The Girl of the Golden West (7 page)

For an hour or so Johnson rode along in that direction, checking
the speed of his horse every time the sun came into view and showed
that there was yet some time before sunset. Presently, he made a
sign to Castro to take the lead, for he had never been in this
locality before, and was relying on his subordinate to find a spot
from which he could reconnoitre the scene of the proposed raid
without the slightest danger of meeting any of the miners.

At a very sharp turn of the road to the left Castro struck off
through the forest to the right and, within a few minutes, reached
a place where the trees had thinned out and were replaced by the
few scrubs that grew in a spot almost barren. A minute or so more
and the two men, their horses tied, were able to get an
uninterrupted view of Cloudy Mountain.

The scene before them was one of grandeur. Day was giving place
to night, fall to winter, and yet at this hour all the winds were
stilled. In the distance gleamed the snow-capped Sierras, range
after range as far as the eye could see to the northwest; in the
opposite direction there stood out against the steel-blue of the
sky a succession of wooded peaks ever rising higher and higher
until culminating in the faraway white mountains of the south; and
below, they looked upon a ravine that was brownish-green until the
rays of the departing orb touched the leaves with opal tints.

Now the fast-falling sun flung its banner of gorgeous colours
across the western sky. Immediately a wonderful light played upon
the fleecy cumuli gathered in the upper heavens of the east and
changed them from pearl to brilliant scarlet. For a moment, also,
the purple hills became wonderful piles of dull gold and copper; a
moment more and the magic hand of the King of Day was
withdrawn.

In front of them now, dark, gloomy and threatening rose Cloudy
Mountain, from which the Mining Camp took its name; and on a
plateau near its base the camp itself could plainly be seen. It
consisted of a group of miners' cabins set among pines, firs and
manzaneta bushes with two larger pine-slab buildings, and scattered
around in various places were shafts, whose crude timber-hoists
appeared merely as vague outlines in the fast-fading light. The
distance to the camp from where they stood was not over three miles
as the crow flies, but it appeared much less in the rarefied
atmosphere.

As the two bandits stood on the edge of the precipice looking
across and beyond the intervening gulch or ravine, here and there a
light twinkled out from the cabins and, presently, a much stronger
illumination shot forth from one of the larger and more pretentious
buildings. Castro was quick to call his master's attention to
it.

"There—that place with the light is The Palmetto Hotel!" he
exclaimed. "And over there—the one with the larger light is The
Polka Saloon!" For even as he spoke the powerful kerosene lamp of
The Polka Saloon, flanked by a composition metal reflector, flashed
out its light into the gloom enveloping the desolate,
ominous-looking mountains.

Johnson regarded this building long and thoughtfully. Then his
eyes made out a steep trail which zigzagged from The Polka Saloon
up the barren slopes of the mountain until it reached a cabin
perched on the very top, the steps and porch of which were held up
by poles made of trees. There, also, a light could be seen, but
dimly. It was a strange place for anyone to erect a dwelling-place,
and he found himself wondering what manner of person dwelt there.
Of one thing he was certain: whoever it was the mountains were
loved for themselves, for no mere digger of gold would think of
erecting a habitation in view of those strange, vast, and silent
heights!

And as he meditated thus, he perceived that the far off Sierras
were forming a background for a sinuous coil of smoke from the
cabin. For some time he watched it curling up into the great arch
of sky. It was as if he were hypnotised by it and, in a vague,
shadowy way, he had a sense of being connected, somehow, with the
little cabin and its recluse. Was this feeling that he had a
premonition of danger? Was this a moment of foreboding and distrust
of the situation yet to be revealed? For like most venturesome men
he always had a moment before every one of his undertakings in
which his instinct either urged him forward or held him back.

Suddenly he became conscious that his eyes no longer saw the
smoke. He stared hard to glimpse it, but it was gone. And with a
supreme effort he wrenched himself free from a sort of paralysis
which was stealing away his senses.

