Part 17

“Money doesn’t spoil some people,” remarked the railroad man cryptically.

“But it does others? Chuck it out, Reddick. What do you know about Phil?”

“Oh, I run across him here and there--in places that I didn’t think he’d consent to be found dead in. You see, I knew him when he was with the narrow-gauge a year ago, before he went prospecting. In those days all he needed to make him a saint was a halo; but now he gambles a little, takes a drink when he feels like it--does a lot of things you couldn’t have hired him to do when he first came to Denver.”

“I know,” said the play-boy easily. “I take a drink now and then, myself.”

“But I’ll bet a hen worth fifty dollars you don’t take it solo, and in the places where I’ve seen Phil. However, let’s forget it. It’s none of my business.”

At the corner of Curtis and Seventeenth, Bromley bade his walking companion good-night and turned westward. In the West Denver cottage he found that Jean was the only one sitting up; she was trimming a hat for herself.

“I was in hopes I’d find you still up,” said Bromley, casting himself into the easiest chair the living-room afforded; then, scanting all the preliminaries: “I have found out what we wanted to know.”

It was not like her to demand details, and she did not do so.

“Is it bad?” she asked, without looking up from her work.

“Just about as bad as it can be. I got the clue from Jim Garth, and then went to see for myself. Afterward, I talked with a man who knows.”

“It did happen that Monday night, then?”

“No doubt about it; though Garth couldn’t be sure of the date.”

“Mr. Garth was there?”

“Yes; he saw Phil and his father when they met, and saw them go off together. Things being as they are, it isn’t much wonder that Phil went to pieces. A whole worldful of misfortunes couldn’t have handed out a blow that would more completely smash a man of Phil’s make-up.”

“But Philip isn’t to blame for what his father has done--or is!” she protested.

“It isn’t the blame Philip is taking; it’s the shame.”

“Does the man--Philip’s father--call himself by his right name?”

Bromley’s smile was bleak. “No; he is known as ‘Deadwood’ Kent. It seems that he had decency enough to take an _alias_--though it might have been only for his own protection.”

“You think there is no doubt but that he took the bank’s money?”

The bleak smile came again. “The man I’ve been looking up this evening has done a good many worse things than robbing a bank, if half of what people say about him is true.”

“Poor Philip!” she sighed, and bent lower over her sewing. Then: “He ought not to stay here in Denver, Harry. Can’t you persuade him to go away?”

“Who? Philip, or the Kent person?”

“I meant Philip, of course.”

“I doubt if he’ll budge. Yesterday he outfitted Garth to go prospecting again, and said he had half a mind to go along. But when Garth urged him, he said no; that he’d be a coward if he took to the hills.”

She nodded. “I told you he would punish himself. It is pitiful, isn’t it? Do you see much of him now?”

“Not as much as I should like to. He doesn’t dodge me particularly, but he is keeping all sorts of hours, and it is only a chance if I find him in his rooms when I go up.”

“But when you do see him?” she prompted.

“He is a wonderfully changed man, Jean. You wouldn’t know him at all for the old Philip. I don’t know how to describe the change except to say that it is somehow strangely softening--mollifying--if you know what I mean. It is as if he’d been down into the lower depths himself, and had learned to pity rather than to condemn. His changed attitude toward Jim Garth shows the line he is taking. He has never had anything but harsh contempt for Garth and people of his kind ... you know--people with appetites and no self-control. But now he has done what I have been trying all summer to do, and couldn’t: braced Garth up and sent him into the mountains where he will be out of the way of temptation.”

“I know,” came in low tones from the busy hat-trimmer. “That is the real Philip. But it is terrible that he had to suffer so before he could find himself.”

“He is still suffering; you can see that plainly enough.”

“Is he--is he still drinking?”

“I am afraid he is; though perhaps not so much to excess; at least, I haven’t seen him the worse for liquor since he came back from Leadville. As to that, this wide-open town is partly to blame. It is no exaggeration to say that half of the business of Denver is transacted in the bar-rooms. I get it every day. The minute I begin to talk business with a man, he will say, ‘Well, let’s go and have a drink and talk it over.’ It is in the air.”

