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Title: The Terms of Surrender

Author: Louis Tracy

Release Date: January 17, 2013 [EBook #41859]

Language: English

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THE TERMS OF SURRENDER




  _By_ LOUIS TRACY

    THE WINGS OF THE MORNING
    THE PILLAR OF LIGHT
    THE GREAT MOGUL
    THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS
    KARL GRIER
    THE WHEEL O' FORTUNE
    THE KING OF DIAMONDS
    THE RED YEAR
    THE MESSAGE
    A SON OF THE IMMORTALS
    THE STOWAWAY
    CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR
    THE SILENT BARRIER
    MIRABEL'S ISLAND
    ONE WONDERFUL NIGHT
    THE "MIND THE PAINT" GIRL
    THE TERMS OF SURRENDER




  The Terms of
  Surrender

  BY
  LOUIS TRACY

  Author of
  "The Wings of the Morning," "One Wonderful Night," etc., etc.

  [Illustration]

  New York
  Edward J. Clode
  Publisher




  Copyright 1913 by Edward J. Clode.




CONTENTS


      I  _At "MacGonigal's"_                     1
     II  _The Terms of Surrender_               18
    III  _Showing How Power Acquired a Limp_    34
     IV  _The Sudden Rise of Peter MacGonigal_  51
      V  _Wherein Power Travels East_           68
     VI  _The Meeting_                          85
    VII  _The Forty Steps_                     104
   VIII  _The Step That Counted_               124
     IX  _The Chase_                           144
      X  _Nancy Decides_                       164
     XI  _Power's Home-Coming_                 185
    XII  _After Darkness, Light_               205
   XIII  _The Beginning of the Pilgrimage_     226
    XIV  _The Wander-Years_                    249
     XV  _The New Life_                        270
    XVI  _Power Driven into Wilderness_        293
   XVII  _Showing How Power Met a Guide_       313
  XVIII  _The Second Generation_               331
    XIX  _The Settlement_                      352
     XX  _The Passing of the Storm_            376




THE TERMS OF SURRENDER




CHAPTER I

AT "MACGONIGAL'S"


"Hullo, Mac!"

"Hullo, Derry!"

"What's got the boys today? Is there a round-up somewhere?"

"Looks that-a way," said Mac, grabbing a soiled cloth with an air of
decision, and giving the pine counter a vigorous rub. At best, he was a
man of few words, and the few were generally to the point; yet his
questioner did not seem to notice the noncommittal nature of the reply,
and, after an amused glance at the industrious Mac, quitted the store as
swiftly as he had entered it. But he flung an explanatory word over his
shoulder:

"Guess I'll see to that plug myself--he's fallen lame."

Then John Darien Power swung out again into the vivid sunshine of
Colorado ("vivid" is the correct adjective for sunshine thereabouts in
June about the hour of the siesta) and gently encouraged a dispirited
mustang to hobble on three legs into the iron-roofed lean-to which
served as a stable at "MacGonigal's." Meanwhile, the proprietor of the
store gazed after Power's retreating figure until neither man nor horse
was visible. Even then, in an absent-minded way, he continued to survey
as much of the dusty surface of the Silver State as was revealed
through the rectangle of the doorway, a vista slightly diminished by the
roof of a veranda. What he saw in the foreground was a whitish brown
plain, apparently a desert, but in reality a plateau, or "park," as the
local name has it, a tableland usually carpeted not only with grama and
buffalo grasses curing on the stem, but also with flowers in prodigal
abundance and of bewildering varieties. True, in the picture framed by
the open door neither grass-stems nor flowers were visible, unless to
the imaginative eye. There was far too much coming and going of men and
animals across the strip of common which served the purposes of a main
street in Bison to permit the presence of active vegetation save during
the miraculous fortnight after the spring rains, when, by local repute,
green whiskers will grow on a bronze dog. Scattered about the immediate
vicinity were the ramshackle houses of men employed in the neighboring
gold and silver reduction works. The makeshift for a roadway which
pierced this irregular settlement led straight to MacGonigal's, and
ended there. As every man, woman, and child in the place came to the
store at some time of the day or night, and invariably applied Euclid's
definition of the nearest way between two given points, the flora of
Colorado was quickly stamped out of recognition in that particular
locality, except during the irrepressible period when, as already
mentioned, the fierce rains of April pounded the sleeping earth and even
bronze dogs into a frenzied activity. Further, during that year, now
nearly quarter of a century old, there had been no rain in April or May,
and precious little in March. As the ranchers put it, in the figurative
language of their calling, "the hull blame state was burnt to a cinder."

The middle distance was lost altogether; for the park sloped, after the
manner of plateaus, to a deep valley through which trickled a railroad
and the remains of a river. Some twenty miles away a belt of woodland
showed where Denver was justifying its name by growing into a city, and
forty miles beyond Denver rose the blue ring of the Rocky Mountains.
These details, be it understood, are given with the meticulous accuracy
insisted on by map-makers. In a country where, every year, the
percentage of "perfectly clear" days rises well above the total of all
other sorts of days, and where a popular and never-failing joke played
on the newcomer is to persuade him into taking an afternoon stroll from
Denver to Mount Evans, a ramble of over sixty miles as the crow flies,
the mind refuses to be governed by theodolites and measuring rods.
Indeed, the deceptive clarity of the air leads to exaggeration at the
other end of the scale, because no true son or daughter of Colorado will
walk a hundred yards if there is a horse or car available for the
journey. Obviously, walking is a vain thing when the horizon and the
next block look equidistant.

It may, however, be taken for granted that none of these considerations
accounted for MacGonigal's fixed stare at the sunlit expanse. In fact,
it is probable that his bulging eyes took in no special feature of the
landscape; for they held an introspective look, and he stopped polishing
the counter as abruptly as he had begun that much-needed operation when
Power entered the store. He indulged in soliloquy, too, as the habit is
of some men in perplexity. Shifting the cigar he was smoking from the
left corner of his wide mouth to the right one by a dexterous twisting
of lips, with tongue and teeth assisting, he said aloud:

"Well, ef I ain't dog-goned!"

So, whatever it was, the matter was serious. It was a convention at
Bison that all conversation should be suspended among the frequenters of
MacGonigal's when the storekeeper remarked that he was dog-goned. Ears
already alert were tuned at once to intensity. When Mac was dog-goned,
events of vital importance to the community had either happened or were
about to happen. Why, those words, uttered by him, common as they were
in the mouths of others, had been known to stop One-thumb Jake from
opening a jack-pot on a pat straight! Of course, the pot was opened all
right after the social avanlanche heralded by the storekeeper's
epoch-making ejaculation had rolled past, or Jake's remaining thumb
might have been shot off during the subsequent row.

Apparently, MacGonigal was thinking hard, listening, too; for he seemed
to be following Power's movements, and nodded his head in recognition of
the rattle of a chain as the horse was tied to a feeding trough, the
clatter of a zinc bucket when Power drew water from a tank, and the
stamping of hoofs while Power was persuading the lame mustang to let him
bathe and bandage the injured tendons. Then the animal was given a
drink--he would be fed later--and the ring of spurred boots on the
sun-baked ground announced that Derry was returning to the store.

Power's nickname, in a land where a man's baptismal certificate is
generally ignored, was easily accounted for by his second name, Darien,
conferred by a proud mother in memory of a journey across the Isthmus
when, as a girl, she was taken from New York to San Francisco by the
oldtime sea route. The other day, when he stood for a minute or so in
the foyer of the Savoy Hotel in London, waiting while his automobile was
summoned from the courtyard, he seemed to have lost little of the erect,
sinewy figure and lithe carriage which were his most striking physical
characteristics twenty-five years ago; but the smooth, dark-brown hair
had become gray, and was slightly frizzled about the temples, and the
clean-cut oval of his face bore records of other tempests than those
noted by the Weather Bureau. In walking, too, he moved with a decided
limp. At fifty, John Darien Power looked the last man breathing whom a
storekeeper in a disheveled mining village would hail as "Derry"; yet it
may be safely assumed that his somewhat hard and care-lined lips would
have softened into a pleasant smile had someone greeted him in the
familiar Colorado way. And, when that happened, the friend of bygone
years would be sure that no mistake had been made as to his identity;
for, in those early days, Power always won approval when he smiled. His
habitual expression was one of concentrated purpose, and his features
were cast in a mold that suggested repose and strength. Indeed, their
classic regularity of outline almost bespoke a harsh nature were it not
for the lurking humor in his large brown eyes, which were shaded by
lashes so long, and black, and curved that most women who met him
envied him their possession. Children and dogs adopted him as a friend
promptly and without reservation; but strangers of adult age were apt to
regard him as a rather morose and aloof-mannered person, distinctly
frigid and self-possessed, until some chance turn in the talk brought
laughter to eyes and lips. Then a carefully veiled kindliness of heart
seemed to bubble to the surface and irradiate his face. All the severity
of firm mouth and determined chin disappeared as though by magic; and
one understood the force of the simile used by a western schoolma'am,
who contributed verse to the _Rocky Mountain News_, when she said that
Derry's smile reminded her of a sudden burst of sunshine which had
converted into a sparkling mirror the somber gloom of a lake sunk in the
depths of some secluded valley. Even in Colorado, people of the poetic
temperament write in that strain.

Now, perhaps, you have some notion of the sort of young man it was who
came back to the dog-goned MacGonigal on that June day in the
half-forgotten '80's. Add to the foregoing description certain intimate
labels--that he was a mining engineer, that he had been educated in the
best schools of the Far West, that he was slender, and well knit, and
slightly above the middle height, and that he moved with the gait of a
horseman and an athlete--and the portrait is fairly complete.

The storekeeper was Power's physical antithesis. He was short and fat,
and never either walked or rode; but his North of Ireland ancestors had
bequeathed him a shrewd brain and a Scottish slowness of speech that
gave him time to review his thoughts before they were uttered. No sooner
did he hear his visitor's approaching footsteps than he began again to
polish the pine boards which barricaded him from the small world of
Bison.

Such misplaced industry won a smile from the younger man.

"Gee whizz, Mac, it makes me hot to see you work!" he cried. "Anyhow, if
you've been whirling that duster ever since I blew in you must be tired,
so you can quit now, and fix me a bimetallic."

With a curious alacrity, the stout MacGonigal threw the duster aside,
and reached for a bottle of whisky, an egg, a siphon of soda, and some
powdered sugar. Colorado is full of local color, even to the naming of
its drinks. In a bimetallic the whole egg is used, and variants of the
concoction are a gold fizz and a silver fizz, wherein the yoke and the
white figure respectively.

"Whar you been, Derry?" inquired the storekeeper, whose massive energy
was now concentrated on the proper whisking of the egg.

"Haven't you heard? Marten sent me to erect the pump on a placer mine he
bought near Sacramento. It's a mighty good proposition, too, and I've
done pretty well to get through in four months."

"Guess I was told about the mine; but I plumb forgot. Marten was here a
bit sence, an' he said nothin'." Power laughed cheerfully. "He'll be
surprised to see me, and that's a fact. He counted on the job using up
the best part of the summer, right into the fall; but I made those
Chicago mechanics open up the throttle, and here I am, having left
everything in full swing."

"Didn't you write?"

"Yes, to Denver. I don't mind telling you, Mac, that I would have been
better pleased if the boss was there now. I came slick through, meaning
to make Denver tomorrow. Where is he--at the mill?"

"He was thar this mornin'."

Power was frankly puzzled by MacGonigal's excess of reticence. He knew
the man so well that he wondered what sinister revelation lay behind
this twice-repeated refusal to give a direct reply to his questions. By
this time the appetizing drink was ready, and he swallowed it with the
gusto of one who had found the sun hot and the trail dusty, though he
had ridden only three miles from the railroad station in the valley,
where he was supplied with a lame horse by the blunder of a negro
attendant at the hotel.

It was his way to solve a difficulty by taking the shortest possible
cut; but, being quite in the dark as to the cause of his friend's
perceptible shirking of some unknown trouble, he decided to adopt what
logicians term a process of exhaustion.

"All well at Dolores?" he asked, looking straight into the storekeeper's
prominent eyes.

"Bully!" came the unblinking answer.

Ah! The worry, whatsoever it might be, evidently did not concern John
Darien Power in any overwhelming degree.

"Then what have you got on your chest, Mac?" he said, while voice and
manner softened from an unmistakably stiffening.

MacGonigal seemed to regard this personal inquiry anent his well-being
as affording a safe means of escape from a dilemma. "I'm scairt about
you, Derry," he said at once, and there was no doubting the sincerity of
the words.

"About me?"

"Yep. Guess you'd better hike back to Sacramento."

"But why?"

"Marten 'ud like it."

"Man, I've written to tell him I was on the way to Denver!"

"Then git a move on, an' go thar."

Power smiled, though not with his wonted geniality, for he was minded to
be sarcastic. "Sorry if I should offend the boss by turning up in
Bison," he drawled; "but if I can't hold this job down I'll monkey
around till I find another. If you should happen to see Marten this
afternoon, tell him I'm at the ranch, and will show up in Main Street
tomorrow P.M."

He was actually turning on his heel when MacGonigal cried:

"Say, Derry, air you heeled?"

Power swung round again, astonishment writ large on his face. "Why, no,"
he said. "I'm not likely to be carrying a gold brick to Dolores. Who's
going to hold me up?"

"Bar jokin', I wish you'd vamoose. Dang me, come back tomorrer, ef you
must!"

There! MacGonigal had said it! In a land where swearing is a science
this Scoto-Hibernico-American had earned an enviable repute for the
mildness of his expletives, and his "dang me!" was as noteworthy in
Bison as its European equivalent in the mouth of a British archbishop.
Power was immensely surprised by his bulky friend's emphatic
earnestness, and cudgeled his brains to suggest a reasonable
explanation. Suddenly it occurred to him a second time that Bison was
singularly empty of inhabitants that day. MacGonigal's query with regard
to a weapon was also significant, and he remembered that when he left
the district there was pending a grave dispute between ranchers and
squatters as to the inclosing of certain grazing lands on the way to the
East and its markets.

"Are the boys wire-cutting today?" he asked, in the accents of real
concern; for any such expedition would probably bring about a struggle
which might not end till one or both of the opposing parties ran short
of ammunition.

"Nit," growled the other. "Why argy? You jest take my say-so, Derry, an'
skate."

"Is the boss mixed up in this?"

"Yep."

"Well, he can take care of himself as well as anyone I know. So long,
Mac. See you later."

"Ah, come off, Derry. You've got to have it; but don't say I didn't try
to help. The crowd are up at Dolores. Marten's gittin' married, an'
that's all there is to it. Now I guess you'll feel mad with me for not
tellin' you sooner."

Power's face blanched under its healthy tan of sun and air; but his
voice was markedly clear and controlled when he spoke, which, however,
he did not do until some seconds after MacGonigal had made what was,
for him, quite an oration.

"Why should Marten go to Dolores to get married?" he said at last.

The storekeeper humped his heavy shoulders, and conjured the cigar
across his mouth again. He did not flinch under the sudden fire which
blazed in Power's eyes; nevertheless, he remained silent.

"Mac," went on the younger man, still uttering each word deliberately,
"do you mean that Marten is marrying Nancy Willard?"

"Yep."

"And you've kept me here all this time! God in Heaven, Man, find me a
horse!"

"It's too late, Derry. They was wed three hours sence."

"Too late for what? Get me a horse!"

"There's not a nag left in Bison. An' it'll do you no sort of good ter
shoot Marten."

"Mac, you're no fool. He sent me to Sacramento to have me out of the
way, and you've seen through it right along."

"Maybe. But old man Willard was dead broke. This dry spell put him slick
under the harrow. Nancy married Marten ter save her father."

"That's a lie! They made her believe it, perhaps; but Willard could have
won through as others have done. That scheming devil Marten got me
side-tracked on purpose. He planned it, just as David put Uriah in the
forefront of the battle. But, by God, he's not a king, any more than I'm
a Hittite! Nancy Willard is not for him, nor ever will be. Give me--but
I know you won't, and it doesn't matter, anyway, because I'd rather
tear him with my hands."

An overpowering sense of wrong and outrage had Power in its grip now,
and his naturally sallow skin had assumed an ivory whiteness that was
dreadful to see. So rigid was his self-control that he gave no other
sign of the passion that was convulsing him. Turning toward the door, he
thrust his right hand to the side of the leather belt he wore; but
withdrew it instantly, for he was a law-abiding citizen, and had obeyed
in letter and spirit the recently enacted ordinance against the carrying
of weapons. He would have gone without another word had not MacGonigal
slipped from behind the counter with the deft and catlike ease of
movement which some corpulent folk of both sexes seem to possess.
Running lightly and stealthily on his toes, he caught Power's arm before
the latter was clear of the veranda which shaded the front of the store.

"Whar 'r you goin', Derry?" he asked, with a note of keen solicitude in
his gruff voice that came oddly in a man accustomed to the social
amenities of a mining camp.

"Leave me alone, Mac. I must be alone!" Then Power bent a flaming glance
on him. "You've told me the truth?" he added in a hoarse whisper.

"Sure thing. You must ha passed the minister between here an' the
depot."

"He had been there--to marry them?"

"Yep."

"And everyone is up at the ranch, drinking the health of Marten and his
bride?"

"Guess that's so."

Power tried to shake off the detaining hand. "It's a pity that I should
be an uninvited guest, but it can't be helped," he said savagely. "You
see, I was carrying out the millionaire's orders--earning him more
millions--and I ought to have taken longer over the job. And, Nancy too!
What lie did they tell her about me? I hadn't asked her to be my wife,
because it wouldn't have been fair; yet--but she knew! She knew! Let me
go, Mac!"

MacGonigal clutched him more tightly. "Ah, say, Derry," he cried
thickly, "hev' you forgot you've left me yer mother's address in San
Francisco? In case of accidents, you said. Well, am I ter write an' tell
her you killed a man on his weddin' day, and was hanged for it?"

"For the Lord's sake, don't hold me, Mac!"

The storekeeper, with a wisdom born of much experience, took his hand
off Power's arm at once, but contrived to edge forward until he was
almost facing his distraught friend.

"Now, look-a here!" he said slowly. "This air a mighty bad business; but
you cahn't mend it, an' ef you go cavortin' round in a red-eyed temper
you'll sure make it wuss. You've lost the gal--never mind how--an'
gittin' a strangle hold on Marten won't bring her back. Yer mother's a
heap more to you ner that gal--now."

One wonders what hidden treasury of insight into the deeps of human
nature MacGonigal was drawing on by thus bringing before the mind's eye
of an unhappy son the mother he loved. But there was no gainsaying the
soundness and efficiency of his judgment. Only half comprehending his
friendly counselor's purpose, Power quivered like a high-spirited horse
under the prick of a spur. He put his hands to his face, as if the
gesture would close out forever the horrific vision which the memory of
that gray-haired woman in San Francisco was beginning to dispel. For the
first time in his young life he had felt the lust of slaying, and the
instinct of the jungle thrilled through every nerve, till his nails
clenched and his teeth bit in a spasm of sheer delirium.

MacGonigal, despite his present load of flesh, must have passed through
the fiery furnace himself in other days; for he recognized the varying
phases of the obsession against which Power was fighting.

Hence, he knew when to remain silent, and, again, he knew when to
exorcise the demon, once and for all, by the spoken word. It was so
still there on that sun-scorched plateau that the mellow whistle of an
engine came full-throated from the distant railroad. The lame horse,
bothered by the tight bandage which Power had contrived out of a girth,
pawed uneasily in his stall. From the reduction works, half a mile away,
came the grinding clatter of a mill chewing ore in its steel jaws. These
familiar sounds served only to emphasize the brooding solitude of the
place. Some imp of mischief seemed to whisper that every man who could
be spared from his work, and every woman and child able to walk, was
away making merry at the wedding of Hugh Marten and Nancy Willard.

The storekeeper must have heard that malicious prompting, and he
combated it most valiantly.

"Guess you'd better come inside, Derry," he said, with quiet sympathy.
"You're feelin' mighty bad, an' I allow you hain't touched a squar' meal
sence the Lord knows when."

He said the right thing by intuition. The mere fantasy of the implied
belief that a quantity of cold meat and pickles, washed down by a pint
of Milwaukee lager, would serve as an emollient for raw emotion,
restored Power to his right mind. He placed a hand on MacGonigal's
shoulder, and the brown eyes which met his friend's no longer glowered
with frenzy.

"I'm all right now," he said, in a dull, even voice; for this youngster
of twenty-five owned an extra share of that faculty of self-restraint
which is the birthright of every man and woman born and bred on the
back-bone of North America. "I took it pretty hard at first, Mac; but
I'm not one to cry over spilt milk. You know that, eh? No, I can't eat
or drink yet awhile. I took a lunch below here at the depot. Tell me
this, will you? They--they'll be leaving by train?"

"Yep. Special saloon kyar on the four-ten east. I reckon you saw it on a
sidin', but never suspicioned why it was thar."

"East? New York and Europe, I suppose?"

"Guess that's about the line."

"Then I'll show up here about half-past four. Till then I'll fool round
by myself. Don't worry, Mac. I mean that, and no more."

He walked a few yards; but was arrested by a cry:

"Not that-a way, Derry! Any other old trail but that!"

Then Power laughed; but his laughter was the wail of a soul in pain, for
he had gone in the direction of the Dolores ranch. He waved a hand, and
the gesture was one of much grace and distinction, because Power
insensibly carried himself as a born leader of men.

"Just quit worrying, I tell you," he said calmly. "I understand. The
boys will escort them to that millionaire saloon. They'll be a lively
crowd, of course; but they won't see me, never fear."

Then he strode off, his spurs jingling in rhythm with each long,
athletic pace. He headed straight for a narrow cleft in the hill at the
back of the store, a cleft locally known as the Gulch, and beyond it, on
another plateau sloping to the southeast, lay the Willard homestead.

MacGonigal watched the tall figure until it vanished in the upward
curving of the path. Then he rolled the cigar between his heavy lips
again until it was securely lodged in the opposite corner of his mouth;
but the maneuver was wasted,--the cigar was out,--and such a thing had
not happened in twenty years! To mark an unprecedented incident, he
threw away an unconsumed half.

"He's crazy ter have a last peep at Nancy," he communed. "An' they'd
have made a bully fine pair, too, ef it hadn't been fer that skunk
Marten. Poor Derry! Mighty good job I stopped home, or he'd ha gone
plumb to hell."

Of course, the storekeeper was talking to himself; so he may not have
said it, really. But he thought it, and, theologically, that is as bad.
Moreover, he might have electrified Bison by his language that night
were he gifted with second sight; for he had seen the last of the proud,
self-contained yet light-hearted and generous-souled cavalier whom he
had known and liked as "Derry" Power. They were fated to meet again many
times, under conditions as varying as was ever recorded in a romance of
real life; but MacGonigal had to find a place in his heart for a new
man, because "Derry" Power was dead--had died there in the open doorway
of the store--and a stranger named John Darien Power reigned in his
stead.




CHAPTER II

THE TERMS


The Gulch was naked but unashamed, and lay in a drowsy stupor. An
easterly breeze, bringing coolness elsewhere, here gathered radiated
heat from gaunt walls on which the sun had poured all day, and
desiccating gusts beat on Power's face like superheated air gushing from
a furnace. Not that the place was an inferno--far from it. On a June day
just a year ago two young people had ridden up the rough trail on their
way to the Dolores ranch, and the girl had called the man's attention to
the exquisite coloring of the rocks and the profusion of flowers which
decked every niche and crevice. It may be that they looked then through
eyes which would have tinted with rose the dreariest of scenes; but even
today, in another couple of hours, when the sun was sinking over the
mountain range to the west, the Gulch would assuredly don a marvelous
livery of orange, and red, and violet. Each stray clump of stunted
herbage which had survived the drought would make a brave show, and
rock-mosses which should be moist and green would not spoil the picture
because they were withered and brown or black.