Now the light in the cabin disappeared, and since the shades of
night, for which he had been waiting, had fallen, he called to the
impatient and wondering Castro, and together they went back to the
trail.

But even as they crossed the gulch and reached the outskirts of
the camp a great white moon rose from behind the Sierras. To
Castro, hidden now in the pines, it meant nothing so long as it did
not interfere with his purpose. As a matter of fact he was already
listening intently to the bursts of song and shouts of revelry that
came every now and then from the nearby saloon. But his master,
unaccountably under the spell of the moon's mystery and romance,
watched it until it shed its silvery and magic light upon the lone
cabin on the top of Cloudy Mountain, which Fate had chosen for the
decisive scene of his dramatic life.

Inside The Polka, not a bit more, and not a bit less sardonic—it
was this imperturbability which made him so resistless to most
people—than he was prior to the banishment of The Sidney Duck, the
Sheriff of Manzaneta County waited patiently until the returning
puppets of his will had had time to compose themselves. It took
them merely the briefest of periods, but it served to increase
visibly the long ash at the end of Rance's cigar. At length he shot
a hawk-like glance at Sonora and proposed a little game of
poker.

"This time, gentlemen—" he said, with a significant pause and
accent—"just for social recreation. What do you say?"

"I'm your Injun!" acquiesced Sonora, rubbing his hands together
gleefully at the prospect of winning from the Sheriff, whom he
liked none too well.

"That's me, too!" concurred Trinidad.

"Chips, then, Nick!" called out the Sheriff, quietly taking a
seat at the table; while Sonora, bubbling over with spirits,
hitched up his trousers in sailor fashion and executed an impromptu
hornpipe, bellowing in his deep, base voice:

"I shipped aboard of a liner, boys—"

"Renzo, boys, renzo," finished Trinidad, falling in place at the
table.

At this point the outside door was unexpectedly pushed open,
inward, and the Deputy-Sheriff came into their midst.

"Ashby just rode in with his posse," he announced huskily to his
superior.

The Sheriff flashed a look of annoyance and inquired of the
gaunt, hollow-cheeked, muscular Deputy whose beaver overcoat was
thrown open so that his gun and powder-flask showed plainly in his
belt:

"Why, what's he doing here?"

"He's after Ramerrez," answered the Deputy, eyeing him
intently.

Rance received this information in silence and went on with his
shuffling of the cards; presently, unconcernedly, he remarked:

"Ramerrez—Oh, that's the polite road agent who has been visiting
the other camps?"

"Yes; he's just turned into your county," declared the Deputy,
meaningly.

"What?" Sonora looked dumbfounded.

The Deputy nodded and proceeded to the bar. And while he drained
the contents of his glass, the Minstrel played on his banjo, much
to the amusement of the men, who showed their appreciation by
laughing heartily, the last bars of, "Pop Goes the Weasel."

"Hello, Sheriff!" greeted Ashby, coming in just as the merriment
over the Minstrel's little joke had died away. Ashby's voice—quick,
sharp and decisive was that of a man accustomed to ordering men,
but his manner was suave, if a trifle gruff. Moreover, he was a man
of whom it could be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that he was
never known to be drunk nor ever known to be sober. It was plain
from his appearance that he had been some time on the road.

Rance rose and politely extended his hand. And, although the
greeting between the two men was none too cordial, yet in their
look, as they eyed each other, was the respect which men have for
others engaged more or less in the same business and in whom they
recognise certain qualities which they have in common. In point of
age Ashby was, perhaps, the senior. As far as reputation was
concerned, both men were accounted nervy and square. Rance
introduced him to Sonora and the others, saying:

"Boys, Mr. Ashby of Wells Fargo."

The latter had a pleasant word or two for the men; then, turning
to the Deputy, he said:

"And how are you these days?"

"Fit. And yourself?"

"Same here." Turning now to the barkeeper, Ashby, with easy
familiarity, added: "Say, Nick, give us a drink."

"Sure!" came promptly from the little barkeeper.