A pause for a few moments, and then Jean looked up to say quietly: “Philip was here to-night.”

“What?--here in this house?”

“No; he just walked past--twice. I saw him through the window.”

The play-boy got out of his chair and his voice shook a little when he said:

“That is pathetic, Jean. It means that the sidewalk in front of the house you live in is as near as he will permit himself to approach the old relations. I’m going to bed. For heaven’s sake, don’t sit up and work yourself blind over that hat after you’ve already put in a long day at the shop! Good-night.”

XXII

IT was on the second evening after he had walked up-town with Harry Bromley that Reddick, the railroad passenger agent, squared himself at his desk in the Union Depot office to scowl discontentedly at a basket of freshly opened mail. Though the redheaded young man boasted that he was case-hardened and had no nerves, he had the quick sympathies of his temperament, and he had lately figured in a business episode the effect of which had been to leave him chafing and ashamed and ready to quarrel with his job. While he was absently fingering the letters in the “Unanswered” basket, the door was opened and Philip drifted in.

“Loafing around down below, I saw your office lighted and thought I’d climb up and smoke a pipe,” was his greeting to Reddick. “If you are busy, go on with your job and don’t mind me. I shan’t talk.”

The redheaded one tilted back in his pivot chair and frowned.

“I can’t seem to get down to the job to-night, Phil. I’ve just been a party to something that makes me sick and disgusted with the railroad business and everything connected with it in this blasted, rotten-egg town!”

“Turn it loose if you feel like it,” said the smoker. “I’m a good listener.”

“It isn’t fit to talk about, but I’ll tell you and get it off my chest. You may not know it, but women--of a certain sort--are shipped into this over-manned town like so much freight--prepaid freight, at that. The landlady deposits the passage money with me, and has me wire our agent in New York, or wherever it happens to be, to deliver the ticket, check the woman’s trunk, and send the check to me by mail. In that way the woman lands in Denver in debt for her railroad fare, and with her clothes in hock to secure the debt. You can see how it works. It is slavery, pure and simple. Once in the toils, the poor girl never has a chance to get out, no matter how badly she may want to. She is shipped from place to place, and always in debt; is kept that way purposely.”

Philip swore softly. “You’re telling me that the railroad companies accept that sort of blood money?”

Reddick shrugged.

“If you had worked in the traffic department instead of the accounting, you’d know that the railroad, like most corporations, doesn’t look for the finger-prints on the money it takes in. My orders are to get business. I got into this at first through playing square--through the boss-women finding out that I didn’t graft on them by overcharging--as nearly everybody else does; and now the dirty business chases me--hunts me up.”

“You have had that kind of a job to-day?” Philip asked.

“To-day it was a straight-out, bloody crime, Phil; I’m confident of it. When I get to thinking about my part in it, I want to go hang myself. Of course, this traffic, most of it, is in women who know perfectly well what they are doing; but now and then there are exceptions--some careless or ignorant girl who is tolled along by rosy promises of an easy job in the wild West. I had such a case as that this evening, and it made me want to throw the whole cursed business of railroading into the discard and go buy me a pick and shovel.”

“Let’s have it,” said Philip shortly.

“The girl who came in this evening was ticketed from Des Moines, but her folks--so she told me--live on a farm somewhere north of the Iowa capital. I had the check for her trunk, and I took her and her baggage out to Madam Goguette’s, the place she was booked for. Philip, as long as I live I shall never forget the look in that girl’s eyes when she found out what she was in for; the look and the way she burst out crying and flung herself on the floor when she was told that she couldn’t run away--that she’d have to stay and work out her debt.”

“Pretty tough,” said the pipe smoker evenly. “But, as you say, business is business.”

“I didn’t say any such damned thing!” Reddick broke out hotly. Then: “You’ve come to be a devilish cold sort of fish since you struck it rich, Phil. A year ago a story like this I’ve just told you would have made you rush off and get a lawyer to swear out a writ of _habeas corpus_, or something of that sort. But now you merely say, ‘Pretty tough,’ and go on smoking your rotten pipe!”