But Power, despite a full share of the artist's temperament, was blind
to the fierce blending of color which the cliffs offered in the blaze of
sunlight. His eyes were peering into his own soul, and he saw naught
there but dun despair and icy self-condemnation. For he blamed himself
for wrecking two lives. If Nancy Willard could possibly find happiness
as Hugh Marten's wife, he might indeed have cursed the folly of
hesitation that lost her; but there would be the salving consciousness
that she, at least, would drink of the nectar which wealth can buy in
such Homeric drafts. But he was denied the bitter-sweet recompense of
altruism. He knew Nancy, and he knew Marten, and he was sure that the
fairest wild flower which the Dolores ranch had ever seen would wilt and
pine in the exotic atmosphere into which her millionaire husband would
plunge her.

Hugh Marten was a man of cold and crafty nature. Success, and a close
study of its essentials, had taught him to be studiously polite, bland,
even benignant, when lavish display of these qualities suited his
purposes. But he could spring with the calculating ferocity of a panther
if thereby the object in view might be attained more swiftly and with
equal certainty. His upward progress among the mining communities of
Colorado, New Mexico, and, more recently, California had been
meteoric--once it began. None suspected the means until they saw the
end; then angry and disappointed rivals would compare notes, recognizing
too late how he had encouraged this group to fight that, only to gorge
both when his financial digestion was ready for the meal. He had the
faculty, common to most of his type, of surrounding himself with able
lieutenants. Thus, John Darien Power came to him with no stronger
backing than a college degree in metallurgy and a certificate of
proficiency as a mining engineer, credentials which an army of young
Americans can produce; but he discerned in this one young man the master
sense of the miner's craft, and promoted him rapidly.

He paid well, too, gave excellent bonuses over and above a high
salary--was, in fact, a pioneer among those merchant princes who
discovered that a helper is worth what he earns, not what he costs--and
Power was actually entitled, through his handling of the Sacramento
placer mine, to a sum large enough to warrant marriage with the woman he
loved. Not for one instant had the assistant dreamed that his chief was
casting a covetous eye on Nancy Willard. She was a girl of twenty, he a
man looking ten years older than the thirty-eight years he claimed.
Apparently, she was wholly unsuited to become the wife of a financial
magnate. She knew nothing of the outer maze of society and politics;
while it was whispered that Marten would soon run for state governor, to
be followed by a senatorship, and, possibly, by an embassy. To help such
ambitious emprise he needed a skilled partner, a woman of the world, a
mate born and reared in the purple, and none imagined, Power least of
any, that the vulture would swoop on the pretty little song-bird which
had emerged from the broken-down cage of the Dolores ranch. For the
place had been well named. Misfortune had dogged its owner's footsteps
ever since the death of his wife ten years earlier, and Francis Willard
was buffeted by Fate with a kind of persistent malevolence. Neighboring
farms had been rich in metals; his was bare. When other ranchers won
wealth by raising stock, he hardly held his own against disease,
dishonest agents, and unfortunate choice of markets. This present arid
season had even taken from him three-fourths of his store cattle.

Power did not know yet how the marriage had been brought to an issue so
speedily. In time, no doubt, he would fit together the pieces of the
puzzle; but that day his wearied brain refused to act. He might hazard a
vague guess that he had been misrepresented, that his absence in
California was construed falsely, that the letters he wrote had never
reached the girl's hands; but he was conscious now only of a numb
feeling of gratitude that he had been saved from killing his usurper,
and of an overmastering desire to look once more on Nancy's face before
she passed out of his life forever.

He climbed the Gulch to the divide. From that point he could see the
long, low buildings of the ranch, lying forlornly in the midst of empty
stockyards and scorched grazing land; though the Dolores homestead
itself looked neither forlorn nor grief-stricken. A hundred horses, or
more, were tethered in the branding yard near the house. Two huge tents
had been brought from Denver; the smoke of a field oven showed that some
professional caterer was busy; and a great company of men, women, and
children was gathered at that very moment near the porch, close to which
a traveling carriage was drawn up. A spluttering _feu de joie_, sounding
in the still air like the sharp cracking of a whip, announced that the
departure of bride and bridegroom was imminent; but the pair of horses
attached to the carriage reared and bucked owing to the shouting, and
Power had a momentary glimpse of a trim, neat figure, attired in
biscuit-colored cloth, and wearing a hat gay with red poppies, standing
in the veranda. Close at hand was a tall man dressed in gray tweed.

Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Marten were about to start on their honeymoon trip to
New York and Europe!

For an instant Power's eyes were blinded with tears; but he brushed away
the weakness with a savage gesture, and examined the stark rocks on each
side in search of a nook whence he might see without being seen. It was
the careless glance of a man maddened with well-nigh intolerable loss;
yet, had he known how much depended on his choice of a refuge, even in
the very crux of his grief and torment he would have given more heed to
it. As it was, he retreated a few paces, until hidden from any chance
eye which might rove that way from the ranch, chose a break in the cliff
where an expert cragsman could mount forty feet without difficulty, and
finally threw himself at full length on a ledge which sloped inward, and
was overhung by a mass of red granite, all cracked and blistered by
centuries of elemental war. Some stunted tufts of alfalfa grass were
growing on the outer lip of the ledge. By taking off his sombrero, and
peeping between the dried stems, he could overlook the cavalcade as it
passed without anyone being the wiser.

The surface of the rock was so hot as to be almost unbearable; but he
was completely oblivious of any sense of personal discomfort. That side
of the Gulch was in shadow now, and concealment was all he cared for. He
was sufficiently remote from the narrow track to which the horses would
necessarily be confined that he ran no risk of yielding to some
berserker fit of rage if he encountered Marten's surprised scrutiny,
when, perchance, he might have flung an oath at the man who had
despoiled him, and thereby caused distress to the woman he loved. To
avoid that calamity, he would have endured worse evils than the
blistering rock.

He remembered afterward that while he waited, crouched there like some
creature of the wild, his mind was nearly a blank. He was conscious only
of a dull torpor of wrath and suffering. He had neither plan nor hope
for the future. His profession, which he loved, had suddenly grown
irksome. In curiously detached mood, he saw the long procession of days
in the mines, in the mart, in the laboratory. And the nights--ah, dear
Heaven, the nights! What horror of dreariness would come to him then! He
seemed to hear an inner voice bidding him abandon it all, and hide in
some remote corner of the world where none knew him, and where every
familiar sight and sound would not remind him of Nancy Willard. Nancy
Willard--she was Nancy Marten now! He awoke to a dim perception of his
surroundings by hearing his teeth grating. And even that trivial thing
brought an exquisite pain of memory; for Nancy, reading a book one day,
came across a passage in which some disappointed rascal had "ground his
teeth in baffled rage," and he had joined in her shout of glee at the
notion that anyone should express emotion so crudely. So, then, a man
might really vent his agony in that way! Truly, one lived and learned,
and this was certainly an afternoon during which he had acquired an
intensive knowledge of life and its vicissitudes.

But now the elfin screeching of excited cowboys, and a continuous
fusillade of revolvers fired in the air as their owners raced alongside
the lumbering coach, announced that the wedded pair had begun their long
journey. The racket of yells and shooting, heightened by weird sounds
extracted from tin trumpets, bugles, and horns, drew rapidly nearer,
and, at any other time, Power would have been amused and interested by
the sudden eruption of life in the canyon brought about by this unwonted
intrusion on its peace. A horse or so, or a drove of steers, these were
normal features of existence, and no respectable denizen of the Gulch
would allow such trifles to trouble his or her alert wits for a moment.
But this tornado of pistol-shots and bellowing was a very different
matter, and coyotes, jack-rabbits, a magnificent mountain sheep, a
couple of great lizards--in fact, all manner of furred and scaly
creatures--deserted lairs where they might have remained in perfect
security, scampered frantically to other retreats, and doubtless cowered
there till dusk.

A coyote raced up the cleft at the top of which Power was hidden; but,
ere ever he had seen his enemy, man, he was aware of the hidden danger,
and fled to an untainted sanctuary elsewhere. He had hardly vanished
before the leading horsemen galloped into sight, and soon a motley but
highly picturesque regiment of Westerners filled the trail to its utmost
capacity. Both men and horses were at home in this rugged land, and
raced over its inequalities at a pace which would have brought down many
a rider who thinks he is a devil of a fellow when a mounted policeman
gallops after him in the park and cautions him sharply to moderate his
own and his steed's exuberance. Even in the joyous abandonment of this
typical western crowd there was a species of order; for they took care
not to incommode the coach, a cumbersome vehicle, but the only
practicable conveyance of its kind on four wheels which could be trusted
to traverse that rock-strewn path. Its heavy body was slung on stout
leather bands, and the wheels were low, set well apart, and moving on
axles calculated to withstand every sort of jolt and strain. The driver
was performing some excellent balancing feats on his perch while he
egged on a willing team or exchanged yells with some other choice spirit
who tore ahead when the road permitted. Among the throng were not a few
women and girls from Bison. They rode astride like their men folk, and
their shrill voices mingled cheerfully in the din.

Power was deaf and blind to the pandemonium and its sprites: he had eyes
only for the two people seated in the coach. The ancient equipage owned
low seats and lofty windows, having been built during a period when
ladies' headgear soared well above normal standards; so its occupants
were in full view, even at the elevation from which the unseen observer
looked down.

Marten, a powerfully built man, of commanding height and good physique,
clean-shaven, though the habit was far from general in the West at that
date, was evidently exerting himself to soothe and interest his pallid
companion. His swarthy face was flushed, and its constant smile was
effortless; for he had schooled himself to adapt the mood to the hour.
As the personnel of the cavalcade changed with each headlong gallop or
sudden halt, he nodded affably to the men, or bowed with some
distinction to the women; for Marten knew, or pretended that he knew,
every inhabitant of Bison.

His wife knew them too, without any pretense; but she kept her eyes
studiously lowered, and, if she spoke, used monosyllables, and those
scarcely audible, for Marten had obviously to ask twice what she had
said even during the fleeting seconds when the pair were visible to
Power. Her features were composed almost to apathy; but the watcher from
the cliff, who could read the slightest change of expression in a face
as mobile to the passing mood as a mountain tarn to the breeze, felt
that she was fulfilling a compact and holding her emotions in tense
subjection.

He hoped, he prayed, with frenzied craving of the most high gods, that
she might be moved to lift her eyes to his aery; but the petition was
denied, and the last memory vouchsafed of her was the sight of her
gloved hands clasped on her lap and holding a few sprigs of white
heather. Now, it was a refined malignity of Fate which revealed that
fact just then, because heather does not grow in Colorado, and the girl
had culled her simple little bouquet from a plant which Power had given
her. Once, in Denver, he had rendered some slight service to an
expatriated Scot, and, when a sister from Perth joined her brother,
bringing with her a pot of Highland soil in which bloomed the shrub dear
to every Scottish heart, Power was offered a cutting "for luck." Great
was Nancy Willard's delight at the gift; for, like the majority of her
sex, she yielded to pleasant superstition, and the fame of white heather
as a mascot has spread far beyond the bounds of Great Britain.

Power might well have cried aloud in his pain when he discovered that
his lost love had thought of him at the moment she was leaving her old
home. Perhaps he did utter some tortured plaint: he never knew, because
of what happened the instant after Nancy and her spray of heather were
reft from his straining vision.

One-thumb Jake, who had loitered at the ranch for a farewell drink, rode
up at a terrific pace, pulled his bronco on to its haunches alongside
the coach, and by way of salute, fired three shots from a revolver as
quickly as finger could press trigger.

The first bullet sang through the air not more than an inch above
Power's forehead. He recalled afterward a slight stirring of his hair
caused by the passing of the missile, which spat viciously against the
wall of rock some ten feet above the ledge. The next two bullets struck
higher, and their impact evidently disturbed the equipoise of a mass of
stone already disintegrated by frost, because more than a ton of debris
crashed down, pinning Power to the ledge and nearly pounding the life
out of him. The resultant cloud of dust probably helped to render him
unconscious. At any rate, he lay there without word or movement, and, if
he were dead, his bones might have rested many a year in that strange
tomb unless the curiosity of some passerby was aroused by a flock of
quarreling vultures--a spectacle so common in cattle-land that the
wayfarer does not deviate a hand's breadth from his path because of it.

Nancy heard the thunder of the falling rocks, and looked out. The dust
pall told her exactly what had occurred, though the jubilant
congratulation of the shooter by the driver would have explained matters
in any event.

"Good fer you, Jake!" he shouted. "Gosh! when you're fed up on
cowpunchin' you kin go minin' wid a gun!"

She saw, too, what many others saw: A rattlesnake, rudely dislodged from
some deep crevice, emerged from the heap of rubbish, stopped suddenly,
swelled and puffed in anger, rattled its tail-plates, and was obviously
primed for combat. It seemed to change its mind, however, when a fourth
bullet from the cowboy's revolver grazed a big brown rhomboid which
offered a fair target just below the curved neck. There was another
shower of dust and granite chips, and, when this subsided, the reptile
had vanished.

Nancy sat back in the coach. Amid a chorus of laughter and jeers at what
his critics were pleased to regard as bad marksmanship, Jake spurred his
horse into a gallop again.

"What was it?" inquired Marten. Being on the other side of the vehicle,
he was unaware of the cause of this slight commotion.

"Nothing, really," she said dully.

"Oh, come now, little woman--the crowd would not yelp at Jake for no
reason."

"Well, his shots brought down some loose stones, and a rattler appeared
in the middle of the heap. It showed fight, too; but made off when Jake
fired again."

"Oh, is that all? There wouldn't be a snake on the ranch if your father
had kept a few pigs."

"Poor old dad couldn't keep anything--not even me!"

Her listless tone might have annoyed a weaker man; but Marten only
laughed pleasantly.

"I should be very unhappy if he had insisted on keeping you," he said.
"Of course, you hate having to part from him, and from a place where you
have lived during a few careless years; but you will soon learn to love
the big world to which I am taking you. Colorado in June is all very
well; but it can't begin to compare with London in July, the Engadine in
August, and Paris in September. Don't forget that the proper study of
mankind is man--and woman."

And so, the line was dangled skilfully before her eyes, and the spell
whispered gently into her ears, while she, mute and distraught, wondered
whether the dear memories of Colorado would ever weaken and grow dim.
Then she thought of Derry Power, and a film came over her blue eyes; but
she bit her under-lip in brave endeavor, and forced a smile at some
passing friend.

       *       *       *       *       *

Power did not remain unconscious many minutes. The last straggler among
the mounted contingent was clattering through the canyon when the man
who had been near death three times in the same number of seconds awoke
to a burden of physical pain which, for the time, effectually banished
all other considerations.

At first he hardly realized where he was or what had happened. He was
half choked with dust, and the effort of his lungs to secure pure air
undoubtedly helped to restore his senses. It was humanly impossible to
curb the impulse toward self-preservation, and he tried at once to free
his limbs of an intolerable weight. He was able to move slightly; but
the agony which racked his left leg warned him that the limb was either
broken or badly sprained. His profession had often brought similar
accidents within his ken, and indications of a further probable
subsidence among the fallen stones--though the warning was so slight as
to be negligible to the ordinary ear--told him that he must be wary, or
a second avalanche might kill him outright.

By now the air was breathable, and he could see into the deserted Gulch.
He was well aware that no one might be expected to pass that way during
the next hour. Before returning to the feast in preparation at the
ranch, the escort would await the departure of the train; while those
who had not taken part in the procession would certainly remain there
until darkness ended the festivities. So he had the choice of two evils.
He could either possess his soul in patience until the mounted
contingent began to straggle back, or risk another rock-fall.

Naturally, he understood the cause and extent of the mishap, and his
present mood did not brook the delay entailed by the safer course.
Raising head and shoulders by lifting himself on both hands, he
contrived to twist round on his left side, and surveyed the position.
It was bad enough, in all conscience, but might have been worse. By far
the largest piece of granite had been the last to drop, and he saw that
it was poised precariously on some smaller lumps. Any attempt to
withdraw either of his legs (the left one was broken, beyond a doubt)
would disturb its balance, and, if it toppled on his body, he would be
imprisoned without hope of relief by his own effort. Rising still
higher, though each inch gained cost a twinge of agony that brought
sweat from every pore, he achieved a half-sitting, half-lolling posture.
Then, applying his miner's aptitude to the dynamics of the problem, he
packed the threatening boulder with others until it was wedged into
partial security.

He had barely finished this task, which only a splendid vitality enabled
him to carry through, when his eye was caught by something in the new
face of the rock which seemed to fascinate him for a second or two. Then
his mouth twisted in a rictus of dreadful mirth, so wrung was he with
pain, yet so overcome by what he had seen.

"So that is the price!" he almost shouted, accompanying the words with
others which seldom fell from his lips. "Those are the terms of
surrender, eh? Well, it is a compact made in hell; but I'll keep it!"

After that, his actions savored of a maniac's cunning rather than the
desire of a sane man to save his own life. Slowly, with never a groan,
he extracted both legs from beneath the pile of stones. The spurs were
his chief difficulty. One was held so tightly that he had to tear his
foot out by main force; but luckily it was the right foot, or he could
not have done it. Something had to give way under the strain, and
ultimately the spur was released by the yielding of a strap at a buckle.
The torture he suffered must have been intense; but he uttered no sound
save an occasional sob of effort, when all the strength of hands and
wrists were needed to move one or other of the chunks of granite without
dislodging the grim monster he had chained.

At last he was free. He felt the injured limb, which was almost
benumbed, and ascertained beyond doubt that it was fractured below the
knee. But he was safe enough, even though the precarious structure of
stones collapsed, and any other victim of like circumstances would have
been content with that tremendous achievement. Not so John Darien Power.

The mere fact that he need now only lie still until assistance reached
him seemed to lash him into a fresh panic of energy. After a hasty
glance into the canyon, obviously to find out whether or not anyone was
approaching, he began to throw pieces of debris into the fissure left
bare by the fall. When he had exhausted the store within reach he
crawled to a new supply, and piled stone upon stone until the rock wall
was covered to a height of more than two feet. Even then he was not
satisfied; but moved a second time, his apparent object, if any, being
to give the scene of his accident the semblance of a stone slide.

Finally, he did the maddest thing of all, lowering himself down the
cleft with a rapidity that was almost inconceivable in a man with a
broken leg. On reaching the level of the trail he slipped and fell.
That drew a queer sort of subdued shriek from his parched throat; but,
after a moment of white agony, he began to crawl in the direction of the
ranch. He chose that way deliberately, because the slope was downhill,
and not so rough as in the upper part of the gorge. With care, for he
meant to avoid another slip, but never halting, he dragged his crippled
body fully a hundred yards from the foot of the ledge. Then he crept
into the shade, at a spot where the side of the Gulch rose sheer for
twenty feet, turned over on his back, and lay quietly.

He had almost reached the end of his tether. His face was drawn, and
disfigured with dirt and perspiration. His eyelids dropped
involuntarily, as though to shut out a world which had suddenly become
savagely hostile; but his lips moved in a wan grimace, a wry parody of
the generous, warm-hearted smile that people had learned to associate
with Derry Power.

"My poor Nancy!" he murmured brokenly. "My dear lost sweetheart! If the
Fates have bought you from me, I was no party to the deal, and I'll
exact the last cent on it--I swear that by your own sprig of white
heather! Someone will pay, in blood and tears, or I'll know the reason
why! Yes, someone will pay! Power versus Marten, with the devil as
arbitrator! Marten has won the first round; but I'll take it to a higher
court. I'll choke the life out of him yet--choke--the beast!"

Of course, Power was light-headed.




CHAPTER III

SHOWING HOW POWER ACQUIRED A LIMP.


If any sentient thought loomed vaguely through the haze of pain and
exhaustion which enwrapped Power like a pall, it was that he would
probably lie there a long time before help came; yet he had hardly
uttered that half-delirious vow before he was aware of an animal
snuffing cautiously around him, and the knowledge galvanized him into a
species of activity. He turned on his right side, and raised himself on
one hand, the fingers of which closed instinctively on a heavy stone as
supplying a weapon of defense.

But his eyes rested only on a dog, a dapper fox-terrier, whose furtive
curiosity changed instantly to alarm, as it retreated some distance, and
barked excitedly. Then Power saw the animal's master, a stranger, or, at
any rate, a newcomer, in the district, a man of about his own age, who
rode a compactly-built pony with the careless ease of good horsemanship,
and was dressed _de rigueur_, except for the broad-brimmed hat demanded
by the Colorado sun.

Evidently the horseman was not surprised at finding someone lying in the
Gulch.

"Hullo!" he cried. "Had a spill?"

Power tried to speak; but the dust and grit in his throat rendered his
words almost inaudible. Then the other understood that if, as he
imagined, copious drafts of champagne had caused some unaccustomed head
to reel, the outcome was rather more serious than a mere tumble. He
urged the pony rapidly nearer, and dismounted, and a glance at Power's
face dispelled his earlier notion.

"What's up?" he inquired in a sympathetic tone. "Are you hurt?"

Power's second effort at ordered speech was more successful. "Yes," he
said. "My leg is broken."

"Ah, that's too bad. Which leg?"

"The left."

"Were you thrown?"

"No."

The stranger noted the soiled condition of the injured man's clothing.
He saw that a spur had been torn off, and among the drying dirt on
Power's face and hands were some more ominous streaks; since a man may
not squirm in agony beneath a shower of jagged granite and escape some
nasty abrasions of the skin.

"I see," he said gently. "You fell from up there somewhere," and he
looked at the cliff, "tripped over that missing spur, I suppose. Well,
what's to be done? Were you at the ranch? I didn't happen to come across
you. Shall I take you there?"

"No, please--to Bison--to MacGonigal's store."

"Ah, yes. But it's an awkward business. You can't possibly hold yourself
in the saddle. Can you stand on one leg, even for a few seconds?"

"I fear not. I'm about done."

"But if I carry you to the face of the rock there, and prop you against
it?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

This friend in need pulled the reins over the pony's head, passed them
through his arm, lifted Power, not without some difficulty, and brought
him to a spot where the precipice rose like a wall.

"There you are!" he gasped; for he was of slender proportions, and
Power's weight was deceptive, owing to his perfect physical fitness.
"Now I'll mount, and hold you as comfortably as I can; but I don't know
how this fat geegee will behave under a double load, so I must have my
hands free at first. Will you grip me tight? It may hurt like sin----"

"Go right ahead!" said Power.

Sure enough, when the pony found what was expected of him, he snorted,
raised head and tail, and trotted a few indignant paces.

The rider soon quieted him to a walk; but they were abreast of the scene
of Power's accident before he was aware that the man clasping his body
had uttered neither word nor groan, though the prancing of the horse
must have caused him intense agony.

"By Jove!" came the involuntary cry, "you've got some sand! I'd have
squealed like a stuck pig if I was asked to endure that. Who are you?
I'm Robert H. Benson, Mr. Marten's private secretary."

"My name is Power," was the answer, in a thick murmur.

"Bower?"

"No--Power."

"Not John Darien Power, who was at Sacramento!"

"Yes."

"Gee whizz! I've written you several letters. You remember my initials,
R. H. B.?"

"Yes."

"Can you talk? Say if you'd rather not."

"No, no. It's all right. Anyhow--I'd--sooner--try."

"Does the boss know you're here?"

"I guess not. I wrote him--to Denver; but he's been engaged--otherwise."

"Ra-ther! Getting wed. You've heard? I'm sure you're as much surprised
as any of us. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he told
me why I was wired to come West by next train from New York. 'I want you
to take hold,' he said. 'I'm off to Europe for six months on my wedding
trip.' That was the day before yesterday, and here he's gone already! I
had a sort of notion, too, that our beloved employer would never take
unto himself a wife, or, if he did, that the U. S. A. would hear about
it."