"Everybody'll have the same?" inquired Ashby, turning once more
to the men.

"The same!" returned the men in chorus.

Thereupon, Nick briskly slapped down a bottle and four glasses
before the Sheriff, and leaving him to do the honours, disappeared
into the dance-hall.

"'Well, I trust the Girl who runs The Polka is well?" inquired
Ashby, pushing his glass near the bottle.

"Fine as silk," vouched Sonora, adding in the next breath: "But,
say, Mr. Ashby, how long you been chasm' up this road agent?"

"Oh, he only took to the road a few months ago," was Ashby's
answer. "Wells Fargo have had me and a posse busy ever since. He's
a wonder!"

"Must be to evade you," complimented Sonora, much to the
discomfort of the Sheriff.

"Yes, I can smell a road agent in the wind," declared Ashby
somewhat boastfully. "But, Rance, I expect to get that fellow right
here in your county."

The Sheriff looked as if he scouted the idea, and was about to
speak, but checked the word on his tongue. Then followed a short
silence in which the Deputy, smiling a trifle derisively, went out
of the saloon.

"Is this fellow a Spaniard?" questioned the Sheriff, drawling as
usual, but at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder
towards a placard on the wall, which read:

"FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
FOR THE ROAD AGENT RAMERREZ,
OR INFORMATION
LEADING TO HIS CAPTURE.

"No—can't prove it. The fact of his leading a crew of greasers
and Spaniards signifies nothing. His name is assumed, I
suppose."

"They say he robs you like a gentleman," remarked Rance with
some show of interest.

"Well, look out for the greasers up the road!" was Ashby's
warning as he emptied his glass and put it down before him.

"We don't let them pass through here," shrugged Rance, likewise
putting down his glass on the table.

Ashby now picked up the whisky bottle and carried it over to the
deserted faro table before which he settled himself comfortably in
a chair.

"Well, boys, I've had a long ride—wake me up when The Pony
Express goes through!" he called over his shoulder as he put his
coat over him.

But no sooner was he comfortably ensconced for a snooze than
Nick came bustling in with a kettle of boiling water and several
glasses half-filled with whisky and lemon. Stopping before Ashby he
said in his best professional manner:

"Re-gards of the Girl—hot whisky straight with lemming
extract."

Ashby took up his glass, as did, in turn, the men at the other
table. But it was Rance who, with arm uplifted, toasted:

"The Girl, gentlemen, the only Girl in Camp, the Girl I mean to
make Mrs. Jack Rance!"

Confident that neither would catch him in the act, Nick winked
first at Sonora and then at Trinidad. That the little barkeeper was
successful in making the former, at least, believe that he
possessed the Girl's affections was manifested by the big miner's
next remark.

"That's a joke, Rance. She makes you look like a Chinaman."

Rance sprang to his feet, white with rage.

"You prove that!" he shouted.

"In what particular spot will you have it?" taunted Sonora, as
his hand crept for his gun.

Simultaneously, every man in the room made a dash for cover.
Nick ducked behind the bar, for, as he told himself when safely
settled there, he was too old a bird to get anywhere near the line
of fire when two old stagers got to making lead fly about. Nor was
Trinidad slow in arriving at the other end of the bar where he
caromed against Jake, who had dropped his banjo and was frantically
trying to kick the spring of the iron shield in an endeavour to
protect himself—a feat which, at last, he succeeded in performing.
But, fortunately, for all concerned, as the two men stood eyeing
each other, their hands on their hips ready to draw, Nick, from his
position behind the bar, glimpsed through the window the Girl on
the point of entering the saloon.

"Here comes the Girl!" he cried excitedly. "Aw, leave your guns
alone—take your drinks, quick!"

For a fraction of a second the men looked sheepishly at one
another, even Nick appearing a trifle uncomfortable, as he picked
up the kettle and went off with it.

"Once more we're friends, eh, boys?" said Rance, with a forced
laugh; and then as he lifted his glass high in the air, he gave the
toast:

"The Girl!"