Philip smiled. “You get hot under the collar rather easily, don’t you, Reddick? It is a good fault, and sometimes I wish my own hair were a little nearer the color of yours. I’ll quit you and let you get down to work. You won’t get anything done so long as you have somebody around to beef at. Good-night.”

He was about to let himself out when Reddick halted him.

“Hold up a minute, Phil. I’m no spoil-sport, or I don’t mean to be, but while we’re talking about the things that are and ought not to be, I want to make a little roar for the underdog. You’ve been up here evenings playing poker in the car-record office with Middleton and some more of the clerks, off and on, haven’t you?”

“Now and again, yes. What about it?”

“Two things. While pretty nearly everything goes in this wild and woolly neck of woods, it is still barely possible that the Old Man might object to having the car-record, or any other of his offices, turned into a gambling shop. I have a horrible suspicion that he’ll make it hot for somebody, when he finds out. That is one thing, and the other is this: you oughtn’t to gamble with those boys, Phil. They’re not in your class. You carry too long a purse; you know you do. They have nothing but their salaries.”

Philip’s smile was grim.

“I didn’t ask to be let in. I guess some of them thought, because I happen to own a share in a gold mine, I might be good picking. But you are right. I shan’t rob them any more. Anything else on your mind?”

“No. You are a pretty reasonable sort of devil, after all, Phil. Are you going? Well, so long.”

Gaining the street level, the reasonable devil refilled his pipe, lighted it, and set off briskly townward. A square short of Larimer Street he turned to the left past the house where he had once spent a drunkenly unconscious night and went on to another of the same character in the square beyond. The woman who admitted him in answer to his double knock was of the type of her class: large, shapeless, hard-eyed, painted and garishly bejeweled. “Mother Goguette” was the name she went by, but there was little that was motherly about her.

Philip slipped out of his light overcoat and hung it and his hat upon the hall rack as one who knew what was expected of him.

“Reddick, the railroad man, tells me you took in a new girl this evening,” he announced brusquely. “She is the one I want to see.”

“And a lotta good it’ll do you!” was the snapped out reply. “The little fool’s up in her room, cryin’ her eyes out and tryin’ to make me believe she didn’t know where she was comin’ to! She’s no fit comp’ny for a gentleman like you. What she needs is somebody that’ll knock a little sense into her.”

Philip felt in his pocket and put a gold coin into the bejeweled hands.

“I’ll take a chance,” he said. “Which is her room?”

“First one to the right at the head o’ the stairs. You’ll hear her snifflin’, most likely. Sure you wouldn’t rather see one of the other girls?”

“Quite sure,” said Philip, and he ran up the carpeted stair.

On the upper landing he had no difficulty in finding the right door. It opened into a room lighted by a single singing gas jet. Lying face downward on the bed was a girl, “little” only by comparison with the gross-bodied woman down-stairs who had used the word. He had a glimpse of a swollen, tear-stained face, the face of a frightened animal, lifted at the moment of his entrance, only to be buried in the pillows again when she saw him. He closed the door noiselessly and drew up a chair.

“You needn’t be afraid of me,” he began. “I haven’t come here to make things worse for you. I’m here to help you, if you want to be helped.”

The girl turned her face to the wall and sobbed afresh.

“You’re lying to me--everybody’s lied to me. _She_ sent you up--I know she did!”

“No,” he denied gently; “I came because I knew you were needing a friend--a real friend, I mean. Don’t be afraid of me. Sit up here and tell me about it.”

She obeyed the quiet authority in his voice, sitting dishevelled on the bed’s edge and wiping her swollen eyes with a balled and tear-dampened handkerchief. It was the commonplace story too often repeated, of a country girl dissatisfied with the round of farm life; of the lure of the city; and, finally, of the persuasion of the tempter who had started her on the downward road and finished by pretending to find her employment in Denver.

Philip heard the story through to its pathetic end. There was the stamp of truth on every part of the ill-worded confession. It was plainly evident that the girl was not yet old enough in guile to fabricate such a tale on the spur of the moment.

“What may I call you?” he asked.

“Sadie Hansen’s my name.”