A hard smile illuminated the pallor of Power's face. "Marten doesn't
hire a brass band when he has any startling proposition in mind," he
said.

Benson laughed. He was a cheerful, outspoken youngster--exactly the kind
of private secretary the secretive millionaire might have been expected
to avoid like the plague, if Marten had not chosen him deliberately
because of those very qualities.

"No," he chuckled. "You and I know that, don't we? But signing on for a
wife is a different matter to securing an option on a placer mine. I
should have thought there would be things doing when H. M. joined the
noble army of benedicts, especially after he had sorted out such a
daisy.... Sorry, Power! The peak of this saddle must be dashed
uncomfortable. And, perhaps, I'm not carrying you to rights. One ought
to be taught these things. Now, a cavalry soldier would be trained in
the art of picking up a wounded mate, and in carrying him, too."

"It's not far. I can last out."

"You don't mind having a pow-wow? Guess you prefer it? You knew Miss
Willard, I suppose? By the way, were you coming to the wedding?"

"No. I am here by chance."

"Well, of course, I rather fancied that. If I had been asked offhand how
much time that Sacramento job would use up, I should have said another
three months, at least. Is all the machinery there?"

"Yes."

"Pumps, and all?"

"Yes."

"Sorry if I appear inquisitive, but----"

"The pumps are working. I got a hustle on the contractors."

"Great Scott! I should think so, indeed. They'll make a song about it in
Chicago. Have you sent in the consulting engineer's certificate?"

"Yes. It's in Denver."

"Then I'll tell you something that is good for broken legs. The boss was
talking of you only yesterday. He said you were to collect five
thousand dollars when that placer mine was in shape. He forgets
nothing, does he?"

"Nothing."

Power's stricken state was sufficient excuse for any seeming lack of
gratitude, and his rescuer's mind reverted to the more immediate topic
of the marriage.

"I asked if you were acquainted with Miss Willard," he went on.
"Naturally, you must have seen her often. She was born and bred on this
ranch, I believe."

"Bred here, yes; but born near Pueblo, I've been told."

"Say, isn't she a peach?"

"A pretty girl, very."

"Rather quiet, though. Kind of subdued, to my taste. Life on the Dolores
ranch must have been a mighty tough proposition, I imagine. But she'll
brighten up as Mrs. Marten. They all do."

"Is Marten a sultan, then?"

The private secretary chortled over the joke. "I'm jiggered if I could
have pulled off a wheeze like that if I had been chucked off a cliff and
my leg was out of gear!" he cried. "No, my boy, Marten has a clean
record in that respect. I've never known him look twice at any woman;
though he's had chances in plenty. What I mean is that these sweet young
things who have never seen a real store, and don't know sable from dyed
rabbit, wake up amazingly when they're Mrs. Somebody of Somewhere. Look
at Mrs. Van Pieter! A year ago she was keeping tab on people who hired
her father's canoes at Portland, Maine, and it's hardly a week since I
met her in Tiffany's, matching pearls at a thousand dollars a pick."

"What were you doing in Tiffany's?"

The question seemed to take Benson by surprise; but, though he might be
talkative as a parrot, he did not discuss his employer's personal
behests.

"Having a look around," he said.

"I thought you might be buying Mrs. Marten's wedding gift," went on
Power.

"Well, as a guesser, you'd come out first in a prize competition."

"It was--just--curiosity. I wondered--what--Marten gave her."

"That's no secret. She wore it today. A collarette of diamonds."

"Ah, a collar! Has it a golden padlock? Is there a leash?"

"Say, now! Aren't you feeling pretty bad? We're going downhill, and it
jolts. But we're near that store. What's the name?"

"MacGonigal's."

"To be sure. I had forgotten. Queer fellow, the proprietor. Looks like a
character out of one of Bret Harte's novels. Is there a doctor in
Bison?"

"Yes--of a sort. He's sober, some days."

"Let's hope this is one of the days."

"Drunk or sober, he can pull a leg straight and tie it in splints."

"But it ought to be fixed in plaster of Paris. That's the latest dodge.
Then you'll be able to hobble about in less than a month. Why, here's
the storekeeper himself. He must have been looking this way."

"He was expecting me. I promised to meet him about four o'clock."

"Well, you're on time."

"Thanks to you."

"Ah, come off! A lot I've done; though I do believe it was better to
keep up a steady flow of chatter than to be asking you every ten yards
how you were feeling.... Hi, there! I've brought your friend Power; but
he's in rather bad shape. Had a fall up in the Gulch, and one leg is
crocked."

The pony needed no urging to halt, and Power, whose head was sunk
between his shoulders, looked as if he would become insensible again at
the mere thought of renewed exertion.

"A fall!" repeated MacGonigal, moving ponderously to the near side, and
peering up into Power's face. "Well, ef I ain't dog-goned! What sort of
a fall?"

"Just the common variety--downward," said Benson. "His left leg is
broken below the knee. Can you hold him until I hitch this fiery steed
to a post? Then I'll help carry him to a bedroom. After that, if I can
be of any use, tell me what to do, or where to go--for the doctor, I
mean."

By this time MacGonigal had assured himself that Power's clothing was
not full of bullet-holes, and he began to believe that Benson, whom he
recognized, was telling the truth.

"Give him to me," he said, with an air of quiet self-confidence. "Back
of some sugar casks in the warehouse thar you'll find a stretcher.
Bring that along, an' we'll lay him in the veranda till the doc shows
up."

Soon the hardly conscious sufferer was reposing with some degree of
comfort in a shaded nook with his back to the light. MacGonigal, whose
actions were strangely deft-handed and gentle for so stout a man, was
persuading him to drink some brandy.

"He has collapsed all at once," said Benson commiseratingly. "He perked
up and chatted in great shape while I was bringing him through the
Gulch."

"Did he now?... Yes, Derry, it's me, Mac. Just another mouthful.... An'
what did he talk about, Mr. Benson?"

"Oh, mostly about the wedding, I guess."

"Nat'rally. He'd be kind of interested in hearin' how Marten had scooped
up Nancy Willard."

Some acrid quality in the storekeeper's tone must have pierced the fog
which had settled on Power's brain. He raised a hand to push away the
glass held to his lips.

"Say, I've only secured a broken leg, Mac," he murmured, smiling into
the anxious face bent over him. "I don't want to be doped as well.
Perhaps Mr. Benson will mount that nag of his, and bring Peters."

"Look-a here, Derry, hadn't we better send to Denver?"

"No. Peters has set dozens of legs and arms."

"I guess he's back at the ranch. He went thar, an' I hain't seen him
among the crowd."

"Is he a tall, red-whiskered chap, with a nose that needs keeping out of
the sun?" broke in Benson.

"Yep. That's him."

"Well, he's there now--and--not so bad. Does he really understand
bone-setting?"

"Sure. He's all to rights when not too much in likker."

"I'll have him here in half an hour."

Benson whistled to the dog, and they heard the clattering hoofbeats of
the cob's hurried departure. MacGonigal brought a chair, and sat by his
friend's side.

"Was it a reel tumble, Derry?" he asked softly.

"Seems like it, Mac. Don't worry your kind old fat head. No one saw me.
Let me lie quiet now, there's a good soul. I've done enough thinking for
today."

"Say, Boy, kin yer smoke?"

"No--not till the doc is through."

MacGonigal bit the end off a cigar, bit it viciously, as if he were
annoyed at it. Then he struck a match by drawing it sharply along the
side of his leg, and lit the cigar; but not another word did he utter
until a thunder of hoofs disturbed the hot silence of the afternoon.

"Guess that's some of the boys comin' from the depot," whispered Mac.
"They'll not suspicion you're here, Derry, an' I'll soon have a stampede
by tellin' 'em the doc is loose among the bottles."

True to his promise, he got rid of the thirsty ones quickly; for this
smaller batch had not even awaited the departure of the train.

"Air you awake, Derry?" he inquired, when he had crept back softly to
his chair.

"Yes."

"What's this yarn about One-thumb Jake shootin' a rattler?"

"I--don't know. He didn't shoot me, Mac. I got slammed on a rock, good
and hard."

"I on'y axed because I'm nearly fed up with Jake an' his gun-play."

"Ah, quit it, you sleuth. Jake wouldn't pull his gun on me, not even at
Marten's bidding."

"He kin be the biggest damn fool in Bison when he's loaded. Anyhow, I'll
take your say-so."

There was another period of quietude, when brooding thought sat heavy on
MacGonigal, and pain gnawed Power with its sharpest tooth. Then came the
sound of galloping horses again, and Benson appeared, guiding a big man
who rolled in his walk; for the fast canter had stirred many varieties
of alcohol in an overburdened system. The private secretary's voice was
raised in order that the others might hear.

"I would advise you to bandage the limb sufficiently to give Mr. Power
some sort of ease until Dr. Stearn comes from Denver," he was urging. "I
am sure that Mr. Marten would wish this case to be attended by his own
doctor, and I know that Dr. Stearn attends him."

"Stearn! What does that old mutt know about surgery?" shouted Peters. "I
could set a compound fracture while he was searching around for his
eyeglasses.... Hullo, Mac! You're always the right man in the right
place. Bring me a highball, to clear the dust out of the pipes."

"You jest fix Derry first, Peters, an' you kin hev two highballs."

The red-whiskered man, whose medical degree was a blend of sheer
impudence and a good deal of rough-and-ready experience, knew MacGonigal
so well that he did not attempt to argue.

"Very well," he said sulkily. "Break up an egg box, and saw it into
eighteen-inch lengths, four inches wide. You have a roll of lint and
scissors? I'll rip up his trousers, and have a look at the place."

His actions were decided, but somewhat awkward. When Power winced
because of a careless handling of the injured limb, he only guffawed.

"Nips you a bit!" he grunted. "Of course it does. I'd like to know what
you expected. Did you fancy you could flop over the Gulch like a
crow?... Oh, here we are! Just an ordinary smash. Hurry up with those
splints, Mac. Now, just set your teeth and grin hard while I pull....
There! Did you hear it? I'll not hurt you more than I can help while I
do the dressing. Got any bromide in that den of yours, Mac? Well, give
him a ten-grain dose every three hours till he sleeps. Get the rest of
his clothes off, keep him in bed for three weeks, and the rest may be
left safely to Nature. Gee whizz! I'm chewing mud. Where in hell do you
keep your whisky?"

"Doctor" Peters had a professional manner which did not inspire
confidence; but he seemed to understand what he was about, and Benson,
when he could be of no further service, went to the reduction mill,
where he had business which detained him until a late hour. Next
morning, on his way to Denver, he called at the store, and visited
Power, who was feeling a great deal better, and was confident that the
damaged limb would soon be as sound as ever.

"I hope you won't think it necessary to trouble Mr. Marten with any
report of my accident," went on the invalid. "You see, in a sort of a
way, it happened in connection with his marriage, as I was watching the
festivities when it happened--had my eyes anywhere but where they ought
to be, I suppose--and if his wife came to hear of it she might take it
to heart. Sometimes a woman has odd notions about such things occurring
on her wedding day."

"Right you are," agreed Benson cheerfully.

A remark dropped by the manager of the mill had supplied a reason for
the young engineer's interest in the marriage, and he had come to the
conclusion that the sooner the whole affair was forgotten the better it
would be for all parties.

"I'll be in Denver till September or thereabouts; but I'll be seeing you
long before then," he continued. "What about squaring your account? I
think I have all the details in the office."

"Pay what is coming to me by check to Smith & Moffat's bank," said
Power. "They'll let me know when they get the money, and you can mail a
receipt here for my signature. By the way, I wish to resign my position
on Marten's staff as from yesterday."

"Sorry to hear that. Do you really mean it?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll put that through, also. Goodby, old chap, and good luck.
You'll be well looked after, I suppose?"

"I couldn't be in better hands than Mac's. If he didn't own a hard head,
his big heart would have ruined him long ago."

"An unusual combination," laughed Benson, and his eyes met Power's
quizzically. "Well, so long! Let me know if I can do anything."

Beyond the purely business formalities connected with the payment of
Power's salary and the acceptance of his resignation, Benson heard
little of him until ten days later, when a telegram reached him in the
early morning. It was from MacGonigal, and read:

"Don't like the look of Power's leg. Send doctor."

That afternoon Benson brought Dr. Stearn to the store, and MacGonigal
explained that from some remark grunted by Peters when quite sober, and
from personal observation, he was not satisfied with the appearance of
Power's injured limb. The doctor, a fully qualified medical man, was
very wroth with Peters when he had made a brief examination of the
patient.

"This is the work of an incompetent quack," he said angrily. "Whoever
the man may be, he is the worst sort of idiot--the sort that knows a
little of what he is doing. The splints and bandaging have served their
purpose only too well, because callous is forming already. Unless you
wish to have one leg half an inch shorter than the other during the rest
of your life, Mr. Power, you must let me put you under ether."

"Why?" came the calm-voiced question.

"To put it plainly, your leg should be broken again, and properly set."

"What is wrong with it?"

"You know you have two bones in that part of the leg which is below the
knee, the tibia and the fibula? Well, they were broken--by a blow, was
it? No, a fall--well, they practically amount to the same thing, though
there are indications that this injury was caused by a blow----"

"He fell off one rock onto another, doctor," put in Benson.

"Ah, yes! That accounts for it. As I was saying, they were broken
slantwise, and now, instead of being in correct apposition, the upper
parts override the lower ones. Do you follow?"

"Suppose they are not interfered with, will they heal all right?" said
Power.

"Y-yes," came the grudging admission; "but you'll walk with a limp."

"Bar that, the left leg will be as strong as the right one?"

"Stronger, in that particular place. Nature does some first-rate
grafting, when the stock is young and exceptionally healthy."

Power smiled, almost with the compelling good-humor of other days. "Then
I'll limp along, Doctor," he said. "I have things to do, and this
enforced waste of time is the worst feature of the whole business. It is
very good of you to come out here, and more than kind of Mr. Benson to
accompany you; but I won't, if I can avoid it, endure another ten days
like the sample I have just passed through."

"You'll regret your decision later. There's no means of adding that half
inch afterward, you know."

"I quite understand, Doctor. It's a limp for life."

Dr. Stearn felt the calf muscles and tendons again, and pressed the
region of the fracture with skilled gentleness.

"It's a pity," he growled. "You've made a wonderful recovery. If, when
you are able to hobble about, you meet this rascal, Peters, and shoot
him, call me as a witness in your behalf. It would be a clear case of
justifiable homicide!"

So that is how John Darien Power acquired the somewhat jerky movement
which characterizes his walk today; though the cause of it is blurred by
the mists of a quarter of a century. The red-whiskered Peters was shot
long ago, not by Power, but by an infuriated miner from whose jaw he had
wrenched two sound teeth before discovering the decayed stump which led
to this display of misplaced energy. It was well that such impostors
should be swept out of the townlets of Colorado, even if the means
adopted for their suppression were drastic. They wrought untold mischief
by their pretensions, and brought hundreds of men and women to needless
death. They did some little good, perhaps, in communities where
physicians and surgeons were few and far between; but their rough and
partly successful carpentry of the human frame did not atone for the
misery they inflicted in cases which demanded a delicately exact and
scientific diagnosis. At any rate, they have gone, never to be seen
again in Colorado, and the precise manner of their departure, whether
by rum, or lead, or wise and far-reaching laws, does not concern this
narrative.

What does concern it most intimately is the first use Power made of his
limping steps; for upon their direction and daily increasing number
depended the whole of his subsequent history. Life still held for him
certain rare and noteworthy phases--developments which, when viewed
through the vista of many years, seemed as inevitable and preordained as
the ordered sequence of a Greek tragedy. Yet, on the day he hobbled out
into the sunshine again, it was just the spin of a coin whether he rode
to the Dolores ranch or took train for Denver, and it is safe to say
that had he done the one thing instead of the other his future career
must have been drawn into an entirely different channel.

At least, that is the way men reason when they review the past, and
single out some trivial act which apparently governed their destinies;
whereat, in all probability, the gods smile pityingly, for the lives of
some men cannot be the outcome of idle chance, and John Darien Power's
life was assuredly no commonplace one.




CHAPTER IV

THE SUDDEN RISE OF PETER MACGONIGAL


A four-wheeled buggy, with springs, the only vehicle of its kind in
Bison, had been hired for Power's first outing. During a whole week
toward the close of July he had stumped about on a crutch, and, when the
great day arrived that he was able to crawl slowly to and fro in the
veranda with the aid of a stick, he announced to the watchful MacGonigal
that henceforth he was "on the job again."

On that memorable occasion, while Derry was showing off the new-found
accomplishment of walking, an elderly man, white-haired and wiry, but of
small stature, rode by on a mettlesome mustang. Power's face grew hard
when he met the rider's stare of astonishment; but the expression fled
instantly, and he waved a friendly greeting, which, however, received
the curtest of responses, while the horse unexpectedly found his head
free for a canter.

MacGonigal, whose big eyes lost nothing within range, noted the bare nod
which acknowledged Power's salute.

"Old man Willard held out the marble mitt that-a time, Derry," said he.

Power did not reply for a moment. When he answered, he quoted Dryden's
couplet:

  "Forgiveness to the injured doth belong;
  But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong."

"Good fer you, Derry!" exclaimed the storekeeper appreciatively. "I've
often wondered what you was connin' to yerself up thar," and he jerked
his head in the direction of Power's bedroom; "but I never allowed it
was po'try."

"You were not mistaken, Mac. I was hard at work on dry prose. Those
lines are not mine. They were written before Colorado was christened,
and they will be true until men attain the millennium."

"Huh!"

MacGonigal took refuge in a noncommittal grunt, because he fancied that
the millennium was the name of a Chicago vaudeville house, and, somehow,
the notion did not seem to fit into its right place in the conversation.

"For all that," mused Power aloud, "I'll call on Mr. Francis Willard,
tomorrow."

So this resolution explained the light conveyance standing outside the
store next morning. Power was in the act of settling himself as
comfortably as might be beside the driven, when One-thumb Jake galloped
down the slope leading from the Gulch. The cowboy pulled up in the
approved style of his tribe, swung out of the saddle, and banged into
the veranda a decrepit portmanteau, which he had been carrying in the
thumbless hand.

"Room an' drink fer a single gent!" he shouted. "I'm an orfin, I am, a
pore weak critter slung out inter a crool world!"

"You're never leaving the Willard outfit, Jake?" said Power, who might
well be surprised, since the man had been connected with the Dolores
ranch since the first lot of cattle was turned loose on its pastures.

"That's about the size of it," said the other.

"But why?"

"The old man says, 'Git!' an' I got."

"No reason?"

"Wall, if you squeeze it outer me, I'll be squoze. In a sort of a way,
it had ter do with you."

"With me?"

"Yes, sir. The boss says ter me yestiddy, 'Why is Derry Power hangin'
roun' Mac's?' Says I, 'He bruk his leg.' 'Pity he didn't break his
neck,' says the boss, an', seein' as you'se a friend of mine, I didn't
agree with any sich sentiments, an' tole him the same. He kind o' curled
up then; but this mornin' he gev me the perlite push,--said as he was
quittin' Bison fer a spell, an' the ranch would be shut down. Anyways,
Derry, I'm mighty glad ter see you hoppin' aroun'. Git down outer that
rig, an' hev a sociable drink."

Power consulted his watch, and seemed to arrive at some decision on the
spur of the moment.

"Can't wait now," he said. "You'll be here this evening?"

"Sure."

"Then I'll be around, and I may table a proposition that will please
you. Jim," this to the driver, "beat it to the depot. I want to make the
ten o'clock to Denver, and we have only twenty minutes."

MacGonigal, as usual a silent auditor, gazed after the cloud of dust
raised by horse and buggy, and was minded, perhaps, to say something.
Whatever may have been his first intent, he repressed it.

"What's yer pizen, Jake?" he inquired, and the cowboy named it.

Late that night Power returned. He was so tired that he had practically
to be carried to bed; but he contrived to tell the storekeeper that Jake
should remain in Bison at his (Power's) expense until certain business
conditions had developed. Next day he was too exhausted to take any
exercise; but sat in the veranda after breakfast, smoking and chatting
with the habitues, whose varied surmises he shared, when a stranger
whizzed through the township in the buggy, vanished in the direction of
the Gulch, and returned with equal celerity of movement a couple of
hours subsequently.

"Looks like a lawyer," said some wiseacre. "Them fellers air allus on a
hair-trigger when a mortgage falls in."

"Is Willard's time up?" inquired another man.

"Thar was talk about it afore this dry spell kem an' cleared him out. Of
course----"

The speaker stopped suddenly. He was on the point of alluding to Nancy's
marriage, when he remembered that Power was present, and, in such
circumstances, it is safe to assume that a gathering of rough western
miners will display more real courtesy and consideration for the
feelings of others than may be forthcoming in far more pretentious
circles.

"No need to trip your tongue on my account," laughed Power, reaching
lazily for a glass of milk and seltzer. "You were going to say, I
suppose, that when Mr. Willard's daughter married a rich man the
mortgage difficulty would disappear."

"Somethin' like that, Derry," was the answer.

"Did you ever hear the amount of the mortgage?"

"Five thousand, I was told."

Power laughed again. "Five thousand!" he cried. "Surely Nancy Willard
cost more than that! Why, Marten gave me that amount as a rake-off on
one job I put through for him this spring."

The words were bitter as gall, though uttered in a tone of quiet banter.
None spoke in reply. Each man there had seen Power and the girl
scampering together through Bison on their ponies so often that the two
were marked down by good-natured gossip as "made for each other."
Sympathy now would be useless and misplaced; so there was silence for
awhile, until a safer and collectively interesting topic was broached by
MacGonigal.

"Kin anybody here tell me what's going on at the mill?" he asked
suddenly.

The "mill," as the agency through which many thousands of tons of
low-grade telluride ore were transmuted weekly into a certain number of
ounces of gold and silver, was the breath of life to Bison. If it
stopped, the greater part of the little town's inhabitants was aware
instantly of bare cupboards and empty pockets. Work might cease at the
mines for varying periods without causing vital harm to the community;
but the metal pulses of the mill must beat with regularity, or Bison
suffered from a severe form of heart disease. Consequently, there was no
rush to volunteer information; though some of those present had had
their suspicions that all was not as it should be with the giant whose
clamant voice rang ever in their ears.

"Some books and things was carted from the office to Denver
a-Wednesday," said the know-all who had spoken about the mortgage.

"Why?"

The storekeeper's tone was ominous, and the other man grinned uneasily.

"Guess it's what they call an audit," he said.

"Thar's been two audits a year fer ten years at Bison, an' the books hev
never gone ter Denver afore."

"Page has been nosin' around, too, like as if he was takin' stock," put
in a feeder, whose task it was to guide and shovel ore into the rolls.

"Page oughter know what's in the mill by this time," said MacGonigal,
and indeed, the personage under discussion being the manager, the
statement was almost excessively accurate.

"Thar was talk in the papers awhile sence about some new process fer
treatin' low-grade ores," commented the feeder, apropos of nothing in
particular. Then he seemed to wake into cheerful activity. "But what's
the use o' meetin' trouble halfways?" he cried. "Goldarn it! people said
the mines was peterin' out more'n a year ago, an' we're workin' full
spell this yer week.... Who's fer a fizz? I go on at six, an' I hev to
eat a line fust."

That evening, before the store filled with the day men, and Power alone
was listening, MacGonigal was more outspoken.

"I've a notion that the mill is goin' ter close down, Derry," he said
glumly.

"Probably, for a time," said Power.

Such prompt agreement was unexpected; but MacGonigal passed it without
comment.

