The promoters--the principals of the company--gained everything. But Donald Payne, the brilliant young financial genius whose manipulation brought about the wreck, went to San Quentin prison.

“He had served eighteen months of his sentence when he escaped. His mother, a widow, brokenhearted over the shame and dishonor, scorned and ostracized by her neighbors and friends, humiliated by the cruel publicity, died in less than a month after her son was pronounced guilty. Donald Payne is without doubt the most hated, the most despised name in this decade.”

The man who, during the Indian’s deliberate recital, had sat cowering in his chair, raised his haggard face. His eyes were dull with anguish, his lips were drawn and white; but in spite of his ghastly appearance there was a strange air of dignity in his manner as he said hoarsely:

“And is that all you know?”

The Indian waited a little as if to give the greatest possible significance to his answer, then:

“No, not quite all. I know that this escaped convict, Donald Payne, has learned to love a woman. And I know that this woman loves this man, who is hiding from the officers who would send him back to prison.”

“Yes,” said the white man, hoarsely, “that is true. If it is any satisfaction to you, I confess my love for Marta Hillgrove. I have every reason to believe in her love for me, and--I--dare not--for her sake--tell her of my love.”

He rose to his feet and stood before the Indian with a dignity and strength that won a gleam of admiration from the dark eyes of his tormentor, and in a voice ringing with passionate earnestness cried:

“But, listen, you damned red savage. You do not yet know all the truth. Donald Payne was never guilty of the crime for which he was sentenced. I was an innocent tool in the hands of the real criminal. It was a part of his plan from the first that some one should be offered, a sacrifice, to satisfy the public. He schemed far ahead to prove some one guilty and thus secure himself. I was chosen for that end. I was promoted to a position of trust with my sacrifice in view. It was all planned, arranged, and carried out. The man who robbed the people and for whose crime I was sent to prison is to-day living in Los Angeles in safety and luxury with the wealth he acquired through the company which he promoted and wrecked.

“The people who hate me, because they believe me guilty, do not know. The papers that branded me with shame and heralded my disgrace to every corner of the world do not know. The jury that convicted me did not know. The judge did not know. My mother did not know. The penitentiary does not know. The officers who would drag me back to it all do not know. _But I know--I know--I know!_”

He stood madly, superbly defiant, uplifted for the moment by the strength of his own asserted innocence. Then suddenly, as a beef animal falls under the blow of the butcher’s killing maul, he dropped into his chair, where he writhed in an agony greater than any physical suffering could have wrought.

The deep voice of the watching Indian broke the silence.

“Good! It is even better than I could have believed. In my wildest dreams I never hoped to see a white man suffer such unmerited torture. In time, perhaps, you will even come to a degree of sympathy for an Indian, and to understand, a little, his feeling toward the white race.”

When Hugh Edwards was able to speak again he said with dreary hopelessness:

“They will come for me in the morning, I suppose?”

“They? Who?”

“The officers--have you not told them?”

Natachee laughed.

“I tell the officers what I know about you? I give you up for them to take you back to the penitentiary? No--no--you do not seem to have grasped the purpose of my efforts in your behalf. I shall keep you for myself. I have too much pleasure in you to permit any one to take you away from me. You shall go with me, and together we, the two outcasts, we who are outcasts because of nothing that we have done, but only because some one wished by our misfortune and suffering to gain riches, we shall enjoy life together as we can.”

The note of exaltation that was in his voice, or some hint of a sinister purpose in his manner, aroused the white man.

“You mean that you are going to help me to escape?”

“From your white man’s laws, yes. From me, no--not yet--not until I am through with you.”

“Explain yourself,” demanded the other. “What is it that you propose? I don’t understand.”

“It is this,” returned the Indian. “You cannot stay here because any day--to-morrow even--the sheriff may come for you. You cannot go from this Cañon of Gold because you would surely be caught, unless you could leave this country, and that you cannot do because you have no money. You shall come with me. With me you will be safe from the law. No one will know where you are. No one shall ever find you. I, Natachee, know these mountains as no white man can ever know them. I will hide you.”

There was something in the Indian’s face that made Hugh Edwards gaze at him in wondering silence.

The Indian continued:

“I will show you where you can dig more gold than ever you would find here. Who knows, perhaps you may even find the Mine with the Iron Door. With gold enough you could make your way to safety. You could even take the woman you love with you. And so you shall work and dream and dream--and I, Natachee--I will help you to dream. If your dream never comes true, if your labor is all in vain, if you never find the Mine with the Iron Door, or if, while you are toiling for the gold you need, the woman you love should become the wife of your friend Saint Jimmy, why, that will not be my fault. I will help you to dream. It will be for you to find the gold that will make your dream come true--_if you can_.”

The Indian spoke those last three words with fiendish deliberation and sinister meaning that was unmistakable.

Hugh Edwards understood.

“You are a devil.”

“No, I am Natachee the Indian--you are a white man.”

“You would save me from prison so that you might feast your damned revengeful spirit on my suffering.”

“It is a help for you to understand exactly my purpose,” returned the Indian.

“What if I refused to go with you?”

“You will not refuse.”

“Why?”

“If you go with me you take your only possible chance for the future. You might, you know, find the gold. If you do not go, I shall send you back to prison.”

“I will go.”

“Good, but--you must understand. You will leave here with me to-night. There will be no message--no hint to tell any one why you have gone, or where, or that you will ever come again. As long as you are with me you will be as one dead to all who have ever known you.”

“But Marta--Miss Hillgrove--“ cried the other.

Drawing himself up with the air of a conqueror, the Indian answered coldly:

“I, Natachee, have spoken.”

* * * * *

When morning came, Marta saw no smoke rising from the chimney of Hugh Edwards’ cabin. At first she told herself, with a laugh, that Hugh was sleeping later than usual, and went happily about her own early morning work. But as the hours passed and there was no sign of life about the neighboring cabin, she became uneasy. By the time breakfast was over and the Pardners had gone to their work, the girl was fully convinced that all was not right and went to investigate.

Knocking at the cabin door, she called:

“Hugh--Oh, Hugh!”

There was no answer.

She went hurriedly to the top of the bank above the place where he worked.

He was not there.

Running back to the cabin she knocked again.

“Hugh--Oh, Hugh! What is the matter?”

There was no sound.

Pushing open the door she stood on the threshold. The room was empty.

The truth forced itself upon the girl with overwhelming weight. Hugh Edwards was gone. He had not merely left his cabin for an hour or a day. He had not stepped out somewhere to return again presently. He was _gone_. Sometime during the night he had packed his things and had disappeared with no parting word--no good-by--no promise--leaving no message. He had vanished.

The girl was stunned. She argued with herself dully that she must be mistaken--that it could not be so. Hugh, her Hugh, would never do such a cruel, cruel thing.

From the open doorway she looked out at the familiar scene, at the cañon walls, the mountain ridges and peaks, her home--nothing was changed. She turned again to the empty, silent room. Hugh was gone.

But there must be something--some word to tell her--to explain.

Carefully, with slow, leaden movements, she searched every corner of the bare room. She looked in the cupboard, under the bunk, in every crevice of the walls. She even searched with a stick among the dead ashes in the fireplace. There was nothing.

She did not cry out. The hurt was too deep. She sat on the threshold of the empty cabin and tried to make it all seem real.

It was two hours later when Saint Jimmy found her sitting there.