“All right, Sadie; let me ask you just one question: would the old folks take you back if you should go home now?”

“They--they’ve never quit writin’ me and beggin’ me to come. If they knew where I am now.... My God--it would kill ’em!”

“Don’t cry any more; it’s all right. You are not going to stay here.”

“But I’ve got to stay. That woman down-stairs says she paid my fare out here, and she’ll make me stay till I can pay her back!”

“Never mind about that. Have you unpacked your trunk?”

“No.”

“That’s good.” He rose and looked at his watch. “Wash your face and comb your hair as quickly as you can. Have you had any supper?”

“No; I couldn’t eat anything if I’d die for it.”

“We’ll see about that later. Straighten yourself up and get ready to go. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She caught at him as he was turning away.

“Tell me what you’re goin’ to do to me! I’ll kill myself if you----”

“Don’t worry; I’m going to send you home--back to your people.”

Before he could stop her she had gone on her knees to him in a frenzy of gratitude.

“Don’t do that!” he protested sharply, lifting her to her feet. “There’s nothing to thank me for, and you haven’t any time to lose. Get busy with the wash-basin.”

In the lower hall he found the hard-faced woman with the bejeweled ears, neck and hands. She was evidently waiting to find out what would befall. Philip was bluntly direct.

“That girl up there will never be any good to you,” he asserted crisply. “If you will tell me how much she owes you, I’ll pay her out and send her home.”

The woman saw her chance and grasped it avidly.

“Yes, you will!” she jeered. “I know your la-de-dah kind. You want her for yourself. I’m short o’ girls, and I ain’t goin’ to let her go!”

“Oh, yes; I think you will,” he countered evenly. “It is only a question of money, isn’t it? How much?” and he drew out a handful of the gold coins.

The woman laughed, a hoarse chuckle with a choking noise to punctuate it.

“Oh, well; if you’re so dead set on it, I’ll sell her to you. How much will you give for her?”

Philip’s eyes burned and his reply was shot-like.

“I’ll pay the price of a human soul. It’s for you to name it, if you haven’t forgotten that you have a soul of your own.”

The woman shrank back as if he had struck her in the face, and in a flash she became a snuffling suppliant.

“There, there, dearie--don’t you look at me that way!” she whimpered. “Of course I ain’t sellin’ nobody’s soul. You pay me what it cost to fetch her here and take her along.” And she named the amount.

He counted the money out and gave it to her; after which he stepped to the hall telephone and twisted the crank until he got a connection with a near-by hack stand. By the time he had brought the girl down, a hack was at the curb. Sending the driver up for the trunk, Philip led the girl to the door. As he did so, the Goguette had recovered herself sufficiently to give a parting flick of the whip.

“Good-by, girlie,” she said. “When he gets through with you, you know where to come.”

“Don’t answer her,” said Philip in low tones; and when the man came with the trunk he got a curt order: “To the Union Depot, and be swift about it.”

At the station Philip again glanced at his watch. There was still time enough, and he took the girl to the depot restaurant, tipped a waiter for a rush order, and told her she must eat. While she was at supper he bought a ticket and a sleeping-car berth and checked the shabby little trunk. Afterward, he went to sit with her until she finished eating, telling her to take her time; that he would see to it that she did not miss her train. Now that she had bathed her face and eyes and made herself presentable, he saw that she was, not pretty, perhaps, but wholesomely comely; and though she did not talk, the look in the big blue eyes that were evidently an inheritance from her Swedish or Danish ancestry was almost dog-like in its affection and gratitude.

When he took her out to the waiting eastbound train, the Denver & Rio Grande express from Pueblo and Colorado Springs had just pulled in, and if he had looked aside he would have seen Bromley welcoming a group of debarking travellers, with Stephen Drew carrying a hand-bag for one of them--a very beautiful and statuesque young woman with a peach-blow complexion and hair like spun gold. Also, he might have seen that, in the procession of the group toward the station egress, Bromley lagged behind, with an eye for himself and the girl standing at the steps of the eastbound sleeper.