"Nit--fer good. They lost the main vein a year last Christmas, an' the
treatin' of ounce ore has been a bluff whiles they s'arched high an' low
beyond the fault. No, Derry, Bison is busted. Me for Denver tomorrow,
an' any fellar kin hev this store at a vallyation, wid a good rake-off,
too--dang it!"

Power was smoking placidly, and the gloomy prophecy of his friend did
not appear to disturb him. He even affected to ignore the sigh with
which MacGonigal turned away after gazing at him with an expression akin
to dismay; for the stout man had the constitutional dislike of his kind
to change, and the store had yielded a steady income since the inception
of Bison.

"Say, Mac," said Power after a long pause, "if you were to dig deep down
into your pants, how much could you ante up?"

"Eight thousand dollars, ef I kep' a grubstake," came the instant
response.

"And what is the mill worth?"

"It cost the best part of a hundred an' fifty thousand."

"I asked you what it is worth."

"What it'll fetch."

"Can you figure it out?"

"There's on'y the movable plant. A lot of money is sunk in cyanide vats,
an' rails, an' buildin's. Guess, when you come ter whittle it down ter
rolls an' engines, less the cost of takin' 'em ter pieces an' fixin'
'em anywhar, you'd git 'em fer twenty thousand."

"And plenty, too, for a mill erected ten years ago to deal with
high-grade ore. You see, Mac, the scientific treatment of rich ores has
developed so rapidly of late that the Bison mill is practically a back
number; while we know that it cannot compete with the low-grade
extractions now practised in Cripple Creek and at Leadville. No, you
must cut down your estimate. When you buy that mill, Mac, you shouldn't
spring a cent beyond fifteen thousand, and begin by offering ten. At
best, it would only form a nucleus for real work."

"Me--buy--the--mill!" MacGonigal permitted himself to be astounded to
the point of stupefaction.

"Yes, that is what will happen. But not a word of this to anyone. Start
in and sell the store, by all means; provided you fix its value on the
basis of live business, likely to improve."

"Derry, air you wool-gatherin', or what?"

"Unless I am greatly mistaken, Mac, you and I will gather as much wool
during the next twelve months as we are likely to need for the remainder
of our lives. I may be wrong, of course, but you will be perfectly safe.
You will grab the mill at its breaking-up price, and you should sell the
store in any event. All I ask is that you act strictly according to my
instructions. It is hardly necessary to repeat that you must keep the
proposition to yourself."

These two knew each other thoroughly; though MacGonigal was well aware
that certain unfathomable characteristics had developed of late in the
once carefree and even-minded youngster for whom he felt an almost
parental tenderness. He made no reply. He asked no question. He knew
that when the time came Power would speak, but not until the scheme he
had in mind, whatever it might be, was ripe for action. Indeed, ever
since the accident, Power had displayed some of the attributes which
caused men to hate and fear Marten. He, whose laugh had been the
merriest and human sympathies the most marked among all the men who had
passed in review before the storekeeper's bulbous eyes, was now apt to
lapse into a cold cynicism, an aloofness of interest, a smiling contempt
for the opinions and wishes of his fellows, which had puzzled and
saddened his one stanch friend. But MacGonigal's confidence in him had
not diminished. Rather was he aware of a broadening and strengthening of
qualities already remarkable, and he hugged the belief that, as the
image of Nancy Willard faded into impenetrable mists, Power would come
back to his erstwhile sane and wholesome outlook on life.

So the stout man did not even trouble to put into words the assurance
that he might be trusted to hold his tongue as to possible occurrences
at Bison. After a prolonged stare at a glorious sunset which silhouetted
the Rocky Mountains in a rich tint of ultramarine against a sky of
crimson and gold, he executed that unaided transit of a cigar across his
mouth for which he was noted, and when he spoke it was only to assure
the section of Colorado visible through the door that he was dog-goned.

Thereafter events moved with the swiftness which at times seems to
possess the most out-of-the-way places in America like a fever.

The stranger whose guise suggested a lawyer to the quidnuncs of Bison
was not seen again in the township during the ensuing fortnight; but
affrighting rumor, which soon became deadly fact, told of the mill
closing down for lack of paying ore. Mr. Page, Marten's representative,
promised the sorrowing people that work would be found for everyone
elsewhere. Though this guarantee alleviated the crushing effect of the
blow, there was much grieving over the loss of more or less comfortable
homes which had been won from the wilderness by years of patient effort.
Men and women, even in strenuous America, twine their heartstrings
around stocks and stones, and the threatened upheaval was grievous to
them. It meant the breaking up of families and friendships, a
transference to new districts and a strange environment, a scattering of
the household gods which might never reassemble in the old and familiar
order. Amid the general unrest none gave much heed to the news that the
Dolores ranch had found a new owner--who, by the way, according to the
joyous version of the foreman, One-thumb Jake, meant to raise horses
instead of cattle--but all Bison felt its hair lifting in amazement when
the _Rocky Mountain News_ announced that Mr. Hugh Marten had sold the
mill to Mr. Peter MacGonigal for a sum unnamed, but variously estimated
between the ridiculous (though actual) price of twelve thousand dollars
(toward which one-half was contributed by a mortgage on mill and ranch)
and five times the amount as representing its cheap acquisition as a
going concern.

Every practical miner knew that the ore bodies in the mines were
exhausted, and many and quaint were the opinions privately uttered as to
Mac's sanity. Even the astute Page--once the deeds were signed and the
money paid--expressed the hope that the storekeeper would not rue his
bargain.

"Of course," he said diplomatically, "you may find purchasers for some
of the plant; but milling machinery is a special thing, and you will be
lucky if you sell the stuff soon. I suppose you have a purpose in view
for the buildings?"

"Guess there's some stuff ter be found in the tailin's, an' a few
pockets of ore in the mines," said MacGonigal.

The manager shook his head. "You can take it from me that when Marten
sucks an orange there isn't much juice left for the next fellow," he
said. "You bought the place with your eyes open, and I still think you
may get your money back, with a small profit; but I advise you strongly
not to lose a day in advertising the rolls and accessories, while the
man who has taken over the Dolores ranch may buy the buildings. They
will come in useful as barns."

"I'll chew on that proposition," said MacGonigal.

Page thought him slightly cracked; but shook hands affably, and caught
the next train for Denver. He was completely flabbergasted when an
assistant whom he had deputed to superintend the removal of Bison's
citizens to new spheres of labor informed him that Messrs. Power and
MacGonigal were signing on the whole of the miners and mill-hands at
established rates of pay, and that operations were to be started
forthwith on a new strike in the Gulch. When he had recovered somewhat
from the shock of this announcement he strolled into the government
record offices, and examined the registry of recent mining claims. There
he found that a location certificate had been obtained by John Darien
Power for 1,500 feet by 300 feet on a well defined crevice, at least 10
feet deep, situated in the Gulch, Dolores Ranch, Bison, in the county of
Bison and state of Colorado. Other certificates had been issued to cover
more than a mile of the main contact, and, to clench the mining right,
John Darien Power figured as the legal owner of the land. In a word, he
was "a valid discoverer" on his own property.

Page was a shrewd man, and he did not commit the error of
underestimating the ability of the rival who had engineered this subtle
stroke.

"I'm buncoed this time, and no mistake," he muttered, and hurried back
to his office, pallid with wrath and foreboding.

There he met Benson, and told him what had happened. The private
secretary, rather staggered at first, regained his complacency when he
had glanced through some letters and cablegrams received from their
common chief.

"The boss has approved of every move in the game," he said, with a
half-hearted laugh. "You see, here he authorizes us to take even less
than MacGonigal paid for the mill, and, when Willard repaid the loan, he
refused to accept it, but cabled that the money was a gift from Mrs.
Marten. So I don't think he can hold us responsible."

"It's not the responsibility I'm kicking at, but the smooth way in
which I was bested," growled Page. "Now, who'd have thought Power had it
in him?"

"Well, I would, for one," said Benson.

"Why, you hardly knew him."

"I met him under exceptional conditions."

"But how the deuce did he manage to locate that lost vein--I suppose
that is what he has found?"

"Perhaps it was a gift from the gods."

"I do wish you'd talk sense," said the irritated manager.

"What _you_ would call sense might not pass for wisdom on Olympus,"
smiled Benson.

"Will you kindly tell me what you are driving at?"

"I can't. But look here, Page--which of us is going to write this story
to the boss?"

"You are, and don't forget to put in those remarks of yours. They'll
help some."

"Shouldn't I cable? Marten may want to know of this new move."

"Yes, I suppose that is the right thing to do. When you have coded the
message, I'll go through it with you. There must be no mistake this
time."

Thus, within a few hours, Hugh Marten, established at the Meurice in
Paris, received news which certainly took him aback; for he was a man
who seldom brooked a successful interloper. At first he was annoyed, and
had it in mind to discharge Page by cablegram. There would be no
difficulty in giving "Messrs. Power and MacGonigal" a good deal of legal
trouble. To begin with, the lawyers would allege collusion against Page,
and an investigation into the purchase of the ranch might reveal
loopholes for legal stilettos. Indeed, his alert brain was canvassing
all manner of chicanery possible through statutes made and enacted when
his wife came in, flushed and breathless.

"Hugh," she cried, "I've had heaps of fun this afternoon! Madame de
Neuville brought me to the Duchesse de Brasnes' place in that quaint old
Faubourg St. Germain, and the Duchesse took such a fancy to me that we
are invited for a week-end shoot at her castle, one of the real chateaux
on the Loire. You'll come, of course?"

"Why, yes, Nancy."

"You say yes as though I had asked you to go to the dentist."

"I'm a trifle worried, and that's the fact."

"What is it? Can I help?"

Marten hesitated; though only for an instant. His wife was more adorable
than ever since she had discovered what wonders an illimitable purse
could achieve in the _boutiques_ of the Rue de la Paix; but there was
ever at the back of his mind a suspicion that she looked on her past
life as a thing that was dead, and was schooling herself to an
artificial gaiety in these glittering surroundings of rank and fashion.

"The truth is that I am vexed at something which has happened in
Colorado--at Bison," he said.

"You have had no ill news of Dad?" she cried, in quick alarm.

"No, he's all right. I told you he had sold the ranch. Well, the
purchaser is that young engineer, Derry Power."

He watched her closely; but trust any woman to mislead a man when she
knows that her slightest change of expression will be marked and
understood. Mrs. Marten's eyes opened wide, and she had no difficulty in
feigning honest surprise.

"Derry Power!" she almost gasped. "What in the world does he want with
the ranch?"

"It seems that he contrived to find the main vein which we lost in the
Esperanza mine."

"Oh, is that it?" She was indifferent, almost bored. Her mind was in the
valley of the Loire.

"Yes. That idiot Page was kept in the dark very neatly; so he sold the
mill at a scrap price--by my instructions, I admit--and now Power and
MacGonigal have everything in their own hands."

Nancy's eyebrows arched, and she laughed gleefully. "Just fancy Mac
blossoming into a mining magnate!" she cried. "But why should this
affair worry you, Hugh?"

His hard features softened into a smile--in this instance, a real
smile--for he was intensely proud of his pretty wife.

"I hate to feel that I have got the worst of a deal," he admitted. "But
that's all right, Nancy. We won't quarrel with old friends at Bison. Run
away and write to your duchess while I concoct a cable."

And so it came to pass that Page, instead of receiving a curt dismissal,
was told to place no obstacles in the way of the new venture, but rather
to facilitate it by fixing a reasonable price on land and houses not
covered by the sale of the mill, should they be needed by Marten's
successors at Bison. In fact, by an unexampled display of good will on
the part of his employer, he was bade to offer these properties to
Power at a valuation. That somewhat simple though generous proposal had
a highly important sequel when Francis Willard, rendered furious by
learning how he had been ousted from the ranch, sought legal aid to
begin a suit against Power. Even his own lawyer counseled abandonment of
the law when the facts were inquired into. Power's title was
indisputable, and Marten's action in selling the mill, no less than his
readiness to make over other portions of the real estate if desired,
showed that the whole undertaking had been carried through in an open
and businesslike way.

Willard was convinced against his will; but, being a narrow-minded and
selfish man, who had not scrupled to imperil his daughter's happiness
when a wealthy suitor promised to extricate him from financial troubles,
the passive dislike he harbored against Power now became an active and
vindictive hatred. He believed, perhaps he had honestly convinced
himself of this, that the young engineer had secured the estate by a
trick. It was not true, of course, because he had jumped at the chance
of a sale when approached by the Denver lawyer acting for Power. But a
soured and rancorous nature could not wholly stifle the prickings of
remorse. He knew that he had forced his daughter into a loveless
marriage; he could not forget the girl's wan despair when no answer came
from Sacramento to her letters; he had experienced all the misery of a
craven-hearted thief when he stole the letters Power sent to Bison until
Marten assured him that equally effective measures at the other end had
suppressed Nancy's correspondence also. Because these things were
unforgivable he could not forgive the man against whom they were
planned. Penury and failing health had driven him to adopt the only sure
means by which he could break off the tacit engagement which opposed a
barrier to his scheming; but the knowledge that he had sinned was an
ever-present torture. A certain order of mind, crabbed, ungenerous,
self-seeking, may still be plagued by a lively conscience, and Willard's
enmity against Power could be measured only by his own fiercely
repressed sufferings.

"Curse the fellow!" he said bitterly, when the lawyer told him that a
suit for recovery of the ranch must be dismissed ignominiously. "Curse
him! Why did he cross my path? I am an old man, and I do not wish to
distress my daughter, or I would go now to Bison and shoot him at
sight!"

So John Darien Power had made at least one determined enemy, and it may
be taken for granted that, had he visited the Dolores ranch instead of
Denver on that first day in the open air after his accident, no money he
could command would have made him undisputed lord of the land and all it
contained.

But evil thinking is a weed that thrives in the most unlikely soil. To
all appearance, with Nancy wed and the foundations of a fortune securely
laid, Willard's animosity could achieve small harm to Power. Yet it
remained vigorous throughout the years, and its roots spread far, so
that when the opportunity came they entangled Power's feet, and he fell,
and was nearly choked to death by them.




CHAPTER V

WHEREIN POWER TRAVELS EAST


One summer's day at high noon a man rode into Bison from the direction
of the railway, and, judging by the critical yet interested glances he
cast right and left while his drowsy mustang plodded through the dust,
he seemed to be appraising recent developments keenly. As the horseman
was Francis Willard, and as this was the first time he had visited Bison
since leaving the ranch, there were many novelties to repay his
scrutiny. The number of houses had been nearly doubled, the store had
swollen proportionately, not to mention the Bison Hotel, which had
sprung into being on the site of the ramshackle lean-to where once
MacGonigal's patrons had stabled their "plugs," and a roomy omnibus
rumbled to and fro in the main street before and after the departure of
every train from the depot.

These unerring signs of prosperity spoke volumes; but it was only when
the rider drew rein near the mouth of the Gulch that he was able to note
the full measure of Bison's progress. Deep in a hollow to the left were
two mills instead of one, and the noise of ore-crunching rolls was
quadrupled in volume. Two long rows of recently erected cyanide vats
betokened the increased output of the mine, and, even while Willard sat
there, gazing moodily at a scene almost strange to his vision, an
engine snorted by, seemingly hauling a dozen loaded trucks, but in
reality exerting its panting energy to restrain the heavily freighted
cars from taking headlong charge of the downward passage. Another
engine, heading a similar string of empty wagons, was evidently on the
point of making the ascent; so Willard jogged an unwilling pony into
movement again, and entered the Gulch.

Beyond the two sets of rails, nothing new caught his eye here until he
had rounded the curve leading to the watershed. Then he came in sight of
the original entrance to the mine--a shaft was being sunk nearly
three-quarters of a mile away, but he was not aware of that at the
moment--and noticed that a stout man, jauntily arrayed in a white canvas
suit and brown boots, who had a cigar tucked into a corner of his mouth,
had strolled out of a pretentious-looking office building, and was
obviously surprised by the appearance of a mounted man in that place at
that moment.

MacGonigal had, in fact, recognized Willard the instant he swung into
view, because none of the ranchers rode that way nowadays, a more
circuitous but safer trail having been cut to avoid the rails.

Mac had certainly remarked that he was dog-goned when he set eyes on
Willard, and a similar sentiment was expressed more emphatically by the
visitor; for there was no love lost between those two, and, in
consequence, their greetings were unusually gracious.

"Wall, Mr. Willard, ef this don't beat cock-fightin'!" cried MacGonigal,
when the other halted at the foot of an inclined way leading to the
level space from which rock had been blasted to provide room for the
various structures that cluster near the outlet of a busy mine. "Now,
who'd ha thought of seein' you hereabouts terday?"

"Or any other day, Mr. MacGonigal," said Willard, forcing an agreeable
smile. The prefix to MacGonigal's name was a concession to all that had
gone before during a short half-hour's ride. The ex-storekeeper was now
the nominal head of a gold-producing industry which ranked high in the
state, and the bitterness welling up in Willard's mind had been quelled
momentarily by sheer astonishment.

"That's as may be," returned Mac affably, rolling the cigar across his
mouth. "But, seein' as you air on this section of the map, guess you'd
better bring that hoss o' yourn into the plaza. A bunch of cars is due
here any minute."

Willard jogged nearer, and dismounted, and a youth summoned by
MacGonigal took charge of the mustang.

"Hev' yer come ter see Power?" inquired the stout one, with just the
right amount of friendly curiosity.

"Well, no, not exactly. I shall be glad to meet him, of course. Is he
somewhere around?"

"No. He went East two days sence."

Now, the movements of local financial magnates are duly chronicled in
the Colorado press, and MacGonigal was sure that Willard had not only
read the announcement of Power's departure, but had timed this visit
accordingly. Still, that was no affair of his. Willard was here, and
might stay a month if he liked, because he would have to pay for bed and
board in the Bison Hotel, which MacGonigal owned.

"Ah, that's too bad," said Willard, feigning an indifference he was far
from feeling. "Still, I have no real business on hand. I happened to be
at a loose end in Denver, and didn't seem to know anybody in the Brown
Palace Hotel; so I came out here, to take a peep at the old shanty, so
to speak."

"You'll hev' located an alteration or two already?" chuckled the other.

"Every yard of the way was a surprise."

"Guess that's so; but what you've seen is small pertaters with the
circus on the other side of the hill."

"On the ranch! Things can't have changed so greatly there?"

"You come this-a way, an' survey the park."

MacGonigal led the visitor through a check office, and along a corridor.
Throwing open a door, he ushered him into a well furnished room, with
two French windows opening on to a spacious veranda.

"This yer is Derry's den," he said. "He likes ter look at the grass
growin'; but my crib is at the other side, whar I kin keep tab on the
stuff that makes most other things grow as well. Not that it ain't dead
easy ter know why Derry likes this end of the outfit--an' nobody livin'
'll understand that better'n yerself, Mr. Willard, when you've looked
the proposition over fer ten seconds by the clock."

Willard had never found MacGonigal so loquacious in former days; but he
was too preoccupied by the tokens of success that met his furtive gaze
in every direction to give much heed to any marked change in his guide's
manner. Moreover, he had scarcely set foot in the veranda before he
yielded to a feeling which, at first, was one of undiluted amazement.
The annual rainfall had been normal since he abandoned ranching; but
Colorado in June is not exactly the home of lush meadows during the best
of years, and he was staring now at a fertile panorama of green
pastures, and thriving orchards, while the ranch itself was set in the
midst of smooth lawns embosomed in a wealth of shrubs and ornamental
trees. Greatest miracle of all, a tiny stream of pellucid water was
flowing down the Gulch.

"I don't quite grasp this," he muttered thickly, while his eyes roved
almost wildly from the dancing rivulet to the fair savannah which it had
made possible.

"A bit of a wonder, ain't it?" gurgled MacGonigal placidly. "Jest
another piece of luck, that's what it air. Derry can't go wrong, I keep
tellin' him. I had a notion the hull blamed show was busted when we
struck a spring at the end o' the fust dip of two hundred feet; but
Derry jest laughed in his quiet way, an' said, 'There oughter be tears
round about any place called Grief, an' now we have Dolores weepin'.
We've tapped a perennial spring, Mac, an' it's the very thing I wanted
ter make the ranch a fair copy of Paradise.' There you hev' it--Derry's
luck--a pipe line laid on by Nature--an' him raisin' apples, Mr.
Willard, raisin' pippins as big as your fist, on land whar _you_
couldn't raise a bundle of alfalfa!"

Willard had to find something to say, or he would have choked with
spleen. "Evidently the inrush of water did not injure the mine?" he
blurted out; but, for the life of him, he could not conceal the envy in
his voice.

"Did good, really," chortled MacGonigal. "We had to drive a new adit,
an' that cleared away enough rock ter give us elbow-room. The fust
intake was up thar," and he pointed to that part of the Gulch where
Power had once wrought with death on a long-vanished ledge. "Now we go
in about a hundred feet west of this yer veranda, an' the haulin' is
easier."

"Mr. Power and you have created a marvelous property here," said Willard
after a long pause.

"Not me," said MacGonigal quickly. "I helped Derry with my wad; but he
did all the thinkin', an' it's like a fresh chapter outer a fairy tale
when I wake up every fine mornin' an' remember that my third share is
bringin' me in close on five hundred dollars a day."

"So Power's interest is worth three hundred thousand dollars a year?"

"More'n that, I reckon. The output keeps on pilin' up, an' Derry's
horses 'll add a tidy bit to his bank balance this year."

"His horses?"

"Yep. Hain't you heerd? One-thumb Jake is manager of the plug
department. Nigh on fifty two-year-olds 'll be sold this fall at two
hundred dollars an' more a throw. I suspicioned Derry was goin' crazy
when he bought up so many mares; but I allow he has the bulge on me now.
An' Jake! Dang me if he didn't show up at a dance t'other evenin' with a
silver fringe on his chaps!"

Willard turned reluctantly into the darkened room, and, by some
mischance, when his eyes had recovered from the external glare, the
first object they dwelt on was a framed pencil sketch of the Dolores
homestead as he had last seen it--a dreary, ramshackle place, arid and
poverty-stricken. In the corner was written, "Nancy," and a date.

"The ways of fortune are mysterious," he said, making shift to utter the
words calmly. "I endured ten long years of financial loss in the house
which my daughter has shown there. She used to know Mr. Power, and gave
the drawing to him, I suppose."

"Derry thinks a heap of that picter," commented MacGonigal.

"I wonder why?"

"He never tole me."

Willard laughed disagreeably. He had not forgotten Mac's peculiarities,
one of which used to be blank ignorance concerning any subject on which
he did not wish to be drawn.

"By the way," he said, "why did you give the new mine such a queer
name--El Preco--I guess you know it means, 'The Price'? Why was it
called that?"

"It was jest a notion of Derry's."

"Rather odd, wasn't it?"

"Derry's mostly odd, size him up anyways you hev' a mind ter."

"I could have understood it better had he christened the place, 'The
Bargain.' He shook me up good and hard when he grabbed Dolores for five
thousand dollars."

"He sure had his wits about him, had Derry," said MacGonigal admiringly.

"And he has gone now to New York, you tell me," went on Willard.

"East, I said."

"Well, East stands for New York all the time. Is he making a long stay
there?"

"He never said a word. Jest, 'So long, Mack,' an', 'So long, Derry.'
That's all thar was to it. Kin I get you a drink? Thar's a chunk of ice
somewhar in the outfit."

"No, thanks. Time I got a move on. How about those freight cars of
yours? Have I a clear road back through the Gulch?"

"Thar's a half-hour's off spell right now," was the prompt answer, and a
minute later the resident manager of El Preco mine was watching Willard
descend the canyon in the direction of Bison.

"I'd give a ten-spot ter know jest why that skunk kem nosin' round
here," he mused, gazing contemplatively after the slow-moving mustang
and its rider. Then he called the youth who had held the horse during
Willard's brief visit.