"The Girl!" repeated all—all save Ashby, whose snores by this
time could be heard throughout the big room—and drained their
glasses.

There was a general movement towards the bar when the fair
proprietress of The Polka, who had lingered longer than usual in
her little cabin on top of the mountain, breezily entered the place
by the main door. In a coarse, blue skirt, and rough, white flannel
blouse, cut away and held in place at the throat by a crimson
ribbon, the Girl made a pretty picture; it was not difficult to see
why the boys of Cloudy Mountain Camp had a feeling which fell
little short of adoration for this sun-browned maid, with the
spirit of the mountain in her eyes. That each in his own way had
given her to understand that he was desperately smitten with her,
goes without saying. But, although she accepted their rough homage
as a matter of course, such a thought as falling in love with
anyone of them had never entered her mind.

As far back, almost, as she could remember, the Girl had lived
among them and had ever been a true comrade, sharing their
disappointments and thrilling with their successes. Of a nature
pure and simple, she was, nevertheless, frank and outspoken.
Moreover, she knew to a dot what was meant when someone—bolder than
his mates—stretched out his arms to her. One such exhibition on a
man's part she was likely to forgive and forget, but the wrath and
scorn that had blazed forth from her blue eyes on such an occasion
had been sufficient to prevent a repetition of the offence. In
short, unspoiled by their coarse flattery, and, to all appearances,
happy and care-free, she attended to the running of The Polka
wholly unsmirched by her environment.

But a keen observer would not have failed to detect that the
Girl took a little less pleasure in her surroundings than she had
taken in them before she had made the trip to Monterey. Downright
glad, to use her own expression, as she had been on her return to
see the boys of the camp and hear their boisterous shouts of
welcome when the stage drew up in front of The Polka, she had to
acknowledge that her home-coming was not quite what she expected.
It was as if she had suddenly been startled out of a beautiful
dream wherein she had been listening to the soft music of her
lover's voice and brought face to face with the actualities of
life, which, in her case, to say the least, were very real.

For hours after leaving her admirer sitting motionless on his
horse on the great highway between Monterey and Sacramento, the
Girl had indulged in some pertinent thoughts which, if the truth
were known, were anything but complimentary to her behaviour. And,
however successful she was later on in persuading herself that he
would eventually seek her out, there was no question that at first
she felt that the chances of her ever setting eyes on him again
were almost negligible. All the more bitterly, therefore, did she
regret her folly in not having told him where she lived;
particularly so since she assured herself that not only was he the
handsomest man that she had ever seen, but that he was the only one
who had ever succeeded in chaining her attention. That he had been
making love to her with his eyes, if not with words, she knew only
too well—a fact that had been anything but displeasing to her.
Indeed, far from having felt sorry that she had encouraged him,
she, unblushingly, acknowledged to herself that, if she had the
thing to do over again, she would encourage him still more.

Was she then a flirt? Not at all, in the common acceptation of
the word. All her knowledge of the ways of the world had been
derived from Mother Nature, who had supplied her with a quick and
ready wit to turn aside, with a smile, the protestations of the
boys; had taught her how to live on intimate terms with them and
yet not be intimate; but when it came to playing at love, which
every city maid of the same age is an adept at, she was strangely
ignorant. Of a truth, then, it was something far broader and deeper
that had entered into her heart—love. Not infrequently love comes
as suddenly as this to young women who live in small mining camps
or out-of-the-way places where the men are practically of a type;
it is their unfamiliarity with the class which a stranger
represents when he makes his appearance in their midst that is
responsible, fully as much as his own personality, for their being
attracted to him. It is not impossible, of course, that if the Girl
had met him in Cloudy,—say as a miner there,—the result would have
been precisely the same. But it is much more likely that the
attendant conditions of their meeting aided him in appealing to her
imagination, and in touching a chord in her nature which, under
other circumstances, would not have responded in as many months as
there were minutes on that eventful day.