“You will find some money in this envelope with the tickets,” he was saying to the girl, “and there is no string tied to it. Just go back to your people and thank God you’ve got the best part of your life before you yet.”

It was then that Harry Bromley, glancing back over his shoulder, saw a thing that he immediately wished he had not seen. The girl had tucked the ticket envelope into her bosom and put up her arms. “I wish you’d let me kiss you, just once,” she said chokingly. “I never knew there was ever such a man as you on top of God’s green earth!”

“There isn’t--not the way you mean it,” Philip denied quickly. “You mustn’t trust any of us--not even me.” Then he took her round face between his hands and kissed her and put her aboard her train; and Bromley, having witnessed the parting, plodded on after the Follansbee group, shaking his head and muttering to himself. He had been hoping that Philip’s plunge into the depths had stopped with the whiskey bottle and the gaming tables, but here was proof positive that it hadn’t. It was a man-killing world, this world of the unfettered West, and the trail of the serpent was over it all.

It was perhaps five minutes after the eastbound train had clanked out over the station switches when Philip lounged into Reddick’s office to lean upon the counter rail and watch the passenger agent as he fingered the keys of one of the lately introduced writing machines. Reddick stopped his two-finger performance and looked up to say, “Back again, are you?”

“Yes,” said the lounger, “but not to stay; just to ease your mind. The girl you were telling me about: she is on her way back to her folks in Iowa, on the train that has just pulled out. I don’t believe you will have to check her trunk again.”

“You went up to the Goguette’s and got her out?”

“Yes.”

Reddick thrust a hand over the railing. “Shake!” he said. “I wish there were more good devils like you in this rotten world--good devils with money to burn. I’d have done it myself, if I’d had the wherewithal. But it was too near pay-day for me.”

“I know you would,” said Philip soberly; and as he turned to go: “When you hear of any more jams like that, just give me a tip, Reddick. As you say, I have money to burn, and I haven’t much else. ’Night.”

XXIII

HAVING seen the Follansbees and Stephen Drew off for their hotel, Bromley lingered on the broad station-plaza platform which served as a hack stand, knowing that Philip must pass this way on his return up-town. When Philip appeared at last, not through the station archway, but at the foot of the stair leading down from the offices on the second floor, the play-boy caught step with him.

“I thought you’d show up if I waited long enough,” he began. Then, taking a leaf out of Philip’s own book of directness: “Who was the girl?”

Philip’s smile was soberly tolerant. “So you were looking on, were you? What did you see?”

“I saw you kiss her and put her on the train.”

“Well?”

“You mean it’s none of my business? I suppose it isn’t. But I did hope you’d stop short of the women, Phil.”

“Why should I?”

“For one reason, if for no other. You’ve been in love with Jean; though you may think you are not, you are still in love with her. How can you----”

Another man might have said the few words which would have made all clear. But Philip Trask was of those who rub salt into their own wounds and find a certain gruesome satisfaction in the process.

“You can’t think any worse of me than I think of myself, Harry. As for Jean ... that is all over and done with, as I told you in the beginning. The stars are not more completely out of my reach, now.”

Bromley gave it up, and they walked on up-town in silence until the Curtis Street corner was reached.

“Not going any farther my way?” Bromley inquired, pausing before he turned westward.

The drifter’s laugh was brittle. “No. Your day is ended, but mine is just fairly beginning. Good-night.”

It was on the day following this evening episode that Bromley, dropping into Charpiot’s for luncheon, found himself seated at a table for two with Reddick. For a time the talk was of mines and mining, and the opening of the new metal and coal fields in the Gunnison country, toward which two railroads were hastily extending their lines to accommodate the anticipated rush to the new district.

“More flotsam and jetsam to be caught later in our own little back-wash here in Denver,” was Reddick’s cynical prophecy; “and more crooks and tinhorns and highfliers to keep ’em company. I’m getting mighty sick of all this high-keyed razzle-dazzle and excitement, Harry. The pace is too swift for little Reddy. I don’t suppose I had taken half a dozen drinks in my life until after I came out here; and now I am getting to be a walking whiskey-barrel.”

Bromley smiled. “Why don’t you cut it out?” he asked.