"What sort of an Indian air you, Billy?" he grinned.

"Purty spry, Boss, when the trail's fresh," said the boy.

"Well, hike after old man Willard, an' let me know when he's safe off
this yer section."

Within a couple of hours Billy reported that Willard had entered a train
bound for Denver, and MacGonigal blew a big breath of relief. It was not
that he had the slightest misgiving as to the effect of Willard's ill
will against either his partner or himself, but he was intensely anxious
that Power should not come in contact with anyone who would remind him
of the existence of Mrs. Hugh Marten. Power himself never mentioned her;
so his faithful friend and trusted associate in business could only hope
that the passing years, with their multiplicity of fresh interests, were
gradually dimming the memory of events which had altered the whole
course of his life.

MacGonigal did not think it necessary to tell Willard that Power had
brought his mother from San Francisco soon after the mine proved its
worth. Mother and son occupied the Dolores ranch. The presence of the
gentle, white-haired woman was a positive blessing to Bison; for she
contrived to divert no mean percentage of her son's big income into
channels of social and philanthropic effort in which she took a close
personal interest. A library and reading-room had been established; a
technical instruction class offered an excellent supplement to the state
school; a swimming bath was built close to the mills; two churches were
in course of erection; a wideawake theatrical manager at Denver had
secured a site for a theater and the township already boasted its ten
miles of metaled roadway. In the self-satisfied phrase of the
inhabitants, Bison was becoming "quite a place," and everyone testified
that it was to Mrs. Power rather than her son that all these civic
improvements were due. Men had even ceased to consult Power himself on
such matters.

"You run and see my mother about that," he would say, with a quiet
smile, when someone had endeavored to arouse his sympathy in behalf of a
deserving object. "It's my affair to make the money which she spends.
Get her to O. K. your scheme, and it goes."

In business he was equally unapproachable.

"Put it before MacGonigal," was his regular formula. "I can't do a thing
without his say-so. But I warn you he is a terror. If there's a kink in
your proposition, he'll find it, as sure as Jake can run his fingers
onto a splint."

For all that, the stout manager of mine and mill realized his
limitations.

Once, and once only, did MacGonigal act in the belief that Power had
referred a point to him for final settlement. A glib agent for mining
machinery persuaded him to purchase a new type of drill, which proved
absolutely useless when asked to disintegrate the hard granite of
Colorado. Power laughed when he heard of its failure.

"You must have thought it was meant for cutting cheese, Mac," he said
lightly. But the barbed shaft struck home, and "the terror" bought no
more drills without first consulting the man who understood them.

Thus, slowly but effectually, Power contrived to isolate himself from
Bison. With an almost uncanny prescience he gave occasional directions
in the mine, or suggested some modification in the milling process which
invariably resulted in a higher percentage of extraction. For the rest,
he devoted his days to the improvement of the stud farm, and his
evenings to books. His mother tried vainly to dissipate this recluse
trend of thought and habit. On one memorable occasion she invited a
friend and her two cheerful and good-looking daughters to visit the
ranch for a week. Timidly enough, she had sprung a surprise on her son,
warning him of the forthcoming invasion only when it was too late to
stop travelers already en route from San Francisco. Then she, like
MacGonigal, had to learn her lesson. Derry agreed she had acted quite
rightly. He merely expressed a suave doubt that the ladies would enjoy
the enforced seclusion of a place like Dolores, but they might
appreciate the air. Then he strolled out, and a telegram from Denver
apologized for a sudden departure to Chicago. He explained in a letter
that he was in need of a number of books, and thought it best to look
through the bookstores in person rather than trust to catalogues. He
returned two days after the guests had left, and there were no more
experiments in that direction. Be sure that an anxious mother had long
ago formed a remarkably accurate opinion as to the circumstances
attending Nancy Willard's wedding; but, being a wise woman, she said no
word to her son concerning it, and was content to pray that the cloud
might lift from off his soul, and that he might yet meet a girl who
would make him a good and loving wife. For that is the way of women who
are mothers--they find real joy only in the well-being of their
offspring. Though this gentle-hearted creature knew that she was risking
some of her own belated happiness in bringing about her son's marriage,
she was ready to dare that, and more, for his sake. She longed to renew
her own youth in fondling his children. She was almost feverishly
desirous of seeing him thoroughly established in a bright and cheerful
home before the gathering mists shut him out forever from her sight. So
she waited, and watched, and wondered what the future had in store for
her loved one, and often, in her musings, she tried to imagine what
manner of girl Nancy Willard was that she should have inspired such an
enduring and hopeless passion.

The upheaval, when it came, was due to the simplest of causes. Power had
foreseen the tremendous industrial development which lay before
Colorado, and indulged his horse-breeding hobby on lines calculated to
produce a large income wholly apart from the ever-increasing profits of
the mine. The state needed horses, which must be strong of bone, with
plenty of lung capacity; yet not too heavy, for mountain tracks and
dusty valleys are anathema to the soft Belgian. They must be presentable
animals, too, symmetrical, of untarnished lineage, and of a type fitted
either for saddle or harness, because Colorado was making money in a
hurry. Thus, it chanced that, shortly before Willard's ill-omened visit
to Bison, an Eastern agent wrote advising Power to attend a sale in New
York. A noted breeder of hackneys, who had imported some of the best
sires from England and Russia, and owned several fine Percherons, was
breaking up his stud, and the chance thus presented of securing some
magnificent stock might not be repeated during another decade.

Power asked his mother to accompany him; but she was afraid of the long
journey in the torrid temperature then obtaining. Yielding to his
wishes, she telegraphed a second time to her San Francisco friends, and
they accepted an invitation joyously and promptly. Moreover, seeing that
she was regarding with some misgivings his prospective absence from the
ranch for a period which could not well be less than three weeks, he
made a great concession.

"If Mrs. Moore and her girls can arrange to stay so long, keep them here
until I return," he said, and the pleasure in the worn, lined face fully
repaid the effort those words cost him. So they kissed, and parted, and
the weary years which have passed since that sunlit morning in Colorado
have contained no diviner solace for the man than the knowledge that he
left his mother well satisfied with her lot, and smiling a farewell
without the slightest premonition of evil or sorrow. It is well to part
thus from those whom we love; for no man knows what the future may have
in store--and horror would have been added to the burden of Power's
suffering if recollections of the last hours of companionship with his
mother were clouded by an abiding sense of unkindness or unfilial
treatment.

So Power hied him to New York, which meant that he passed three hot
nights and two hotter days in a fast-speeding train. The Rock Island
Railroad took him across the rolling prairie to Omaha and Chicago, and,
in the city which no steer nor sheep nor hog can visit and live, he
entered the palatial Pennsylvania Limited, which, in those unregenerate
days, dumped him out early in the morning on the New Jersey shore. Then,
for the first time, he saw New York, and saw it from the river, which is
the one way to see New York for the first time. Crossing by the ferry to
23d Street, he did not, it is true, secure that wondrous initial glimpse
of a city, unequaled, in many respects, by any other, which is
vouchsafed to the traveler arriving by sea. But, even twenty-two years
ago, the busy Hudson was no mean stream, and when Power's unaccustomed
eye turned bewildered from the maze of shipping which thronged that
magnificent waterway it found fresh wonders in the far-flung panorama
stretching from Grant's Tomb to the Battery. At that time Trinity Church
was still a landmark, for New York had hardly begun to climb into the
empyrean; so the prospect was pleasing rather than stupefying, as it is
today.

A hot wind already hissed with furnace-breath over the fourteen miles of
serried streets that lined the opposite shore; for, in the long years
which have sped since Power first crossed the Hudson, New York has
neither lengthened nor broadened. Even mighty Gotham cannot achieve the
impossible; so, in the interim, several new cities have been
superimposed on the older one which spread its beauties before his
bewildered vision. The _Paris_--who of the middle generation does not
remember the _Paris_, with her invariable list to starboard, after an
ocean crossing?--was creeping slowly upstream, and Power was amused by
the discovery that the big ship, like himself, moved with a limp. The
_City of Rome_, whose yacht-like lines suggested the poetry of motion,
but, as is the mode on Parnassus, adhered strictly to suggestion, lay at
anchor near the Jersey shore, and when the ferry churned around her
graceful stem, the grim walls of the Palisades completed a picture which
admits of few peers. Disillusionment came later; but the spell of that
thrilling first impression was never wholly lost. Driving through 23d
Street, on his way to the Waldorf Hotel, Power could not help comparing
this important thoroughfare with Market Street, San Francisco, and State
Street, Chicago, and the architectural stock of the metropolis
experienced a sudden slump. Nor did it wholly recover lost points when
his carriage entered Madison Square, with its newly erected campanile,
almost a replica of the stately Giralda tower in Seville, its glimpses
of Broadway, south and north, its stolid Fifth Avenue Hotel, and its
chastely elegant, though still towerless, white Metropolitan building.
Even the Waldorf, then less than a fourth of the Waldorf-Astoria, though
notable already among the public palaces of the world, failed to strike
his imagination with the appeal of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco; the
truth being that New York, first in the field by a couple of centuries,
had not yet begun, like Milton's eagle, to mew her mighty youth.

It would assuredly be interesting to those who knew and loved the queen
city of the Atlantic nearly a quarter of a century ago if Power's
revised and corrected opinions might be quoted now. But the chronicle of
a man's life ought to be accurate before it is picturesque, and the
truth is that the heat-wave which was then withering the whole Eastern
seaboard kept this visitor from breezy Colorado pent within the marble
halls of the Waldorf Hotel, save when urgent need drove him forth. That
particular scourge of high temperature was destined to become
historical. The thermometer soared up beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit;
hundreds of people were stricken daily by heat apoplexy; the hospitals
were crammed to their utmost capacity; the asphalt pavement, where it
existed, showed ruts like a muddy road in the country; and it is easy to
understand why a man who had cheerfully endured 110 degrees and 115
degrees in the dry heat of the nearer Rockies should gasp for air here
like a fish out of water.

Worst of all, the horse sale was postponed. The owner of the stud and
his prospective patrons alike had flown to sea and mountain for relief.
As inquiry showed that the horse-breeder himself had gone to Newport,
Power made haste to secure a stateroom on one of the Fall River line of
steamboats, and it was on this quest that the _Puritan Maiden_, a vessel
on which folk would travel merely for the sake of describing her to
their friends, brought him to the chief summer resort of fashionable
life in America.

He had not the slightest notion that Mrs. Hugh Marten was disporting
herself daily on that particular stretch of Rhode Island beach. For all
that he knew, she might as well have been at Trouville or Brighton.
Indeed, had anyone dared the lightning of his glance by mentioning her,
and if he were compelled to hazard a guess as to her possible
whereabouts, he would certainly have said that, to the best of his
belief, she was in Europe. Such was the fact; but there are facts in
every life which assume the guise of sheer incredibility when analyzed,
say, in the doubtful atmosphere of a law-court. In the dark days to
come, during those silent watches of the night when a man looks back
along the tortuous ways of the past, John Darien Power could only lift
impotent hands to Heaven and plead in anguish that he might at least
have been spared an ordeal which he not only did not seek, but would
have fled to the uttermost parts of the earth to have avoided. Such
moments of introspection were few and far between, it is true. His was
too self-contained a nature that he should rail against the Omnipotent
for having tested him beyond endurance. He made a great fight, and he
failed, and he paid an indemnity which is not to be measured by any
other scale than that alone which records the noblest effort.

To his own thinking, the tragedy of his life began that day in Bison
when the sympathetic storekeeper told him of Nancy Willard's marriage.
But he was wrong in that belief. A man may lose the woman he loves, and
recover from the blow, but he peers into abysmal depths when he meets
her as another man's wife, and finds that love, though sorely wounded,
is not dead. It is then that certain major fiends, unknown to the
generality, come forth from their lairs--and there must have been a rare
awakening of crafty ghouls on the day Power reached Newport.




CHAPTER VI

THE MEETING


When Power arrived at New England's chief summer resort on a glorious
July morning twenty-two years ago, man had succeeded in adding only a
garish fringe to a quietly beautiful robe devised by Nature. Some few
pretentious houses had been built; but local residences in the mass made
up an architectural hotch-potch utterly at variance with sylvan
solitudes and breezy cliffs. Rhode Island, which lends its name to the
entire state, is slightly larger than Manhattan. A long southwesterly
spur shields from the mighty rages of the Atlantic the little bay on
which the old town of Newport stands; but the climate has the bracing
freshness which is almost invariably associated with the northern half
of that great ocean. If the bare rudiments of artistry existed among the
idle rich who overran the island during the '80's, it should have
protected a charming blend of seashore and grassy downs from the Italian
palaces, Rhenish castles, Swiss chalets, and don-jon keeps which the
freakish conceits of plutocrats placed cheek by jowl along the coast.
Nowadays these excrescences are either swallowed in forests of well
grown trees or have become so beautified by creepers that they have lost
much of their bizarre effect; while magnificent avenues, carefully laid
out and well shaded, run through a new city of delightful villas and
resplendent gardens. But Power's first stroll from the portals of the
Ocean House revealed a medley in which bad taste ran riot. The Casino, a
miserable-looking structure, was saved from dismal mediocrity by its
splendid lawns alone; the surf-bathers' friends were protected from the
fierce sun by a long, low shanty built of rough planks; the roads were
unkempt, and ankle-deep in mud or dust; broken-down shacks alternated
with mansions; a white marble replica of some old Florentine house,
stuck bleakly on one knob of a promontory, was scowled at by a
heavy-jowled fortress cumbering its neighbor.

He found these things irritating. They were less in harmony with their
environment than the corrugated iron roofs of Bison. His gorge rose at
them. They satisfied no esthetic sense. In a word, he resolved to get
through his business with the horse-fancying judge as speedily as might
be, and escape to the unspoiled wilderness of Maine.

Were it not for one of those minor accidents which at times can exert
such irresistible influence on the course of future events, he would
certainly have left Newport without ever being aware of Mrs. Marten's
presence there. He ascertained that the judge had gone off early in the
morning on a yachting excursion up Narragansett Bay, having arranged to
lunch at a friend's house at Pawtucket; so, perforce, he had to wait in
Newport another day.

At dinner he was allotted a seat at a large round table reserved for
unattached males like himself. The company was a curiously mixed one,
but pleasant withal. A Norwegian from San Francisco, who sold Japanese
curios, a globe-trotting Briton, a Southerner from Alabama, a man from
Plainville, New Jersey, and a Mexican who spoke no English, made up,
with Power himself, a genuinely cosmopolitan board, and Power soon
discovered that he was the only person present who could understand the
Mexican. Mere politeness insisted that he should lend his aid as
interpreter when a negro waiter asked the olive-skinned senor what he
would like to eat; but the "Greaser," as he was dubbed instantly, proved
to be a jovial soul, who laughed when any of the other men laughed,
insisted on having the joke translated, and roared again when it was
explained to him, so that each quip earned a double recognition, while
he never failed to pay his own score by some joyous anecdote or amusing
repartee. Thus, Power was forced into the role of "good fellow" in a way
which he would not have believed possible a few hours earlier. In spite
of himself, the merry mood of other years came uppermost, and, when the
party broke up at midnight, after a long and lively sitting on a moonlit
veranda, he retired to his room with a certain feeling of marvel and
agreeable surprise at the change which one evening of enforced
relaxation had effected in his outlook on life. He decided that these
chance companions had done him a world of good, that his misanthropic
attitude was a false one, and that a week or two at Newport might send
him back to Colorado a better man. Applying to a state of mind a
metaphor drawn from material things, he felt as an Englishman feels who
leaves his own dripping and fog-bound island on a January afternoon and
wakes next morning amid the roses and sunshine of the Riviera. The
glitter on land and sea may bear a close resemblance to spangles and
gilt paper on the stage; but it is cheering to eyes which have not seen
the sun for weeks, and when, in such conditions, John Bull sits down to
luncheon under the awnings of a cafe facing the blue Mediterranean, he
is unquestionably quite a different being from the muffled-up person who
hurried on board the steamer at Dover.

Power had contrived to withdraw himself so completely from the more
genial side of existence at Bison that he rediscovered it with a fresh
zest. Next day he was no longer alone. The man from Birmingham, Alabama,
and the Englishman shared his love of horses, and the three visited the
judge, who stabled some of his cattle on the island, and had photographs
and pedigrees galore wherewith to describe the stock on his New York
farm.

So Power stayed two days, and yet a third, and he was laughing with the
rest at some quaint bit of Spanish humor which he had translated for the
benefit of the company at dinner on the third evening, when he became
aware that a lady, entering with a large party, for whose use a table
had been specially decorated, was standing stock-still and looking at
him. He lifted his eyes, and met the astonished gaze of Mrs. Marten.

"Derry!" she gasped.

"Nancy!" said he, wholly off his guard, and flushing violently in an
absurd consciousness of having committed some fault. She had caught him,
as it were, in a boisterous moment utterly at variance with the three
years of self-imposed monasticism which followed her marriage. Yet, with
the speed of thought, he saw the futility of such reasoning. The
girl-wife knew nothing of his sufferings. She was greeting him with all
the warmth of undiminished friendship, and could not possibly understand
that he had endured tortures for her sake. So he regained his wits
almost at once, and was on his feet, bowing.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Marten," he went on. "Your presence here took
me completely unawares. You are the last person breathing I expected to
see in Newport."

She laughed delightedly, with no hint of flurry or confusion beyond that
first natural outburst.

"It would sound much nicer if you said what I am going to say to you,"
she cried, "that you are one of the few persons breathing whom I am
really delighted to see in Newport. But I can't stop and talk now. I'll
ask Mrs. Van Ralten to forgive me if I slip away from her party for ten
minutes after dinner. Mind, you wait for me on the veranda. I'm simply
dying to hear some news of dear old Bison! How is Mac? Oh, my! I really
must go. But don't you dare escape afterward!"

Forgetful of all else, he allowed his startled eyes to follow her as she
ran to her place at the neighboring table. She was dressed in some
confection of white tulle and silver; a circlet of diamonds sparkled in
her thick brown hair; a big ruby formed a clasp in front for an aigrette
of osprey plumes; her robes and bearing were those of a princess. Were
it not for the warranty of his senses, he would never have pictured the
girl of the Dolores ranch in this fine lady. Even now he stood as one in
a trance, half incredulous of the evidence of eyes and ears, and
seemingly afraid lest he might awake and come back to the commonplaces
of an existence in which the Nancy Willard of his dreams had no part.

The Englishman, Dacre by name, knew something of the world and its
denizens, and he had seen the blood rush to his friend's face and ebb
away again until the brown skin was sallow.

"Sit down, old chap," he said quietly. "I was just thinking of ordering
some wine for the public benefit. Do you drink fizz?"

The calm voice helped to restore Power's bemused senses. Afraid lest his
moonstruck attitude might have been observed by some of Mrs. Marten's
companions, he tried to cover his confusion by a jest.

"Wine, did you say?" he cried. "Certainly--let's have a magnum. Bottled
sunlight should help to dissipate visions."

"Anacreon has something to that effect in one of his odes; though he
vowed that he worshiped Wine, Woman, and the Muses in equal measure."

"Who is Anacreon?" asked the man from Plainville.

"He flourished at Athens about 600 B.C.," laughed Dacre.

"Did he? By gosh! The Greeks knew a bit, then, even at that time."

"This one in particular was an authority on those three topics. Love, to
him, was no mischievous boy armed with silver darts, but a giant who
struck with a smith's hammer. He died like a gentleman, too, being
choked by a grapestone at the age of eighty-five."

"Ah, that explains it!"

"Explains what?"

"He had a small swallow, or rum and romance would have knocked him out
in half the time."

Power was rapidly becoming himself again. "I behaved like a stupid boy
just now," he said; "but I was never more taken aback in my life. I have
not met Mrs. Marten since her marriage, three years ago, and I imagined
she was in Europe."

"Oh, is that Mrs. Marten?" chimed in downright Plainville. "Last
Sunday's papers whooped her up as the prize beauty of Newport this
summer, and I guess they got nearer the truth than usual. She's a sure
winner."

"Did I hear her mention Mrs. Van Ralten?" inquired Dacre.

"Yes, her hostess tonight, I believe."

"Van Ralten and Marten hurried off together to the Caspian last week.
They are interested in the oil wells at Baku."

Cymbals seemed to clash in Power's brain, and he heard his own voice
saying in a subdued and colorless staccato, "I am sorry I did not meet
her sooner. I leave tomorrow."

Dacre looked at him curiously; but the wine had arrived, a choice
vintage of the middle '70's, and the Mexican was lifting his glass.

"_El sabio muda conseja; el necio no_," he quoted.

The phrase was so apt that Power glanced at the speaker with marked
doubt; whereupon the blond Norwegian asked what the senor had said.

"He told us that the wise man changes his mind, but the fool does not,"
translated Power.

"Gee whizz!" cried Plainville. "It's a pity he can't give out the text
in good American; for he talks horse sense most all the time. If _I_ had
a peach like Mrs. Marten callin' me 'Derry,' damn if I'd quit for a
month!"

The general laugh at this dry comment evoked a demand by the Mexican for
a Spanish version of the joke. Then he made it clear that he had
resolved to abjure wine, and was only salving his conscience by a
proverb.

This cheerful badinage, which might pass among any gathering of men when
one of them happened to be greeted by a pretty woman, did not leave
Power unscathed. He had dwelt too long apart from his fellows not to
wince at allusions which would glance harmlessly off less sensitive
skins. The iron which had entered into his soul was fused to a white
heat by sight of the woman he had loved and lost. He resented what he
imagined as being the knowledge these boon companions boasted of his
parlous state. Unable to join in their banter, not daring to trust his
voice in the most obvious of retorts, for the man from Plainville had
not been designed by nature to pose as a squire of dames, he gulped down
a glass of champagne at a draft, and pretended to make up for wasted
time in an interrupted course.

Dacre seemed to think that he would be interested in the latest gossip
in financial circles with reference to a supposed scheme organized by
Marten and Van Ralten to fight the Oil Trust. Power listened in silence
until he felt sure of himself; then he launched out vigorously.

"It strikes me that America has lost the art of producing great men," he
said. "We whites are degenerating into mere money-grubbers; so, by the
law of compensation, our next demigod should be a nigger."

"Huh!" snorted Alabama, eager for battle.

"That's my serious opinion," continued Power dogmatically. "And, what's
more, I think I know the nigger. Have any of you dined in the Auditorium
Hotel, Chicago?"

Yes, several; dining-room on top floor; lightning elevator; all right
going up empty, but coming down full was rather a trial.

"Well, you will remember that, as you go in, a young colored gentleman
takes your hat and overcoat, and cane or umbrella. He supplies no
numbered voucher, and cannot possibly tell at which tables some six or
seven hundred diners will be seated. At this time of year every man is
wearing a straw hat of similar design; yet, as each guest comes forth,
he is handed his own hat and other belongings. Now, I hold that that
nigger has a brain of supreme mathematical excellence. There is not a
financier in Wall Street who could begin to emulate that feat of memory.
Given a chance, and such men make their own opportunities. The
Auditorium cloakroom attendant will rise to a dizzy height."

"Tosh!" exclaimed Alabama, primed with facts to prove that hundreds of
negroes could perform similar tricks, but were no good for anything
else.

He was no match for Power in an argument where figures held a place,
and Dacre was the only other man present who realized that the talk had
been boldly and skilfully wrenched to an impersonal topic. He, at any
rate, made no further allusion to Marten or his projects; though he
continued to watch Power narrowly but unobtrusively. Himself something
of a derelict, though his aimless path lay in summer seas, he had
conceived a warm regard for the quiet-mannered stranger from Colorado.
Neither he nor any of the others knew aught of Power's history, who
might really be the rancher he professed to be, though his student's
features and reserved manner did not bear out the assumption. Later,
when Dacre was better informed, he realized the cause of his first
skepticism, for the engineer belonged to one of those rarer types of
mankind who, like the lawyer, the soldier, the physician, and the
clergyman, had the seal of his life's work stamped plainly upon him.

