CHAPTER XXXIII

GOLD

He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold is a greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest curse of all.

When Hugh Edwards left Saint Jimmy and the Indian, he was beside himself with grief and rage. He had prepared himself, in a measure, to lose Marta. He had told himself that his love was strong enough to endure even that test, but to give her up because she proved to be the daughter of the man who, by making him a convict, had robbed him of the right to keep her, was more than he could endure.

As he rushed blindly from the house that had been to him a house of refuge, but was now become a house of torment, Marta called to him.

He did not stop. He must get away--away from them all. The old prospector, Saint Jimmy, Natachee, Marta, the dead Mexican--they had all conspired with God to sink him in a hell of conflicting love and hatred.

When he came to himself, he was at the cabin where he had made his home during those first months of his life in the Cañon of Gold. When he was seeking a place to hide, as a wild creature wounded by the hunters seeks to hide from the dogs, he had found that little cabin. He had learned to feel safe there. But he did not feel safe there now. The empty place was crowded with memories that would drive him to some deed of madness.

It was there his dream of freedom and love had been born. It was there that the dear comradeship of the girl had led him to believe there might still be something to hope for, to work for and to live for. He could not stay there now. The place was no longer a place where he could hide from his enemies; it was a trap, a snare. He must go, and go quickly.

Without consciously willing his movements, indeed, without realizing where he was going, he climbed out of the cañon and hurried away up the mountain slopes and along the ridges in the direction of Natachee’s hut. With no clearly defined trail to follow, it is doubtful if in his normal mental state he could have found the place. He certainly would not have made the attempt, particularly at that time of day. But some subconscious memory must have guided him, for at sundown he found himself in the familiar gulch where he had toiled all through the winter for the gold that meant for him the realization of his dreams of freedom and happiness with Marta. When night came, he was seated on that spot from which he had so often, in the agony of those lonely months of hiding, watched the tiny point of light in the gloom of the cañon below.

With his eyes fixed on that red spot, which he knew was the window of Marta’s room, Hugh Edwards brooded over the series of events that had ended in that hour of his dead hopes and broken dreams.

His thoughts went back even to those glad days when he was graduated from his university, and when, with a heart of honest courage and purpose, he had accepted a position of trust in the institution that seemed to afford such an opportunity for service. He recalled every proud step of his advancement from office to office, of increasing responsibility.

He lived again that appalling hour when he knew that he had been promoted only that he might be betrayed. Again he suffered the agony of his arrest--the trial, with his baffled attempts to prove his innocence--the hideous publicity--the hatred of the people--and again he heard the sentence that condemned him to years in prison, and to a life of dishonor and shame.

Once more he endured the horror of a convict’s life--and the death of his mother.

Then came the terrible experiences of his escape--when he was hunted as a wild beast is hunted, with dogs and guns.

And then--the Cañon of Gold, with its promise of peace and safety--its blessed work and dreams and hopes--its miraculous gift of love.

One by one, the strange events of his life in the Cañon of Gold passed in review before him--the period when he lived in the cabin next door to the old prospectors and their partnership daughter--his comradeship with Marta and the sure development of their love--the story of the girl’s questionable parentage that had made it possible for him to think of her as his wife--then the visit of the sheriff--his enforced life of torment with the Indian, and his fruitless toil for the gold that held him with its promise of freedom and Marta.

Again he lived over the coming of the outlaw, with the sudden turn of fortune that made Natachee his ally, and gave him the gold from the Mine with the Iron Door.

And then, with the gold in his possession and all its promises almost within his grasp, the tragedy and disaster that had followed. Until now, having gained the wealth for which, inspired by love, he had toiled and fought, he had lost the thing which gave the gold its value. The thing for which he had wanted the gold had become impossible to him.

The light in the Cañon of Gold went out. The hours passed, and still the man held his place on that wild spot high up in the mountains.

And now he saw and felt the mysteries of the night--saw the wide sea of darkness that engulfed the vast desert below, and felt the whispering breath of the desert air--saw the mighty peaks and shoulders of the mountains lifting out of the dark shadows below, up and up and up into the star-lit sky, and felt the fragrant coolness dropping from the pines that held the snows--saw the night sky filled with countless star worlds, and felt the brooding Presence that fixes the time of their every movement, and marks their paths of gleaming light--saw the black depths of the Cañon of Gold, and felt the ghostly multitude of the disappointed ones who had toiled there, as he had toiled, for the treasure they never found, or, finding, were cursed with its possession.

And then, as one who in a vision glimpses the underlying truth of things, this man, on the mountain heights above the Cañada del Oro, saw that life itself was but a Cañon of Gold.

As men through the ages had braved the dangers and endured the hardships of desert and mountains to gain the yellow wealth from the Cañada del Oro, so men braved dangers and endured hardships everywhere. Every dream of man was a dream of gold. Every effort was an effort for gold. Every hope was a hope for gold. For gold was life and honor and power and love and happiness. And gold was death and dishonor and murder and hatred and misery.

It was gold that had led Marta’s father to purchase the rich mining property from the ignorant owners, for a price that was little more than nothing. The victims of George Clinton’s shrewdness had stolen his child, in the hope that by her they might regain the gold they had lost. It was for gold that Clinton had robbed the people who, because of their need for gold, had trusted him with their savings. To insure himself in the possession of gold, Clinton had sent Donald Payne to prison and condemned him to a life of dishonor. Gold, to the escaped convict, had meant, at first, the bare necessities of life. It had come to mean everything for which a man desires to live. For gold, Sonora Jack had given himself to crime. Lured by the gold of the Mine with the Iron Door he had come to the Cañada del Oro and had been brought, finally, to his death. It was gold that had, at last, led to the revelations that brought the love of Hugh Edwards and Marta to naught.

The man saw that the story of his life in the Cañon of Gold, with its needs, its hopes, its labor, its fears, its victories and defeats, was the story of all life, everywhere.

He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold is a greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest curse of all.

When Hugh Edwards went down to the cabin he found Natachee the Indian waiting for him.