Little wonder then, that as each succeeding mile travelled by
the stage took her further and further away from him, something
which, as yet, she did not dare to name, kept tugging at her
heartstrings and which she endeavoured to overcome by listening to
the stage driver's long-winded reminiscences and anecdotes
concerning the country through which they were passing. But,
although she made a brave effort to appear interested, it did not
take him long to realise that something was on his passenger's mind
and, being a wise man, he gradually relapsed into silence, with the
result that, before the long journey ended at Cloudy Mountain, she
had deceived herself into believing that she was certain to see her
admirer again.

But as the days grew into weeks, the weeks into months, and the
Girl neither saw nor heard anything of him, it was inevitable that
the picture that he had left on her mind should begin to grow dim.
Nevertheless, it was surprising what a knack his figure had of
appearing before her at various times of the day and night, when
she never failed to compare him with the miners in the camp, and,
needless to say, unflatteringly to them. There came a time, it is
true, when she was sorely tempted to tell one of them something of
this new-found friend of hers; but rightly surmising the effect
that her praising of her paragon would have upon the recipient of
her confidences, she wisely resolved to lock up his image in her
heart.

Of course, there were moments, too, when the Girl regretted that
there was no other woman—some friend of her own sex in the camp—to
whom she could confide her little romance. But since that boon was
denied her, she took to seeking out the most solitary places to
dream of him. In such moods she would climb to a high crag, a few
feet from her cabin, and with a reminiscent and far-away look in
her eyes she would sit for hours gazing at the great canyons and
gorges, the broad forests and wooded hillsides, the waterfalls
flashing silver in the distance, and, above all, at the
wonderously-grand and snow-capped peaks of the main range.

At other times she would take the trail leading from the camp to
the country below, and after wandering about aimlessly in the
beautiful and mysterious forests, she would select some little glen
through which a brook trickled and murmured underneath the ferns
into a pool, and seating herself on a clump of velvet moss, the
great sugar pines and firs forming a canopy over her head, she
would whisper her secret thoughts and wild hopes to the
gorgeously-plumed birds and saucy squirrels scampering all about
her. The hours spent thus were as oases in her otherwise practical
existence, and after a while she would return laden down with great
bunches of ferns and wild flowers which, eventually, found a place
on the walls of The Polka.

Glancing at the bar to see that everything was to her
satisfaction, the Girl greeted the boys warmly, almost rapturously
with:

"Hello, boys! How's everythin'? Gettin' taken care of?"

"Hello, Girl!" sang out Sonora in what he considered was his
most fetching manner. He had been the first to reach the coveted
position opposite the Girl, although Handsome, who had followed her
in, was leaning at the end of the bar nearest to the
dance-hall.

"Hello, Sonora!" returned the Girl with an amused smile, for it
was impossible with her keen sense of humour not to see Sonora's
attempts to make himself irresistible to her. Nor did she fail to
observe that Trinidad, likewise, had spruced himself up a little
more than usual, with the same purpose in mind.

"Hello, Girl!" he said, strolling up to her with a ludicrous
swagger.

"Hello, Trin!" came from the Girl, smilingly.

There was an awkward pause in which both Sonora and Trinidad
floundered about in their minds for something to say; at length, a
brilliant inspiration came to the former, and he asked:

"Say, Girl, make me a prairie oyster, will you?"

"All, right, Sonora, I'll fix you right up," returned the Girl,
smiling to herself at his effort. But at the moment that she was
reaching for a bottle back of the bar, a terrific whoop came from
the dance-hall, and ever-watchful lest the boys' fun should get
beyond her control, she called to her factotum to quiet things down
in the next room, concluding warningly:

"They've had about enough."

When the barkeeper had gone to do her bidding, the Girl picked
up an egg, and, poising it over a glass, she went on:

"Say, look 'ere, Sonora, before I crack this 'ere egg, I'd like
to state that eggs is four bits apiece. Only two hens left—" She
broke off short, and turning upon Handsome, who had been gradually
sidling up until his elbows almost touched hers, she repulsed him a
trifle impatiently:

"Oh, run away, Handsome!"