Hence, it followed that in a spirit of sheer comradeship and sympathy he
kept an eye on Power during the next few days. He saw how matters were
tending, and risked a rebuff in offering a friendly hint when disaster
was imminent. Above all--whether for good or evil who can judge? at any
rate, the writer of this record of a man's life feels least qualified to
decide the point--he brought a dominating influence to bear at a moment
when Power was adrift in a maelstrom which threatened to engulf him.

Yet there was slight sign of impending tempest in that bright room with
its groups of diners seemingly well content with their surroundings.
From the adjoining table, which Power could not see owing to the
position he occupied, came gusts of animated conversation. Mrs. Van
Ralten rejoiced in the loud, penetrating accents of the Middle West, and
snatches of her talk were audible.

"I do think James Gordon might have provided a more stylish Casino while
he was about it."

"Yes, I sail on the _Teutonic_ first week in August. Nothing will keep
Willie away from the moors on the Twelfth."

"Did I see them? My dear, who could miss them? Has anyone ever met such
freaks outside a dime museum?"

"Why, Nancy, I don't wonder a little bit that you were such a success in
Paris. The nice things I was told about you turned me green with envy."

Alabama hotly contested each milestone of the Mason and Dixon Line; but
Dacre believed that Power was less intent on the color problem than on
catching each syllable of a sweet voice seldom heard above the clatter
of tongues at the next table. At last the meal was ended, and the men
strolled out into the veranda. Mrs. Marten seemed to know when her
friend had risen; she turned and waved a hand, and obviously explained
her action in the next breath. Soon she appeared, a radiant being fully
in keeping with moonlight and a garden of exotics.

"Mary Van Ralten is a duck," she said joyously, when Power hurried
forward. "She has given me half an hour; but I mustn't be a minute
later, as she has turned out of her own house to accommodate the
Barnstormers from Boston, who are acting for her guests tonight. All
Newport will be there. You are coming, Derry. I asked her, and will
introduce you afterward. My carriage will wait. But, gracious me, why
are you lame?"

He was leading her to a couple of reserved chairs in a palm-shaded nook,
and she noticed that he walked with a limp.

"Happened an accident near the mine quite a time since," he said.

"I never heard. I wonder my father didn't mention it. Anyhow, Derry, why
have you never written?"

"Listen to the pot calling the kettle, or, if that is only a trite
simile, listen to the Fairy Queen berating a poor mortal for her own
lapses!"

"Ah, I have not written since my marriage, it is true, but you treated
my hapless missives so cavalierly when I did send them that I hardly
dared risk another rebuff."

"What do you mean?" he asked thickly. He was priding himself on the ease
with which they were establishing new relations, when this unlooked-for
development plunged him again into a swift-running current of doubt and
foreboding. They were seated now, not side by side as he had planned,
but in such wise that Nancy could see his face clearly, she having
deliberately pulled her chair round for that purpose.

"Exactly what I have said," she answered composedly. "I sent three
separate letters to Mr. John Darien Power, the Esperanza Placer Mine,
Sacramento--I sha'n't forget the address in a hurry, because I've always
longed to ask why you were so ready to desert a friend--and, seeing that
not one of them was returned by the postoffice, I had good reason to
suppose that they reached you all right. Derry, don't tell me you never
got them!"

His heart seemed to miss a beat or two. In an instant he guessed the
truth, that their correspondence had been burked by malicious
contriving; but all he could find to say was:

"Did you really write to me?"

"Of course, I did. Am I not telling you? And you, Derry, did _you_ write
to _me_?"

His tongue almost cleaved to the roof of his mouth; for he knew, in that
instant, that they were not seated in the comfortable veranda of the
Ocean House, but standing side by side on the lip of an abyss.

He must not, he dared not, answer truly. He had no right to make wreck
and ruin of this bright young life, and none knew so well as he how
proudly she would denounce the thievish wiles which had separated them
if once she grasped their full import.

"It is so long ago," he muttered brokenly. "So many things have occurred
since. I have forgotten. I--I can only be sure that I received no
letters from you."

"You have forgotten!" she repeated slowly.

"Yes--that is, I suffered a good deal from a broken leg--it was badly
set--that is why I have such a noticeable hobble. Events round about
that period are all jumbled up in my mind."

The explanation was lame as his leg. It would never have deceived even
the Nancy Willard of bygone years, and was utterly thrown away on this
wide-eyed woman. She was conscious of a fierce pain somewhere in the
region of her heart, and wanted to cry aloud in her distress; but she
crushed the impulse with a self-restraint that had become second nature,
and bent nearer, smiling wanly.

"Why did you throw away your cigar, Derry?" she said. "Please smoke.
Like every other man, you will talk more easily then. And do tell me
what has been going on at Bison. I have often asked Hugh for news; but
he says he never hears a word about the place since he sold his
interests there."

Power hardly realized how swiftly and certainly she had made smooth the
way. He was conscious only of a vast relief that the subject of the
missing correspondence was dropped. Only in later hours of quiet
reflection did he grasp the reason--that she was bitterly aware of the
truth, and the whole truth. He began at once to describe developments on
the ranch, and was too wishful to hide his own confusion behind the
smoke of a cigar to notice how a white-gloved hand clenched the arm of a
chair when he spoke of his mother and the place she filled in public
esteem. Unconsciously he was telling Nancy just what she wanted to know.
He was not married. There was no other woman! She uttered no sound; but
her lower lip bore a series of white marks for a little while.

"You see," he explained glibly, "I acquired the habit of letting other
people work when I was laid by for repairs. Please excuse these frequent
references to a broken limb, which seems to figure in my talk much as
King Charles's head in Mr. Dick's disjointed manuscripts. Anyhow, I had
plenty of time for reading, as the mine paid from the very beginning,
and a rock spring which nearly scared Mac stiff came in handy to
irrigate the upper part of the ranch--that long slope just below the
Gulch, you remember."

"Yes, I remember," she said.

"Well, what between fruit-growing and horse-breeding, I hardly ever have
time to go near Bison. My mother drives in every day over the new
trail----"

"What new trail?"

"We had to cut a road across the divide. The Gulch is blocked by rails."

"Why?"

"That is where the mine is, you know."

"I don't know. Whereabouts exactly is the mine?"

"It starts in the west side of the canyon, about a hundred yards from
the ranch end."

"Near a narrow cleft, topped by a sloping ledge?"

"Yes. How well you recollect every yard of the ground!"

"How did you come to locate the lost seam there?"

"By sheer chance. Some pieces of the granite wall fell away, and any
miner who had been a week at his trade would have recognized the vein
then."

"When did they fall away--the bits of rock, I mean?"

"It must have been about the time you--you were married, Mrs. Marten."

She tapped a satin-shod foot emphatically on the boarded floor. "Why are
you calling me 'Mrs. Marten'?" she demanded.

"Well----"

"Don't do it again. I am 'Nancy' to you, Derry. I refuse to part with
the privileges of friendship in that casual way. But I want to
understand things more closely. What caused the stones to fall?"

"I don't mind telling," he said, "though a good many people have asked
me the history of El Preco, and I have refused hitherto to gratify their
curiosity----"

"El Preco--doesn't that mean 'the price'?"

"Yes."

"What an extraordinary name! The price of what?"

"Of my broken leg. There, you see! King Charles's head once more."

She paused, ever so briefly, before resuming her questioning. "Now, why
did the stones fall?"

"Because an excited cowboy fired his revolver in the air, and the
bullets struck a section of rock which required some such shock to
dislodge it."

"But how did that affect you?"

"I happened to be lying on the very ledge you spoke of, and--oh, dash it
all! I secured my limp then and there."

"Did the fall disturb a rattlesnake?"

"It may have disturbed a dozen rattlesnakes, for all that I can tell.
But what an extraordinary thing to say! Did you know that a rattler
lived in that cleft?"

"No. I was just thinking of the Gulch and its inhabitants. Perhaps my
wits were wandering.... Come, Derry. Our half-hour is not gone, but we
can talk on the way. Send a boy for my carriage. Do you want your hat
and coat?"

She rose suddenly, and drew a light wrap of silvery tissue around her
shoulders. Power stood up, and faced her. He had never seen her looking
so ethereally beautiful, not even on the night, now so long ago, when he
parted from her before taking that disastrous journey to Sacramento.

"Do you really think I ought to come with you to Mrs. Van Ralten's?" he
said.

"Of course. Why not? You are invited."

"But----"

"You are my big brother from Bison, Derry, and I'm not going to forgo
the pleasure of your company if all Newport lined the road and bawled,
'Send him away!' But do hurry. Mary Van Ralten will forgive everything
except unpunctuality."

The nebulous protest on Power's lips faded into silence. "On such a
night I can dispense with hat and overcoat," he said. "Your carriage is
a closed landau, I suppose?"

"Yes. After the play you can escort me to the Breakers--that is the name
of the house we have rented--and Sam, our coachman, will take you
home.... Oh, there he is, waiting. Mrs. Van Ralten's, Sam."

"Yes, Ma'am," said the negro, who had brought a carriage and pair to the
doorway when he caught sight of his mistress. A negro footman opened the
door, and Nancy entered, the brilliant moonlight gleaming for an instant
on the sheen of a white silk stocking. Power seated himself by her side,
and the horses dashed off. He felt the soft folds of her dress touching
him. When she turned slightly to say something about the marvelous
nights which tempered the heat-wave at Newport, her right shoulder and
elbow pressed him closely. Some subtle fragrance came from her that
stirred him almost to a frenzy of longing; yet he dared not flinch away
into a corner of the carriage. Perforce, he schooled his voice to utter
the platitudes of the moment. Yes, he had been in Newport three whole
days, and had not the remotest notion that she was there. He had come to
buy horses, and might remain another week. Well, he _would_ remain, now
that they had met; for he was sure he would find a good deal to tell her
of Bison and its folk once he had got over the novelty and
unexpectedness of this meeting.

And all the time his heart was pounding madly, throbbing so furiously
that he feared lest she should become aware of its lack of restraint,
and he stooped forward in a make-believe glance at some building they
were passing.

"That is the Casino," she said, misinterpreting his action, or
pretending to--Heaven alone knows the extent of a woman's divination
where a man is concerned! "We play tennis there, in the evenings, when
it's so hot during the day. Are you a tennis-player, Derry?... Oh, I'm
sorry! I quite forgot."

"I have been arousing your sympathy by false pretense," he said, and the
laughter in his voice demanded a real effort. "I can walk and ride and
jump and dance as well as ever, and I have taught three of the ranchmen
to play tennis quite creditably. So, if the Newport stores run to
flannels and rubber shoes----"

"Derry," she cooed, "you are not such a fraudulent person as you
imagine. If you knew how much you have told me tonight about yourself,
you would be awfully surprised, as they say in London. But here we are
at Mrs. Van Ralten's. Now, be nice to everybody; for I mean you to have
a real good time in Newport. People here can be very pleasant
acquaintances if you take them the right way."




CHAPTER VII

THE FORTY STEPS


During the next few days Power passed imperceptibly through many phases
of thought and emotion. When his judgment regained its natural equipoise
after the first bitter-sweet intoxication of finding his old sweetheart
desirous as ever of his companionship, he appeared to subside into a
state of placid acceptance of such restricted blessings as the gods
could offer. Nancy made good her promise, and Newport society threw wide
its doors to the good-looking and well-mannered visitor. No doubts were
raised concerning his financial or social status. A word from the
horse-fancying judge made it clear that the Westerner could not be a
poor man, seeing that he had already bought at stiff prices a
magnificent hunter and the best-matched pair of hackneys in the States,
and was in treaty for another round dozen of valuable animals; while
Mrs. Hugh Marten's manifest approval was sufficient to introduce any
similarly favored young man to the most exclusive circle in the island.

Seeing that certain things were essential, Power spent money freely,
supplying himself with a dog-cart, a groom, a valet, and the rest of the
equipment which any man needed who would mix in that fashionable crowd
without attracting attention by lack of it. Each morning he and Nancy,
sometimes unaccompanied, but more often mingling with a lively party,
rode about the island, following rough tracks which are smooth roads
nowadays, and visiting every favorite stretch of cliff and open country
time and again. When the weather moderated its torrid rigor, and sports
became possible in the grounds of the Casino or within the Polo Club's
inclosure, he bore his full share. In all that pertained to horsemanship
he was the equal of any man in Newport, and Nancy had not lost that
perfect confidence in the saddle which life on a ranch demands. Someone
gave prizes for a drag hunt, a hunting crop for the first man and a
silver cup for the first woman in at the finish of a ten-miles' trail,
and the two came in side by side, a furlong ahead of their closest
follower. Luncheons, yachting parties, dinners, musicales, and dances
crowded each day and often went far into the night. The heat-wave had
put forward the almanac, and the Newport season was in full swing nearly
a month in advance of its usual date.

Power retained his rooms at the Ocean House; but saw little of other
inmates of the hotel unless they happened to mix in the same set. His
friends of the dinner-table, except Dacre, had gone, and the Englishman,
like Power, was made an honorary member of the Casino Club; so they kept
up and developed an acquaintance which had begun so pleasantly.

The close intimacy between Mrs. Marten and the stranger from Colorado
attracted slight comment. No breath of scandal fluttered the dovecotes
of Newport. The behavior of the pair was exemplary, and, beyond the
accepted fact that, if any hostess desired the presence of one she must
invite the other, gossip about them was noticeable by its absence.
Their mutual use of Christian names from the outset established a tacit
cousinship, and the only growl uttered behind their backs was an
occasional complaint from some anxious mother who found her attractive
daughters completely eclipsed, in the eyes of at least one eligible
young man, by the millionaire's wife.

Once, and once only, before the crash came, did Nancy allude to the
purloined letters. She and Power were riding along the Cliff Walk before
breakfast, when she broached the subject quite unexpectedly.

"Derry, I want to ask you something," she said seriously. "Did my father
and you ever quarrel without my knowledge--before I left Bison, I mean?"

"No," he said.

"Don't be stupid! I hate answers in monosyllables. When you say no like
that, one suspects that it may really be a kind of yes."

"Then let me make it the most definite sort of negative. Remember, you
fixed a period. The last time I spoke to Mr. Willard before I
was--before I went to Sacramento--I had supper at the ranch."

He carried reminiscence no farther. She stole a look at him; but his
eyes were fixed on a faint blur of smoke rising over the azure plain of
the Atlantic from an invisible steamship. On that unforgetable night of
three and a half years ago, a starlit night of spring, she had walked
with him to the mouth of the Gulch, and in bidding each other farewell
they had exchanged their first and last kiss.

"Father was certainly not an enemy of yours then," she went on, in a
singularly even tone. Indeed, she might have been debating a matter of
utmost triviality. "It seemed to me that he always welcomed you at the
ranch. Why did he become so bitterly opposed to you afterward?"

He could have fenced with her, but deemed it preferable to speak freely.
"I think he was annoyed by my rapid success," he said. "He had made a
failure of things generally, and I candidly admit it must have been
exasperating to see a youngster like me, and a steady-going fossil like
Mac, step in and secure a fortune out of a place where he had met with
nothing but ill-luck. Those who get rich quick often incur animosity in
that way."

For a brief space there was silence. They seemed to be listening to the
slumberous plash of the breakers on the rocks far below, which, with the
pleasant creaking of saddlery, and the hoofbeats and deep breathing of
eager horses held in restraint, were the only sounds audible in that
wondrous solitude. They were passing a part of the cliff known as the
Forty Steps, a euphonious name describing a series of railed staircases,
cut in the solid rock, which afforded an irregular if safe passage to
the beach. Ochre Point, with its millionaire residences, lay a mile, or
less, in front, and on their left was the illimitable ocean. After a
bath and breakfast they had promised to join a large party on a steam
yacht bound for Narragansett Pier, when luncheon and a picnic at a
lighthouse would fill the afternoon. This day was precisely similar to
any other day of a whole fortnight in its round of amusements. The
weather was nearly perfection, and distinctly unsuited for a
heart-searching discussion; but Nancy seemed to be in a mood that
either invited self-torture or wished to witness the writhings of her
companion, because she would not leave a difficult subject alone.

"Supposing, Derry," she continued, "supposing I hadn't got married when
I did, do you think you would have discovered the mine just the same?"

Now he was compelled to go off at a tangent. "You resemble the majority
of your sex in your desire to raise non-existent bogies for the mere
pleasure of slaying them," he began.

"Which is the bogy--my supposition or the mine?" she broke in.

"How can I imagine what would have happened in circumstances which did
not take place? The discovery, or rediscovery, of the mine was one of
those extraordinary bits of good luck which Fortune sometimes thrusts
upon her favorites. It might have occurred if you had never left Bison;
but, on the other hand, it might not."

She nodded her complete agreement. By not answering he had answered
fully.

"Yes, the goddess was certainly kind to you," she said. "The cowboys did
not often ride through the Gulch firing their revolvers. In fact, the
only time I can recall any such riotous proceeding was on the day of my
wedding. That must have been your lucky day."

She watched him closely; but his face showed no sign of emotion. Yet she
was sure that his eyes narrowed somewhat as they continued to search the
horizon, and his lips were set with a dourness hardly warranted by an
enjoyable ride on a carefree morning.

Then she smiled, very slightly, as though she was well pleased. She was
not cruel; but any woman who wants to assure herself that a man loves
her will understand why Nancy Marten was putting Power on the rack, and
even tightening the cords almost beyond endurance.

"I'm sorry if I have worried you, Derry," she said, with a tender caress
in her voice that in no wise helped to mitigate his suffering. "One more
question, and I have done. Have you told your mother that I am here?"

There was no help for it. He lied boldly.

"Yes," he said.

"What did she say?"

"I am expecting her reply any hour."

"And Mac? Did you give him my love?"

"I haven't written to Mac since I came to Newport; but I shall not omit
a word of your message when I see him, or write, whichever comes
first.... Have you any idea what time it is?"

"Time these lazy gees were stirring themselves. Come, Hector!"

She shook the reins on her horse's neck, and the big hunter jumped off
in a fast canter. Power raced alongside, and the two struck into a
byroad leading to Bellevue Avenue. Power was busying his brain to
formulate some colorless phrase which would supply a natural-sounding
comment by his mother on the fact that he had encountered an old friend
in Newport. He knew well that he dared not tell her; for the tidings
would distress her immeasurably. But he need not have troubled himself.
Nancy never mentioned the matter again, for the very convincing reason
that she did not believe him. Her allusion to Mrs. Power was one last
turn of the screw. She was as certain that he could no more explain her
presence to his mother than she could explain his to her father. Twice
had she written his name in letters to Denver, and twice had she
destroyed the letter. On the night she met Power she had dashed off a
hot and impetuous note asking Willard why Derry's letters had been
withheld; but, in calmer mood, this dangerous query was given to the
flames. On a second occasion, about a week later, Power's name crept
inadvertently into a description of some incident at the Casino, and the
warm blood rushed to her face and neck when she found how near she was
to committing the letter to the post without having read it.

All that day Power was puzzled by a new serenity shining in Nancy's
eyes. He could not guess that, more candidly analytical than he, she had
looked fearlessly into the future and had discounted its agonies. She
felt now that she had been tricked into a loveless marriage; that Marten
had purchased her with exactly the same cold calculation of values which
he would have applied to a business undertaking. Willard had proved as
potter's clay in his hands, and every turn and twist of the project was
clear to her vision as though her husband, yielding to sardonic impulse,
had set forth the unsavory story in black and white. But it was one
thing to recognize how she had been duped, and another to strike out
boldly for instant freedom. And in that respect the woman was braver
than the man. Power was content to live in the golden present, to stifle
the longings and plaints of silent hours; while the woman who loved him
thought only of the end she now held firmly in view and recked little of
the means whereby that end might be achieved.

Their unhappy plight was intensified by the fact that their characters
had deepened and broadened alike during the years of separation. The boy
and girl attachment of those heedless days in Colorado might not have
withstood the strain of being thrown together again constantly after so
long an interval, if the woman's nature had not advanced step by step
with the man's. Experience of life, and the educative influences of
foreign travel and good society, had done for Nancy what quiet study and
seclusion from his fellow-men had done for Power. By such widely
different paths they had reached a common standard of earnest purpose
and high resolve, and Nancy, at any rate, was passionately determined
not to sacrifice the remainder of her youth because of the unhallowed
compact which sold her to gilded misery and robbed her of her one true
mate in all the world.

As she did not blink the consequences, there remained but to carry
through her desperate scheme as speedily and quietly as was compatible
with no risk of failure. Her one difficulty lay with Power himself. She
had first to break down his sense of honor, a task which could be
accomplished only by making him see clearly that her life's happiness
was at stake. And she knew him, oh, so well--far better than he knew
himself! Let Derry once find tears in her eyes, tears which he alone
could dispel, and the seeming fortress of his self-control would crumble
into dust. Let her once twine her arms around him, and what man-made
laws would wrench them apart? For, by her reasoning, the solemn
ordinances which govern frail human nature were wholly on her side. If
marriage were, indeed, a divine institution, its very essence was
profaned when Hugh Marten laid his sorry plan and made it effective by
sheer force of money. She, the woman, would be called on to pay for her
liberty in the coin minted of ill-repute, that base metal for whose
currency her sex was mainly responsible. But those friends whom she
valued would hear the truth, and they would rally round her, never fear!
Why, in this delightful island, where pain and anguish seemed to be
banished by the imperious ukase of deities presiding over the revels of
the rich, people recognized as leaders of society had passed already
through a furnace of scandal and scathing exposure such as she and her
lover would never be called upon to face.

And that was why Power was at once bewildered and raised to the seventh
heaven by her confident, contented smile when they met among the crowd
of merrymakers on the yacht, or exchanged a few commonplace words when
doing the round of Narragansett Bay and at dinner that evening in one of
Newport's summer palaces.

As his dog-cart was in waiting, he had no excuse to escort her home,
but, in saying goodnight, she contrived again to perplex and delight him
by a whispered request.

"Derry," she murmured, "make no outside engagement for tomorrow evening.
If you are already booked up, cry off. I want to dine with you in some
quiet place--I suppose there is some hotel or cafe in Newport where
none of our friends go. Find out, and send me a note, telling me the
time and place. I shall come in a hired carriage, and quietly
dressed--not in dinner clothes, I mean--and you must do the same. I must
have a long talk with you, wholly independent of our servants, you
understand."

"I shall obey, at any rate," he said, with a smile that failed to
conceal the unbounded surprise in his eyes. "May I put a question?"

"No, not now. Full details later, as people say in telegrams."

They parted, and he was so plagued by foreboding that he would have
driven past the Ocean House had not the horse turned in at the gateway
of its own accord. If Nancy's manner during the day had shown the least
trace of worry or annoyance, he would have attributed her strange
request to a desire to take him into her confidence. It was possible,
for instance, that some busybody had warned her that a too marked
preference for the society of one man among the many in Newport would
probably reach her husband's ears; but, in that event, her outraged
pride could never have been veiled by such a mask of unsullied
cheerfulness. If any more drastic explanation of the next day's meeting
suggested itself to his troubled mind, he crushed it resolutely. In his
present mood, the slightest hint of scandal associated with Nancy's
winsome personality due to their friendship was anathema. He would have
endured any loss, fortune, even life itself, to save her name from
besmirchment.

