Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/216

210 Jack, savagely, "and your wife's a—" But he paused, looking into Gabriel's face, and then added: "O git! will you! Leave me alone! 'I want to be an angel, and with the angels stand.'" "And thet woman hez a secret," continued Gabriel, unmindful of the interruption, "and, bein' hounded by the man az knows it, up and kills him, ye wouldn't let thet woman—thet poor pooty creetur—surfer for it! No, Jack! Ye would rather pint your own toes up to the sky than do it. It ain't in ye, Jack, and it ain't in me, so help me God!"

" This is all very touching, Mr. Conroy, and does credit, sir, to your head and heart, and I kin feel it drawing Hall's ball outer my leg while you're talkin'," said Jack, with his black eyes evading Gabriel's, and wandering to the entrance of the tunnel.

"What time is it, you blasted old fool, ain't it dark enough yet to git outer this hole?" He groaned, and, after a pause, added, fiercely:

"How do you know your wife did it?"

Gabriel swiftly, and, for him, even concisely, related the events of the day, from his meeting with Ramirez in the morning, to the time that he had stumbled upon the body of Victor Ramirez on his return to keep the appointment at his wife's written request.

Jack only interrupted him once to inquire why, after discovering the murder, he had not gone on to keep his appointment.

"I thought it wa'n't of no use," said Gabriel simply; "I didn't want to let her see I know'd it." Hamlin groaned, "If you had you would have found her in the company of the man who did do it, you daddering old idiot."

"What man?" asked Gabriel. "The first man you saw your wife with that morning; the man I ought to be helping now instead of lyin' here."

"You don't mean to allow, Jack, ez you reckon she didn't do it?" asked Gabriel in alarm. "I do," said Hamlin, coolly.

"Then what did she reckon to let on by thet note?" said Gabriel with a sudden look of cunning.

"Don't know," returned Jack; "like as not, being a blasted fool, you didn't read it right! Hand it over and let me see it."

Gabriel (hesitatingly): "I can't."

Hamlin: "You can't?" Gabriel (apologetically): "I tore it up!" Hamlin (with frightful deliberation): "You ?" "I did." Jack (after a long and crushing silence): "Were you ever under medical treatment for these spells?"

Gabriel (with great simplicity and submission): "They allers used to allow I waz queer." Hamlin (after another pause): "Has Pete Dumphy got anything agin you?"

Gabriel (surprisedly): "No."

Hamlin (languidly): "It was his right hand man, his agent at Wingdam, that started up the Vigilantes! I heard him, and saw him in the crowd hounding 'em on." Gabriel (simply): "I reckon you're out thar, Jack; Dumphy's my friend. It was him that first gin me the money to open this yer mine. And I'm his superintendent!"

Jack: "Oh "—(after another pause) "Is there any first-class Lunatic Asylum in this county, where they would take in two men, one an incurable, and the other sufferin' from a gunshot wound brought on by playin' with fire-arms?"

Gabriel (with a deep sigh): "Ye mus'n't talk, Jack, ye must be quiet till dark." Jack, dragged down by pain, and exhausted in the intervals of each paroxysm, was quiescent.

Gradually, the faint light that had filtered through the brush and debris before the tunnel faded quite away, and a damp charnel-house chill struck through the limbs of the two refugees and made them shiver; the flow of water from the dripping walls seemed to have increased; Gabriel's experienced eye had already noted that the earthquake had apparently opened seams in the gully and closed up one of the leads. He carefully laid his burden down again, and crept to the opening. The distant hum of voices and occupation had ceased, the sun was setting; in a few moments, calculating on the brief twilight of the mountain region, it would be dark, and they might with safety leave their hiding-place. As he was returning, he noticed a slant beam of light, hitherto unobserved, crossing the tunnel from an old drift. Examining it more closely, Gabriel was amazed to find that during the earthquake a "cave" had taken place in the drift, possibly precipitated by the shock, disclosing the more surprising fact that there had been a previous slight but positive excavation on the hill-side, above the tunnel, that antedated any record of One Horse Gulch known to Gabriel. He was perfectly familiar