A flush of pleasure at Handsome's evident discomfiture spread
over Sonora's countenance, and comical, indeed, to the Girl, was
the majestic air he took on when he ordered recklessly:

"Oh, crack the egg—I'll stand for it."

But Sonora's fancied advantage over the others was of short
duration, for the next instant Nick, stepping quickly forward with
a drink, handed it to the Girl with the words:

"Regards of Blonde Harry."

Again Sonora experienced a feeling akin to jealousy at what he
termed Blonde Harry's impudence. It almost immediately gave way to
a paroxysm of chuckling; for, the Girl, quickly taking the glass
from Nick's hand, flung its contents into a nearby receptacle.

"There—tell 'im that it hit the spot!" She laughed.

Nick roared with the others, but on the threshold of the
dance-hall he paused, hesitated, and finally came back, and advised
in a low tone:

"Throw around a few kind words, Girl—good for the bar."

The Girl surveyed the barkeeper with playful disapproval in her
eye. However advantageous might be his method of working up trade,
she disdained to follow his advice, and her laughing answer
was:

"Oh, you Nick!"

The peal of laughter that rung in Nick's ears as he disappeared
through the door, awakened Ashby and brought him instantly to his
feet. Despite his size, he was remarkably quick in his movements,
and in no time at all he was standing before the bar with a glass,
which he had filled from the bottle that had stood in front of him
on the table, and was saying:

"Compliments of Wells Fargo."

"Thank you," returned the Girl; and then while she shook the
prairie oyster: "You see we live high-shouldered here."

"That's what!" put in Sonora with a broad grin.

"What cigars have you?" asked Ashby, at the conclusion of his
round of drinks.

"Regalias, Auroras and Eurekas," reeled off the Girl with her
eye upon Billy Jackrabbit, who had quietly come in and was sneaking
about in an endeavour to find something worth pilfering.

"Oh, any will do," Ashby told her, with a smile; and while he
was helping himself from a box of Regalias, Nick suddenly appeared,
calling out excitedly:

"Man jest come in threatenin' to shoot up the furniture!"

"Who is it?" calmly inquired the Girl, returning the cigar-box
to its place on the shelf.

"Old man Watson!"

"Leave 'im shoot,—he's good for it!"

"Nick! Nick!" yelled several voices in the dance-hall where old
man Watson was surely having the time of his life.

And still the Girl paid not the slightest attention to the
shooting or the cries of the men; what did concern her, however,
was the fact that the Indian was drinking up the dregs in the
whisky glasses on the faro table.

"Here, you, Billy Jackrabbit! What are you doin' here?" she
exclaimed sharply, causing that generally imperturbable redskin to
start perceptibly. "Did you marry my squaw yet?"

Billy Jackrabbit's face wore as stolid an expression as ever,
when he answered:

"Not so much married squaw—yet."

"Not so much married…" repeated the Girl when the merriment,
which his words provoked, had subsided. "Come 'ere, you thievin'
redskin!" And when he had slid up to the bar, and she had extracted
from his pockets a number of cigars which she knew had been
pilfered, she added: "You git up to my cabin an' marry my squaw
before I git there." And at another emphatic "Git!" the Indian,
much to the amusement of all, started for the Girl's cabin.

"Here—here's your prairie oyster, Sonora," at last said the
Girl; and then turning to the Sheriff and speaking to him for the
first time, she called out gaily: "Hello, Rance!"

"Hello, Girl!" replied the Gambler without even a glance at her
or ceasing to shuffle the cards.

Presently, Sonora pulled out a bag of gold-dust and told the
Girl to clear the slate out of it. She was in the act of taking the
sack when Nick, rushing into the room and jerking his thumb over
his shoulder, said:

"Say, Girl, there's a fellow in there wants to know if we can
help out on provisions."

"Sure; what does he want?" returned the Girl with a show of
willingness to accommodate him.

"Bread."

"Bread? Does he think we're runnin' a bakery?"