When he alighted from the dog-cart he knew it was useless to try and
sleep; so he lit a cigar, and sat in a remote corner of the veranda.
Then he began seriously to analyze her words. They were to meet in
clandestine fashion; not actually in the garments of disguise, but at a
rendezvous so remote from the frequenters of the Casino as to run small
risk of being identified. She would drive thither in a "hired carriage,"
and he was to leave his dog-cart and groom at home. Moreover, she
inferred that he would not see her until the evening, since the locality
of this _diner a deux_ was to be written; though they had hardly been
separated by longer intervals than a couple of hours between seven
o'clock in the morning and nearly midnight during each day of a
fortnight. What did it all portend? Was this to be their last meeting?
At that thought a fierce pain gripped him, and he was sorely tempted to
call the gods to witness that he would not return to a lifetime of
wandering in the wilderness. Yet, said a still, small voice within, was
it not better so? She was another man's wife. He must remember that,
remember it even when his pent-up passions stormed the citadel of his
conscience, remember it when the sheer fragrance of her maddened his
senses, remember it when the taste of Dead Sea fruit was bitterest in
his mouth. Of what worth was he if, for her dear sake, he was not strong
in knightly resolve? And how could he ever again dare to receive his
mother's kiss if he betrayed the trust which she, at least, reposed in
him?

A mournful and depressing reverie was disturbed by the arrival of a
carriage at the porch. Four young people alighted--two honeymoon couples
they were supposed to be--and their lively voices seemed to ring the
knell of his wrecked existence. He listened, only half hearing, while
they chattered like magpies.

They had been to a dance at the Casino, and their broken comments told
of a jolly evening, a capital band, the best floor that ever was laid,
some wonderful dresses, and an unexcelled supper. Similar young people
were telling each other exactly the same inane commonplaces all over the
eastern part of America at that hour, and similar cackle would girdle
the earth till the crack of doom. Probably the men were wise as he, and
the women might be deemed by their swains pretty as Nancy; yet some
malign despot among the powers which control poor humanity had decreed
that he alone should never know these frivolous moments, never be
granted these breathing-spaces of mild abandonment. And so, wroth with
himself, and vexed with the sorry scheme of things, he went to his
rooms.

Next morning, to make sure, he rode to Nancy's house. No; Mrs. Marten
had not ordered her horse; in fact, she had not appeared as yet, and the
pleasant-spoken butler, showing the requisite confidence in the
discretion of a recognized friend, added that his mistress would not be
"at home" to anyone before luncheon.

Then, the weather being glorious and the air like champagne, Power
whistled care to the devil, and cantered into the town to review the
ground for the night's fixture.

Newport today boasts of almost uncountable hotels and boarding-houses,
nor was the area of choice limited in that respect nearly a generation
ago. After careful scrutiny of various buildings in the business
quarter, Power selected a cafe run by a certain Giovanni Pestalozzi as
the most promising. It looked clean and bright, and an Italian might be
trusted to be discreet.

Getting a man to hold his horse, he interviewed Giovanni, and was
assured that Delmonico's itself could not produce a better meal if the
signor invited comparison. The signor wanted nothing elaborate, however.
He admitted he was not well versed in either menus or wines, but
demanded the best, and, after inspecting a well-furnished room
overlooking the street, lodged a ten-dollar bill as earnest money, with
a promise of ample largess if he were pleased. Then he rode away to the
Ocean House, sent a note to Nancy, and received a reply which deepened
his mystified dismay.

For she wrote:

    "Dear Derry, I shall be there at seven-thirty. Meanwhile, go to
    the Casino, and tell everybody that you are summoned to New York
    on business, and mean to leave either tonight by the Fall River
    steamer or by first train tomorrow. You are traveling by the train
    to oblige me; so I am not asking you to indulge in polite fiction.

                                                    "Yours ever,
                                                            "NANCY."

He carried out instructions to the letter, and was chaffed mildly for
deserting the place just as his friends were getting to like him. It was
easy to promise a speedy return, if possible; though he felt, somehow,
that he would never see Newport again. The conclusion of his
horse-dealing transactions took up a good deal of the afternoon, and, to
his regret, Dacre was out with a yachting party; so he left a hurriedly
written message about his pending departure.

Then he strolled out, went downtown by street car, and met Nancy when
she alighted from a rickety cab at the door of Pestalozzi's cafe. She
wore a cream-tinted dress, and her piquant features were daintily framed
in a big Leghorn hat. It pleased him to find that she had not even
deigned to veil her face, and her cheerful cry of recognition showed no
conscience-stricken sense of guilt because of a meeting which, if known,
must have excited the suspicions of her intimates.

"Ah, there you are, Derry!" she said. "Was there ever a more punctual
person? Am I late? I had such a load of things to do that I left
dressing till the last moment. Is this where we dine? What a jolly
little cafe! It is just like hundreds of such establishments in Rome and
Naples. I suppose these Italian restaurateurs employ their
fellow-countrymen as builders and decorators; so they carry their
architecture and fittings with them."

"They change their skies, but not their soups," said Power, falling in
with her mood, and the driver of Nancy's cab recognized the adaptation
of Horace's tag, and was pleased to grin, being himself a broken-down
graduate of Harvard.

Ushered to the dining-room, they tackled the _hors d'oeuvres_ at once,
and Nancy chatted about current events with the tranquil self-possession
she would have displayed at Mrs. Van Ralten's dinner-table. The meal,
excellently cooked and deftly served, marched to its end without a word
from her as to its particular purpose. She delighted Pestalozzi by
taking minute instructions for the preparation of an exquisite
spaghetti, and even noted the brands of Italian wines which should be
tabled with each course. At half-past eight, when coffee appeared, she
rose:

"Pay the bill now, Derry," she said. "We must be off in five minutes,
and I am sure you want to smoke at least one cigarette in peace. Perhaps
Signor Pestalozzi will be good enough to order a cab?"

Signor Pestalozzi was charmed, and decidedly puzzled. He believed for
many a year that those two had dined at his cafe for a wager. If any
doubter scoffed, he would say, with appropriate gesture:

"Sango la Madonna! I tella you he no squeeze-a de gell, not-ta one time;
so, if dey no make-a de bet, what-a for he give 'er dat pranzo superbo?"

Really, from Giovanni's point of view, there was no answer.

"Tell the man to drive us to the Easton's Beach end of the Cliff Walk,"
she said nonchalantly, when the cab was in evidence, and away they went.

"There is no moon; but these summer nights are never quite dark," she
began, by way of polite conversation. "It ought to be restful tonight
down there by the Atlantic. It is a horrid thing to confess, but the
memories of Venice which are most vivid in my mind are not connected
with St. Mark's or the Doge's Palace, but center round just such a night
as this on the Lido. Coming back in the gondola, I almost wanted to slip
over the side into the still waters, and drift away to the unknown."

"Do we swim tonight, then?" he asked.

It was a relief to hear his own voice in some such apparently
light-hearted quip. The cab was narrow, and hung on indifferent springs,
and its lurching across the roadway to avoid other vehicles often threw
him against Nancy's supple body. He could never touch her without
feeling the thrill of contact, and, fight as he would against it, the
desire to clasp her in his arms and stifle her protests with hot kisses
would come on him at such moments with an almost overwhelming ecstasy.

"If I led, would you follow, Derry?" she whispered.

Heaven help him, it seemed as though she was nestling close
deliberately; yet he refused to believe, and strove to answer with a
jest.

"I have a picture of you and me striking out across the bay for
Narragansett, like a pair of dolphins," he said.

"I thought of you that night on the Lido," she went on, unheeding. "I
imagined then that when you skipped off to Sacramento you had forgotten
the little girl of the Dolores ranch. At any rate, such was my every-day
common-sense sort of belief; but tucked away in some cute little nerve
center of intuition was another notion, which told me that we had been
driven apart by wicked and deceitful contriving. And now, thank my
stars, I know that my subconscious feeling was right! Oh, Derry! How you
must have despised me! What if we had not met for many a year, and you
had schooled yourself into real forgetfulness, and some other girl had
crept into a corner of your heart, thrusting out poor little me
forever?"

The gathering gloom without had now made the cab's interior so dark
that she could not see the rigid lines in his face, nor could she make
out by any convulsive movement that his hands were clenched, and that
beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. But she knew, yes, she
knew, and timid fingers caught his arm.

"You are not to think me mad or cruel to speak in this way," she cooed.
"I have looked into my very soul, Dear, and a great peace has come from
my self-communing. You have wearied your clever brain with guesses as to
my motive in meeting you tonight, and I giggled like a schoolgirl today
at the thought of your absolute amazement when you read my note bidding
you prepare to leave Newport. But it is all part and parcel of my plan,
Derry, which rests on your reply to one small question. Do you want to
go away from _me_? Are you ready to face a world in which there will be
no Nancy, never, no more?"

"Ah, you are trying me beyond endurance!" he almost sobbed.

"But you _must_ tell me _that_, Derry. I have gone a long way daringly.
It is my privilege, my right. If you love me, you must expect it of me,
because, as things are, I am forced to take the first step. But a woman
must be sure that she is loved, and her lover alone can still her
doubts."

An impulse stronger than his own strength of will brought strange, wild
words to his dry lips.

"Nancy," he said, with the calm accents of despair, "I have never loved
any woman but you, and, God willing, I never shall!"

"That is all that really matters," she sighed, with a contented note in
her voice that rang in his ears like a chord of sweet music heard from
afar in the depths of a forest.

After that they sat in silence, she seemingly wrapped in dreams, and he
wandering in a maze wherein impassable walls showed no gateway of
escape; though the guarded path was alluring, and the air was heavy with
the scent of flowers.

The cab stopped, and they alighted; for Nancy, demurely self-controlled,
announced that she meant to take him for a stroll along the Cliff Walk.
Power, deaf and blind to externals, would have accompanied her
straightway; but she laughingly called him back from the clouds.

"Tell the cabman to wait," she said, "and give him some money, or the
poor fellow will think that we have come this long way from town
purposely, and mean to go off without payment."

He handed the driver a subsidy which caused the man to avow his
willingness to wait till morning if necessary. Once away from the main
road, and with no other company than the stars and the sea, Nancy took
her escort's arm, and kept step with him.

"Now," she said, "I'm perversely disinclined to discuss personal affairs
until we reach a certain rock at the foot of the Forty Steps. I mean to
sit on that rock, and you will curl up on the shingle at my feet, and
light a nice-smelling cigar, and listen while I explain the method in my
madness of the last twenty-four hours. But I cannot arrange my thoughts
in sequence till we are settled there comfortably. In the meantime, I'll
make you acquainted with my best friend, the Duchesse de Brasnes, whom
you will meet some day in Paris, I hope, and then you will see for
yourself some of her delightful eccentricities which I'll recount to you
now, and you will laugh quietly and say, 'What an observant little
person that Nancy is! Now, who'd have thought she could quiz and con a
great lady of the Faubourg so accurately?' But you're not to
misunderstand my joking; for the duchess is a dear, and I'm very fond of
her."

To this day Power has never recalled a single syllable of Nancy's
utterances concerning one of the leaders of Parisian society. All that
he knew, or cared to know, was that the voice of his beloved was
murmuring words which were curiously soothing to his tingling nerves. By
this time he had cast scruples to the winds. His mind was armored with
triple steel against any other consideration than that Nancy was by his
side, that her hand rested confidently on his wrist, that he could feel
her slender arm warm and soft near his heart.

And the supreme moment was rushing upon him with the wings of love on a
summer's night, than which no flight of bird is so swift and noiseless.
They reached the top of the rocky staircase, and began to descend. A
fairy radiance from off the dark-blue mirror of the Atlantic made plain
each downward step; but Nancy wore the high-heeled shoes which women
affected then more generally than is the fashion today, and Power held
her hand lest she slipped and fell. Thus they made their way to the
beach, until they had almost negotiated the last short flight. Power,
indeed, was standing on the shingle, and the girl--for, married woman
though she was, her years were still those of a girl--was poised
gracefully on the lowermost slab.

There she hesitated perceptibly. His eyes met hers in a subtle
underlook, and he saw that her face was deathly white. Yet there was
neither fear nor indecision in her steadfast glance. Even while he asked
dumbly why she waited, her lips parted, she held out her hands with a
gesture of pleading, and she murmured:

"Oh, Derry, my own dear love, it is not the first but the last step
which counts now!"

Then he took her in his arms, and their lips met--and for her there was
no uncertainty ever more.




CHAPTER VIII

THE STEP THAT COUNTED


Of course, being a woman, she made believe that he had taken her by
storm.

"Derry, dear, how _could_ you?" she gasped, all rosy and breathless, and
seemingly much occupied in smoothing her ruffled plumes during the first
lull after the hurricane.

"You witch, who could resist you?" he muttered, showing well-marked
symptoms of another attack.

"No, you'll just behave, and sit exactly where I shall point out!" she
cried, and her pouting confidence gave eloquent testimony to the passing
of an indelible phase in their relations. "And I am not a witch; but if
you find it necessary to resist me, as you put it---- Well, there! only
this once. We _must_ sit down and be serious. I have such a lot to say,
and so little time in which to say it."

The new note struck by the unfettered intimacy of her manner exercised
an influence which Power would have regarded as a fantastic
impossibility during those moments of delirium when first she clung to
him, and both were shaken by irrepressible tumult. It said, far more
plainly than impassioned speech, that she had thrown down all barriers,
that she had counted the cost, and was giving herself freely and gladly
to her mate. The recognition of this supreme surrender by a proud
woman, a woman to whom purity of thought was as the breath of life,
administered a beneficial shock to his sorely tried nerves. Had a
brilliant meteor flashed suddenly through space, and rushed headlong
toward that part of the Atlantic which lapped the southern shore of
Rhode Island, it could not have illuminated land and sea with more
incisive clarity than did Nancy's attitude light up the dark places of
his mind. Some stupendous thing had happened which would account for
this miracle, and he must endeavor to understand. No matter what the
effort needed, he must attend to her every word. In his inmost heart he
knew that he cared not a jot what set of circumstances had brought about
a development which he had not dared to dream of. He recked little of
the cause now that its effect was graven on tablets more lasting than
brass. But it was due to Nancy that he should be able to follow and
appreciate her motives. He held fast to that thought in the midst of a
vertigo. A waking nightmare had been changed in an instant into a
beatitude akin, perilously akin, to that of the man and woman who found
each other in the one perfect garden which this gray old world has seen,
and no darkling vision of desert wastes and thorn-choked paths tortured
the happy lovers now gazing fearlessly into each other's shining eyes.
The heritage of "man's first disobedience" might oppress them all too
soon; but, for that night at least, it lay hidden behind the veil.
Exercising no slight command on his self-control, therefore, Power
strove to revert to the well-ordered coherency of speech and action
which he had schooled himself to adopt when in Nancy's presence.

"Forgive me if I have seemed rather mad," he pleaded, seating himself at
her feet, and simulating a calmness which resembled the placid center of
a cyclone. "During three long years I have hungered for the taste of
your lips, Dear. That is my excuse, and it should serve; for I was
content to wait as many decades if Fate kept firm in her resolve to deny
you to me."

"You would never have yielded if I had not used a woman's guile?" she
said, half questioning him, half stating a truism beyond reach of
argument.

"There is little of guile in your nature, Nancy."

"Well, I think that is true, too; but it is equally true that a woman
often takes what I may call a saner view of life than a man. She is
quicker to admit the logic of accepted facts. If you discovered that
some girl had won by false pretense, not your love, for love gilds the
grossest clay, but your respect, as her husband, you would not spurn her
with the loathing I feel now for the man who made me his wife. For that
is what it has come to. I refuse to pose as Hugh Marten's wife in the
eyes of the world one moment longer than is needful to obtain my
freedom. His wife I have never been in the eyes of Heaven, because my
Heaven is a place of love and content, and I have neither loved my
husband nor been content with him, not for a single instant. Our
marriage began with a lie, and has endured on a basis of lies. Such
contracts, I believe, are void in law, and the principle which governs
men in business should at least apply to that most solemn of all
engagements, the lifelong union of husband and wife. Hugh Marten
conspired with my father--hired him, I might rather say--to drive you
and me apart, Derry. The stronger and more subtle brain devised the
means, and left it to the weaker one to carry out the scheme in sordid
reality. As for me, I was helpless as a caged bird. How was I to guess
that Marten, whom I knew only as the owner of the Bison mines and mills,
had planned my capture? Even my poor, weak father did not suspect it
till you were hundreds of miles away in California. And then how
skilfully was the trap baited, and how swiftly it worked! You had not
reached Sacramento before a lawyer wrote from Denver warning my father
that the mortgagees were about to foreclose on the ranch. On several
occasions previously he had been in arrears with the interest on the
loan; but they had always proved considerate, and their just claims were
met, sooner or later. Yet, in a year when scores of well-to-do ranchers
were pressed for money, and when clemency became almost a right, these
people proved implacable, and swooped down on him like a hawk on a
crippled pigeon.... Derry, _you_ bought the place--who were they?"

"I do not know. I dealt through a lawyer, and the vendor was Mr.
Willard. He sold the property free of any encumbrance."

"Yet local opinion credited you and Mac with being a shrewd pair!" she
commented, laughing softly, as if she were reviewing some tragi-comedy
in a quizzical humor.

"We certainly wondered why Marten made things so easy for us--in other
respects," he volunteered.

"Ah, then, you _did_ have a glimmering suspicion of the truth? I guessed
it; though I could not be absolutely certain till yesterday morning,
when Mr. Benson refused to answer my pointblank question. He would not
lie, but he dared not tell the truth; so he fell back on the feeble
subterfuge that, after the mighty interval of three and a half years, he
could not recall the exact facts."

"Benson? Did you write to him?"

The surprise in Power's voice was not feigned. He was beginning to see
now something of the fixed purpose which had governed her actions during
the past twenty-four hours.

"Yes," she said composedly. "It was hardly necessary, but I wanted to
dispose of my last doubt; though in my own mind I was sure of the ground
already. My father went straight to Denver on receipt of that letter,
and, of course, chanced to travel by the same train as Hugh Marten, the
man to whom the whole amount of the mortgage was little more than a
day's income. Marten was gracious, the lawyer-man adamant. Within a week
I was told of a new suitor, and of my father's certain and complete ruin
if I refused him.... Ah, me! How I wept!... When did you post your first
letter, Derry?"

"Two days after I arrived at the placer mine," he replied
unhesitatingly. The chief revelation in Nancy's story was her
crystal-clear knowledge of facts which, he flattered himself, he had
kept from her ken. Then his heart leaped at the thought that she had
known of his love from the night they met in the dining-room of the
Ocean House. But he choked back the rush of sentiment; for she was
demanding his close attention.

"And I wrote on or about that same date," she went on. "My
father--Heaven forgive him!--stole your letters to me; but the scheme
for suppressing my letters to you must have been concocted before you
went to Sacramento. Such foul actions are unforgivable! I, for one,
refuse to be bound by the fetters which they forged. I come to you, my
dear, as truly your wife, as unstained in soul and body, as though Hugh
Marten had never existed!"

A sudden note of passion vibrated in her voice, and Power realized, by a
lightning flash of intuition, with what vehement decision she had
severed already the knot which seemed to bind her so tightly. He fancied
it was her due that he should endeavor to relax an emotional strain
which was becoming unbearable.

"It's a mighty good thing we are Americans," he said. "Here divorce is
neither hard to obtain nor highly objectionable in its methods. We--at
any rate, I--must consult some lawyer of experience. The laws differ in
the various states. That which is murder and sudden death in Ohio is a
five-dollar proposition in Illinois; but the legal intellect will throw
light on our difficulty. Meanwhile----"

He stopped awkwardly, aware that, although she was apparently listening
to his words, they were making no impression on her senses. A sudden
silence fell, and the hitherto unheeded noises of the night smote on his
ears with uncanny loudness. The leisured plash of waves so tiny that
they might not be dignified by the name of breakers swelled into a
certain strength and volume as his range of hearing spread, and the
faint cries of invisible sea-fowl now jarred loudly on the quietude of
nature. A pebble rolled down the cliff, and he could mark its constantly
accelerated leaps until it reached the shingle with a crash which, even
to a case-hardened pebble, betokened damage.

"Meanwhile----" prompted Nancy, in a still, small voice.

So she had followed what he was saying. What was it that he meant to
say? Something about the rocks and shoals that lay ahead before he could
take her to some safe anchorage. Nevertheless, he shied off at a
tangent, and chose haphazard the one topic which his sober judgment
might have avoided.

"I was about to utter a banal remark; but it may as well be put on
record and dismissed," he said. "It is fortunate that I am a rich man.
Mere weight of money can achieve nothing against us; while the
possession of ample means will simplify matters in so far as we are
concerned personally."

"Were those really the words on the tip of your tongue, Derry?"

"Well, no," he admitted.

"Are you afraid of hurting my feelings?"

"You are right, Dear. As between you and me there should be no
concealment. We have to face the immediate future. We must consider how
to surmount the interval, short though it may be----"

"Interval! What interval?"

"You cannot secure a divorce without some sort of legal process, and the
law refuses to be hurried."

"Ah, yes. Divorce--law--they are words which have little meaning here
and now."

"But they are all-important. Awhile ago you spoke of your Paris friends,
and there are others, like Mrs. Van Ralten, whose sympathies and help
will be of real value in years to come. You see, I want you to hold
your pretty little head higher as Mrs. John Darien Power than you ever
held it as Mrs. Hugh Marten."

"That will cost no great effort, Derry. If we have to pass through an
ordeal of publicity, we can surely use the vile means for our own ends,
so that our friends may know the whole truth.... Derry, if you were not
such a good and honorable man, you would not be so dense."

In his anxiety to follow each twist and turn of her reasoning he had
crept nearer, and was now on his knees, having imprisoned her hands in
his, and peering intently into her face. In that dim light her eyes
shone like faintly luminous twin stars, and he laughed joyously when, to
his thinking, he had solved the doubt that was troubling her.

"If it will help any that all the world should know that I, the
aforesaid John Darien Power, have been, and am, and will ever remain
frantically in love with a lady heretofore described as Nancy Willard, I
shall nail a signed statement to that effect on the Casino notice-board
tomorrow morning," he vowed.

She gently released her hands, placed them lovingly on his cheeks, and
drew him close, so that he could not choose but yield to any demand she
might make.

"Derry," she said, kissing him with that soothing air of maternity which
is a woman's highest endowment, "though I am going to say something
dreadfully forward and bold, I shall risk all lest I lose you, and, if
that happens, my poor heart will break and be at rest forever. Even now
you do not see whither I am leading you. You never would see unless I
spoke plainly. My love for you may be fierce and terrible; but I am
only a weak woman, a woman just emerged from girlhood, and I want to be
saved from myself. If, for your dear sake, I am to cut adrift from the
past, I cannot be left alone. By your side I can face the storm, but I
shudder at the thought of protests, appeals, influences perhaps more
potent than I imagine in my present new-found mood of hatred of the
wrong which has been done me. Derry, why, do you think, have I asked you
to leave Newport early tomorrow?"

Stirred by a common impulse, they both stood upright. All at once she
seemed to be unable to bear his burning gaze any longer, and her head
sank on his breast. He had thrown a protecting arm around her shoulders,
and he felt her supple body quiver under a sob which she tried to
restrain.

"Nancy," he whispered, "am I to take you with me?"

"Yes," she said brokenly.

"You mean that we are to be a law unto ourselves, and thereby make
divorce proceedings inevitable? I must put it that way, my dear one! I
must understand!"

"Yes, Derry. You _must_ understand. There is no other way."

He held her so tightly that he became aware of the mad racing of her
heart, and a great pity stirred his inmost core. How she must have
suffered! What agony was this forced discarding, one by one, of her
maidenly defenses! Though he had been blind and deaf solely because of
the depth and intensity of his love and reverence, he could utter now
only a halting plea that would explain his slowness of perception.

"Forgive me, Dear!" he murmured. "I can find nothing better to say than
that--forgive me! I was so absorbed in my own dream of happiness that I
gave no heed to the means. But I shall never again be so thoughtless."

"Thoughtless!" She raised her sweet face once more, tear-stained and
smiling. "You thoughtless, Derry? Women thank God for that sort of
thoughtlessness in men like you!"

And with that, before he could forestall or even divine her intention,
she had withdrawn from his embrace, and had run lightly up half a dozen
of the Forty Steps.

"Come!" she cried, with an alteration of manner and voice that was
almost stupefying to her hearer. "We have been here an unconscionable
time, and just think how awful it will be if our cabman has taken home
his tired horse! Of course, even at the twelfth hour, I have loads of
things to pack. And, since I don't know where I am going, the task of
selecting a reasonable stock of clothes is too appalling for words. Oh,
don't gaze at me as if I were a ghost, Derry! I am not about to flit
away into space. You will have another half hour of my company; because,
let that poor horse do his best, we sha'n't reach our respective
habitations till long after eleven o'clock."

Yet she was neither excited nor hysterical. A great load had been lifted
off her heart, and her naturally gay temperament was asserting itself
with vital insistence. There was no possibility of drawing back now.
Nothing but death could separate her from her lover. Nothing but death!
Well, that separation must come in the common order of things; but a
bright road stretched before her mind's eye through a long vista of
years, and her spirit sang within her and rejoiced exceedingly. No shred
of doubt or hesitation remained. She had passed already through the
storm, and though its clouds might roll in sullen thunder among distant
hills yet awhile, the particular hilltop on which she stood was bathed
in sunlight.

Above all else, despite her complete trust in Power, she thrilled with
the consciousness that her love contained a delicious spice of fear, and
that is why she climbed the Forty Steps in a sort of panic; so that he
marveled at her change of mood, and discovered in it only one more of
the enchantments with which his fancy clothed her.

The driver regarded them as a moonstruck couple, since that sort of moon
shines ever on fine evenings by the sea. He was obviously surprised when
the lady's address was given, because he expected a return journey to
one of Newport's many boarding-houses; but any suspicions he may have
entertained were dispelled when he witnessed a polite farewell in the
presence of a pompous butler, and heard Nancy say:

"I am going straight to my room now to write that letter to my father.
Then I shall finish packing. What time is the train--nine o'clock.
Goodnight, Derry! Sleep well!"

If he thought at all about the matter, the cabman might well have
imagined that no young lady in Newport that night had used words less
charged with explosive properties; yet no giant cannon on the warships
swinging to their moorings in the bay could have rivaled the uproar
those few simple sentences might create. Moreover, he heard the
gentleman address the butler by name, and witnessed the transference of
a tip, accompanied by the plain statement that the giver was leaving
Newport early next day. Indeed, once he had deposited his fare at the
Ocean House, the man probably gave no further heed to one or other of
the pair who had some foolish liking for a prolonged stroll on the
cliffs overlooking the Atlantic, nor, to his knowledge, did he ever
again see them, or even hear their names spoken of.

Power was crossing the veranda with his alert, uneven strides when a
voice came out of the gloom:

"Hullo, Power, that you? Come and join me in a parting drink."

It was Dacre, the one person in the hotel from whom such an invitation
was not an insufferable nuisance at the moment.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry," said Power, "as I am off tomorrow morning;
but I'm glad to find you here. You've received my note?"

"Yes. Sit down. I'm just going to light a cigar, and the match will help
you to mix your own poison. Had a pleasant evening?"

It was a natural though curiously pertinent question; but Power was at
no loss for an answer.

"I have really been arranging certain details as a preliminary to my
departure," he said.

"Where are you bound for, New York?"

"After some days, or weeks, perhaps. I hardly know yet."

"You've changed your plans, it seems?"

Power remembered then that he had invited the Englishman to visit
Colorado. It was practically settled that Dacre should come West within
three weeks or a month.

"By Jove!" he cried, "you must accept my apologies. Of course, I would
have recalled our fixture in good time, and have written postponing your
trip to Bison. Circumstances beyond my control will prevent my return
home for an indefinite period. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"Same here," said the other, with John Bull directness.

"But neither of us is likely to shuffle off the map yet awhile,"
continued Power. "You have my address, both in Colorado and at my New
York bank, and I have yours. Keep me posted as to your movements, and we
shall come together again later in the year."

He was eager to dissipate a certain starchiness, not wholly
unjustifiable, which he thought he could detect in his companion's
manner; but the discovery of its true cause disconcerted him more than
he cared to acknowledge, even to himself. Enlightenment was not long
delayed. Dacre's evident lack of ease arose from circumstances vastly
more important than the disruption of his own plans; he hesitated only
because he was searching for the right way to express himself.

"You and I have cultivated quite a friendship since we forgathered here
nearly three weeks ago," he began, after a pause which Power again
interpreted mistakenly.

"Yes, indeed. Won't you let me explain----"

"Not just yet. You are on the wrong tack, Power. You believe I'm rather
cut up about the postponement of your invitation. Not a bit of it. This
little globe cannot hold two men like you and me, and keep us apart
during the remainder of our naturals. No, mine is a different sort of
grouch. Now, I'm a good deal older than you. You won't take amiss
anything I tell you, providing I make it clear that I mean well?"

"I can guarantee that, at any rate."

Power's reply was straightforward enough; but his tone was cold and
guarded. The chill of premonition had fallen on him. A man whom he liked
and respected was about to fire the first shot on behalf of unctuous
rectitude and the conventions.

"I may as well open with a broadside," said Dacre, unwittingly adopting
the simile of social warfare which had occurred to his hearer. "I was
out with a yachting party this afternoon, and we were becalmed. Three of
us came away from the New York Yacht Club's boathouse about half-past
eight, and took a street-car in preference to one of those rickety old
cabs. Luckily, by the accident of position, I was the only one of the
three who saw a lady and gentleman come out of an Italian restaurant.
The presence of two such people in that locality was unusual, to say the
least; but, as the man was a friend of mine, and the lady one whom I
admire and respect, I said nothing to the other fellows."

"That was thoughtful of you," broke in Power, half in sarcasm; for he
was vastly irritated that he had not contrived affairs more discreetly,
and half in genuine recognition of Dacre's tact.

"The thinking came later," said the Englishman slowly. "When all is
said and done, a little dinner _a l'Italienne_ might pass by way of a
joke--a harmless escapade at the best, or worst. But, when I reach my
hotel and find a note announcing that the man is leaving Newport
unexpectedly, and when I hear at the Casino that the woman also is
arranging to meet her father in New York, with equal unexpectedness, I
am inclined to ask the man, he being something more than a mere
acquaintance, if there is not a very reasonable probability that he is
making a damned fool of himself. Now, are we going to discuss this thing
rationally, or do you want to hit me with a heavy siphon? If the latter,
kindly change your mind, and let's talk about the next race for the
America's Cup."

Here no solemn diapason of wave and shingle relieved an unnerving
silence. Not even the distant rumble of a vehicle broke the tension. The
hour was late for ordinary traffic, early for diners and dancers. A deep
hush lay on the hotel and its garden. It was so dark that the street
lamps, twinkling few and far between the trees, appeared to diffuse no
larger area of light than so many fireflies.

"Are we alone here?" said Power, speaking only when an uneasy movement
on Dacre's part bestirred him.

"Yes. I saw to that when I heard your cab. I timed you to a nicety."

"You must be experienced in these matters."

"I have been most sorts of an idiot in my time."

"You are quite sure we are not overheard?"

"As sure as a man can be of anything."

"Then I recognize your right to question me. Tonight you, tomorrow all
Newport, will know what has happened----"

"Pardon an interruption. Women are invariably careful of the hour,
howsoever heedless they may be of next week. Newport knows nothing, will
know nothing, except that a popular lady is meeting her father in New
York, the said father having written to say he is coming East. His
letter is Exhibit A, yours to me Exhibit B, or it would be if it weren't
burnt."

"A legal jargon is not out of place. When the lady in question has
secured a divorce she will become my wife. Now you have the true
explanation of my seeming discourtesy. When I am married, I shall
entertain you at Bison if I have to escort you from Tokio, or even from
Sing Sing."

"But----"

"There are no 'buts.' She was stolen from me, decoyed away by the tricks
of the pickpocket and the forger. I am merely regaining possession of my
own. It was not I who cleared up the theft. That was her doing. There
can be no shirking the consequences. If my mother, whom I love and
venerate, implored me on her bended knees to draw back now from the
course I have mapped out, I would stop my ears to her pleading, because
I could not yield to it."

"Oh, it's like that, is it?"

"Just like that."

Dacre struck another match, and relighted the cigar which he had allowed
to go out after the first whiff or two. Power noticed that the flare of
the match was not used as an excuse for scrutinizing him, because his
friend's eyes were studiously averted. Then came the quiet, cultured
voice from the darkness:

"If that's the position, old man, I wish you every sort of good luck,
and a speedy end to your worries, and I'll come at your call to that
ranch of yours, from the other end of the earth, if need be."

Again a little pause. Then Power spoke:

"You ring like true metal all the time, Dacre. May I ask you one
thing--are you married?"

"No, nor ever likely to be. I--I lost her, not by fraud, but by my own
folly. But she understood--before she died. That is my only consolation.
It must suffice. It has sufficed."

"I'm sorry. I touched that chord unthinkingly. I merely wanted to have
your full comprehension--and sympathy."

"You had both already. I would not have dared to intrude if I did not
realize that a man talking to another man can raise points which are
lost sight of when a woman--_the_ woman--is the other party to the
debate."

"Would you care to hear a brief record of my life during the last few
years?"

"Go right ahead! I'm not a gossip. If I know something of the truth, I
may be able to stop a rill of scandal one of these days. There's bound
to be chatter, even though old Mr. Willard comes East."

"You know the name, then?"

"Certainly. Mrs. Van Ralten was speaking about him tonight--not very
favorably, either. Said she couldn't understand how such a man could
have such a daughter."

"Mrs. Van Ralten is a remarkably intelligent woman," said Power dryly.
"I never saw Nancy's mother; but I imagine that this is a case of
exclusive heredity, because there never were two more diverse natures
than Nancy's and her father's. She is the soul of honor, and would give
her life for a principle; while he bartered his own daughter for a few
thousand dollars. If I were not convinced of that, do you believe I
would besmirch her good name and my own by so much as tonight's mild
adventure in an Italian cafe?"

"I can give you easy assurance on that head. I have seldom been so
surprised as when I saw the pair of you leaving the place and entering a
cab."

"That was a mere episode, a first meek onslaught on the proprieties, so
to speak. You will understand fully when I have told you the whole
story."

They talked, or rather Power talked and Dacre listened, till a clock
struck twelve somewhere. Carriages began to roll along the neighboring
avenues, and lamps occasionally flitted past the hotel. Two or three
vivacious groups crossed the veranda, and a porter turned on a lamp.
Then Power found that his English friend had placed their chairs in a
sort of alcove formed by a disused doorway flanked on each hand by a
huge palm growing in a wooden tub which held a ton of earth, or more; so
they were well screened.

"You meant to force me to confess," he said, smiling.

"Yes. It might have been merely folly on your part."

"But now?"

"Now it is Fate's own contriving. You don't want to escape; but you
couldn't if you did. Or, that is awkwardly put. What I mean is----"

Dacre's meaning was clear enough; but he never completed the sentence. A
cab, laden with luggage, drove up, and a slightly built, elderly man
alighted.

"This the Ocean House?" he inquired, when a porter hurried forward.

"Yes, sir," and the man took a portmanteau from the driver.

"Hold on, there! I'm not sure I shall want a room. How far is 'The
Breakers' from here, Mrs. Marten's house?"

"Quite a ways," said the cabman. "Two miles an' a bit."

The new arrival seemed to consider the distance and the lateness of the
hour.

"Is Mrs. Marten in Newport, do you know?" he asked.

"Yep. I tuk her downtown this evenin'."

"Alone?"

"Guess that's so."

"Where was she going?"

"Wall, ye see, I was on the box, an' de lady was inside; so we didn't
git anyways sociable."

The stranger evidently bethought himself, and turned to the porter
again. He could not know that a Harvard man was merely speaking in the
vernacular. "Have you a Mr. Power staying here?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Is he here now?"

"If he isn't in the hotel, he'll be at the Casino. Shall I ring up his
room, sir?"

"No, no. I'll see him in the morning. It's too late to go any farther
tonight, and I'm rather tired and shaken up. My train was derailed, and
we are hours behind time. Give me a decent room. I suppose I can have
breakfast at eight o'clock?"

"Any time you like, sir."

The cab went off, and the inquisitive visitor entered the building. The
two men seated behind the palms had not uttered a syllable while the
foregoing conclave was in progress.

"Mr. Francis Willard, I presume?" murmured Dacre, when the retreating
footsteps had died away.

"Yes," said Power.

"Three days ahead of the time stated in his letter, I presume further."

"That must be so."

"Foxy. He fits your description. What are you going to do now?"

"Finish my yarn, if I am not wearying you, and leave Newport at seven
A.M. instead of nine-ten. The fox broke cover just a little too soon."

"By gad, yes! I think I'll recognize that cabman again. If I come across
him, I'll tip him for you. He deserves it.... The swine! To start
pumping the townsfolk before he was ten seconds in the place, and about
his own daughter, too! Dash his eyes--wait till someone refers him to me
for news of you! I'll head him into the open country quick enough--trust
me!"

Dacre's comments might sound rather incoherent; but it was painfully
evident that Nancy's father had created a bad first impression, and he
was one of those unhappy mortals who could not afford to do that,
because he never survived it.




CHAPTER IX

THE CHASE


In the morning Power's first care was to ascertain the position of the
room allotted to Willard. As he imagined, it proved to be in the back
part of the hotel, every apartment in the front section being occupied
by season residents. Shortly before six o'clock, therefore, he drove
away in an open carriage, confident that nothing short of an almost
incredible chance would bring the older man to vestibule or porch at
that early hour. Halting the vehicle at a corner near Nancy's abode, he
walked to the house, and surprised the earliest servants astir by
bidding one of them wake Mrs. Marten at once, as he had news of her
father.

"Nothing serious," he added, with a reassuring smile at a housemaid
whose alarmed face showed an immediate sense of disaster. "Mrs. Marten
is leaving Newport today, I think, and my message may decide her to
start sooner--that is all."

But Nancy had seen him from her bedroom window, and now fluttered
downstairs in a dressing gown.

"What is it, Derry?" she asked, and mistress and maid evidently shared
the feminine belief that such an untimely call presaged something
sensational and therefore sinister.

"Don't be frightened," he said cheerfully, knowing how essential it was
that she should not be startled into an exclamation which might betray
her secret to the listening servants. "I heard from Dacre last night
that you meant to meet Mr. Willard in New York, and I have reason to
believe that you ought to depart by the first train. To do that, you
must get away from the house in forty minutes. Can you manage it?"

She came nearer, seeking the truth in his warning eyes, carrying a brave
front before the maids, but with fear in her heart, because she and her
lover had eaten of the forbidden fruit, and now they were as gods,
knowing good and evil.

"Mr. Dacre!" she repeated. "I suppose Mary Van Ralten told him what I
said. But I don't quite understand. Why should I hurry my departure?"

Nothing in this that anyone might hear and deem significant. Power
laughed, as though her air of slight alarm had amused him.

"Come into the veranda," he said. "You are not afraid of the morning
air, and it is not on my conscience that I have robbed you of an hour's
sleep, since you were up and around before I arrived."

When they were alone, though shut off from inquisitive ears by
wire-screen doors only, he said, in a low voice:

"Don't say anything that will cause comment, but your father arrived at
the Ocean House soon after midnight, and means to be here about nine
o'clock. Our train leaves at seven. Will you use your own carriage, or
shall I send a cab in half an hour? You will be ready, of course?"

Nancy was not of that neurotic type of womankind which screams or
faints in a crisis. "Y-yes," she murmured. "In less time, if you wish."

"No need to rush things," he said coolly. "He is not to be called till
eight. I heard him give the order."

"You _heard_ him!"

"Yes. Thanks to Dacre, when he arrived I was sitting in the veranda,
well hidden, as it happened; so I planned to reach you this morning with
a couple of hours in hand."

"But, Derry, I have a note written, and ready for the post. I can't
explain now----"

"Put the note in your pocket, and deal with the new situation at
leisure. There's only one thing I regret----"

"Regret! Oh, Derry, what is it?" And again the shadow of fear darkened
her eyes, eyes of that rare tint of Asiatic blue known as blende Kagoul,
a blue darker at times than any other, and again, bright, dazzling, full
of promise, rivaling the clear sky on a summer's night.

"That I dare not take you in my arms and kiss you," he said. "You look
uncommonly pretty in that negligee wrap."

She blushed, and put up a hand to reassure herself lest her hair might
be tumbling out of its coils. Then she ran to the screen doors and
pushed them apart.

"I can't wait another second," she said. "Please send that cab. Our own
men will hardly be at the stables yet."

She waved a hand and vanished. Her hurried orders to the domestics came
in the natural sequence of things, and caused no surprise. When she
drove away from the house at twenty minutes of seven every member of her
establishment believed that Mrs. Marten had gone to join her father in
New York, but, for some reason communicated by her "cousin," was
traveling by the first train of the day instead of the second. The only
perplexed person left in "The Breakers" was Julie, the French maid, who
thought she would find a holiday in Newport dull, and was, moreover,
genuinely concerned because of the scanty wardrobe which her mistress
had taken.

Oddly enough, Power, waiting with stoic anxiety outside the New York,
New Haven & Hartford station, shared some part of Julie's thought when
he saw Nancy's two small steamer trunks and a hatbox.

"Well!" he cried, helping her to alight. "Here have I been worrying
about the capacity of the cab to hold your baggage, and you bring less
than I!"

"Pay the man," she said quietly. Then, under cover of the approach of a
porter with a creaking barrow, she added, "I am coming to you penniless
and plainly clad as ever was Nancy Willard. You wish that, don't you?"

"You dear!" he breathed; but she had her full answer in the color that
suffused his bronzed face and the light that blazed in his eyes.

He had experienced no difficulty in securing the small coupe of a
Pullman car to Boston. In that train there was little likelihood of any
chance passenger recognizing them. In actual fact, they had the whole
car to themselves. Nancy, who could not banish the notion that the whole
world was watching her, was nervous and ill at ease until the train
pulled out of the station. She even started and flushed violently when
the conductor came to examine their tickets, whereupon the man smiled
discreetly and Power laughed.

"You're the poorest sort of conspirator," he said, when the door was
closed on the intruder. "We had better admit straight away that we're a
honeymoon couple, because everybody will know it the instant they look
at you."

But he failed to charm away the terror that oppressed her spirit. She
felt herself a fugitive from some unseen but awful vengeance, and her
heart quailed.

"Derry," she said, almost on the verge of tears, "I'm beginning to be
afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

Somehow, despite his utter lack of experience of woman's ways, he had
guessed that this moment would arrive, and was, to that extent, prepared
for it.

"Of everything. I--I know that I alone am to blame. It is not too late
for you to draw back."

"Why do you think I might wish to draw back?"

"Because of the horrid exposure you must face in the near future."

"My only trouble is that I may not bear your share as well as my own,
Nancy. The combined burden would lie light as thistledown on my
shoulders. Let us be true to ourselves, and it will surprise you to find
how readily the world, our world, will accept our view."

"In your heart of hearts, Derry, do you believe we are doing right?"

"When ethics come in at the door love flies out by the window. We are
righting a grievous wrong, and, although our actions must, for a time,
be opposed to the generally accepted code of morals, I do honestly
believe that this is a case in which the end justifies the means."

"If I were stronger, Dear, we might have kept within stricter bounds."

"You might have gone to Reno, for instance, and qualified for a divorce
by residence?"

"Something of the sort."

"I'll take you to Reno, if you like; but I'm going with you. Don't
forget that he who has begun has accomplished half. Why are you
torturing yourself, little woman? Shall I tell you?"

"I wish you would."

"Because," and his arms were thrown around her, and he kissed away the
tears trembling on her lashes, "because, like me, you are really afraid
lest we may be too happy. But life is not built on those lines, Deary.
It would still hold its tribulations if we could set the calendar back
to an April night of three years ago, and you and I were looking forward
with bright hope to half a century of wedded joy, with never a cloud on
the horizon, and never a memory of dark and deadly abyss crossed in the
bygone years. Let us, then, not lose heart in full view of the one
threatening storm. Let us rather rejoice that we are facing it together.
That is how I feel, Nancy. I have never loved you more than in this
hour, and why should I repine because of the greatest gift God can give
to man, the unbounded love and trust of the one woman he desires? You
are mine, Nancy, mine forever, and I will not let you go till I sink
into everlasting night."

After that, an interlude, when words were impossible, else both would
have sobbed like erring children. At last Nancy raised her eyes, and
smiled up into her lover's face, and he understood dimly that, when a
woman's conscience wages war with her emotions, there may come a speedy
end to the unequal strife.

"Derry," she whispered, "have you realized that I don't know where you
are taking me?"

So the battle had ceased ere it had well begun. Perhaps she was hardly
conscious--if she were, she gave no sign--of the crisis dissipated by
that simple question. It closed with a clang the door of retreat.
Henceforth they would dree their weird hand in hand. They would look
only to the future, and stubbornly disregard the past. Shutting
rebellious eyes against a mandate written in letters of fire, they would
seek comfort in Herrick's time-serving philosophy:

  "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
    Old Time is still a-flying;
  And this same flower that smiles today
    Tomorrow will be dying."

The train slackened speed. They were nearing a wayside station, and they
drew apart in confusion like a pair of lovers surprised in some quiet
corner. But Power laughed softly, and Nancy caught a new note of content
in his voice.

"A nice thing!" he cried. "The girl is safe aboard the lugger, and I
don't even tell her to what quarter of the globe she is being lugged.
But the sailing directions are easy. We breakfast at Boston. Don't you
dare say you cannot eat any breakfast!"

"I can, or I shall, at any rate," she retorted bravely.

"Then Boston will be the best place on earth at nine o'clock. Afterward
we take the Burlington road, and cross Lake Champlain. There's a
first-rate hotel on the west shore, and we stay there tonight. Tomorrow
we plunge into the Adirondacks, and lose ourselves for as long as we
please. How does that program suit my lady?"

"Whither thou goest----" she said, and her eyes fell.

Thus did they thrust dull care into the limbo of forgetfulness, and if
there was standing at the gates of their Eden a frowning angel with a
drawn sword, their vision was clouded, and they could not see him.

       *       *       *       *       *

America rises early, even in holiday-making Newport; so Mr. Francis
Willard did not breakfast in solitary state. When he entered the
dining-room at half-past eight next morning he cast a quick glance
around the well-filled tables, and ascertained instantly that the one
man whom he did not wish to see was absent.

Toward the close of the meal he beckoned the head waiter.

"Where does Mr. Power sit usually?" he inquired.

"Over there, sir, with Mr. Dacre, the English gentleman, at the small
table near the second window."

Following directions, Willard noted a good-looking man, apparently about
forty years old, who was studying the menu intently. As a matter of
fact, Dacre had seen the newcomer's signal, and guessed what it
portended.

"Oh, indeed! Mr. Dacre a friend of his?" went on Willard.

"They are often together, sir."

"And where is Mr. Power this morning?"

"He left by the first train, sir."

For some reason this news was displeasing; though Power's departure made
plausible any inquiries concerning him.

"That's a nuisance," said Willard. "I--wanted to meet him. I came here
last night for that purpose. Do you happen to know where he has gone,
and for how long?"

The head waiter was not in the habit of answering questions about his
patrons indiscriminately.

"I can't say, I'm sure, sir," he rs should be clearly marked as such and
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