The Benevolent Liar/Chapter 7

It required much finesse on the part of the prospector to induce his protégé to buy suitable clothes and then entrap him into a visit to the Barnes home; but the result was eminently satisfactory and proved Josh's philosophy of youth. Their sole argument was brought on by Tom's assertion that he had no right to visit decent people until he had made himself decent, but Josh shrewdly surmised that the temptation to again converse with Edith Barnes would overcome this gentlemanly reluctance. Edith herself proved an adept, and Tom's fine resolutions were overcome within the next ten days without his appreciating it. The tenth day brought up another debate when Tom refused to longer continue at the hotel, where he did not feel financially able to pay his board, and Josh was compelled reluctantly, yet admiringly, to surrender; for on that tenth day Tom boldly defied him and proceeded to make the cabin on the claim habitable for his own requirements. And Josh, who had daily formed a stronger affection for his new partner, declined to be separated and also left the hotel.

“I didn't want to stay there, nohow,” he said, to smooth the situation over. “I was doin' it because I wanted you to feel good, Tommy. I didn't know whether you'd like this sort of thing; but it's home to me. And it ain't no farther than it ever was, if we want to hike into Shingle in the evenin's. It's just walkin' in and out on the same night, instead of doin' it in the mornin' and evenin' shift.”

He was glad to discover signs of restlessness in Tom on the third evening at the cabin, and to hear the latter admit that he had promised Edith Barnes to call.

“Good!” he declared. “Glad you're goin' in. It'll be company for me. I got to go in myself to-night to see Specimen Jones. I told him I would, so we both got promises outstandin'.”

Which happened to be a lie uttered because he wished to encourage Tom to visit Edith Barnes. Yet it proved that his visit to Specimen was well timed, for scarcely had he entered Shingle when he saw his old friend on the street off guard.

It annoyed him. Specimen, he thought, was neglecting his espionage over Clara Montague. And that was certainly vital. He said: “So long, Tommy. I'll come by Frank's house and pick you up about half past ten,” and advanced upon the unsuspecting Specimen. The latter, instead of being discomfited, gave signs of satisfaction.

“Do you know, Josh, I was comin' out to see you to-morrow,” he said. “Come on down the line with me a little way. Show you somethin'.”

He conducted the prospector to a combination saloon and gambling house a few doors farther on, pulled the swing doors aside, and pointed at a man who was steadily rolling a wheel and advising the few loungers in the room to “Put your money down! It's the lucky turn! Black or red! Odd or even! Single O or double O! Everything wins to-night!”

“That,” said Specimen, as he let the doors close again, “is Cotton-tail Burke.”

Josh's hopes were dwindling, falling like a burned-out meteor. He could but fear that all his deductions were wrong and that he had wasted time on a false lead.

“He came back on the up stage this evenin',” said Jones, “wearin' the same clothes he went away in. Neither less money showin', nor more. Carryin' the same grips he toted when he left. And that Clara said to him, when she saw him—because I was listenin' through her woodhouse door—'Well,' says she, 'well, had to come back to eat, did you? I told you things was too dull in the big town for you to land a job there. And all you've done was to blow in that hundred dollars I let you have. You'll hang around quite a while before you get another hundred out of me!”

“Sure she didn't know you was there and listenin'?”

“As sure as I am that I'm alive!”

“Well, what then?” Josh asked, in a discouraged tone.

“He pleaded like a whipped dog, and begged and whined about hard luck, and borrowed a hundred more from her, after which he come down here and got this job on percentage. You can bet your boots he never walked off with no ten thousand in either of the grips he toted. I'd stake my life on that.”

The prospector could not conceal his disappointment. He stood frowning absently into space when Specimen, endeavoring to cheer him up, added: “But I got a little good news for you. I got that affidavit from Karluk Pete for twenty-five dollars. He's bawlin' his head off up and down the street about Vance, and cussin' him right and left, and intimatin' what he'll do to Vance if he comes his way.”

Here at last was a little ray of light to brighten the gloom, and the prospector was pleased.

“Come on up to the cabin and I'll get it for you,” Specimen said. “It's all in good shape, I'd swear to that. I stumbled into Frank Barnes and”

Josh gave a gasp. For an instant he was afraid that Specimen had overreached himself in good attempt.

“And Frank is as good a lawyer as there is around this camp, although he ain't workin' with a shingle over his door. Frank listened to what I wanted, and seemed tickled to death. He says he likes that Tommy Rogers first rate, and would do anything he could to help to protect him.”

Josh breathed deeply again.

“So I got Frank to go along to ask questions—a lot of things I couldn't have thought of: whether Pete was talkin' of his own free will; whether he had received any money for his confession; whether he had anything that Frank called 'ulterior motive' in tellin' the truth, and a whole lot of questions like that. Frank paid the court stenographer to take it all down, and Squire Meachim give the oath and asked some more questions and put a big red seal on it at the bottom which Frank and me and the stenographer and the squire's son all signed. Oh, she's some affidavit, all right!”

Josh fingered it over, line by line, when he received it, his cautious brain working out each sentence, and then folded it, put it in his pocket, and produced some bills.

He counted out one hundred dollars and tossed it across the table.

“Specimen,” he said, “you pay the stenographer and Pete and keep the rest. It's worth it to me. You've done me a big favor, although I don't know as it's worth a cent for what I want; but you did all I wanted you to do. That don't square the good will. But some day I'll clean that up, too.”

They walked together down the main street, and Josh parted from Specimen with his usual “So long!” He trudged thoughtfully to the Barnes home, and stopped outside, astonished. The house was brilliantly lighted. The music of violins and piano sounded cheerfully, and through windows open to the summer air the prospector could see girls in light, floating dresses dancing with young men. Boys and girls they seemed to him. He leaned upon the pickets meditatively. Tom was there, dancing, and for the moment happy, unaware that all that on which he had builded the hope of retrieving a youthful and terrible slip had come to naught.

“Good Lord!” said Josh to himself. “Tommy's believed that I was on the sure track, and that pretty soon his nightmare'd be over. How can I tell him? How can I? Where can I begin again?”

For several minutes he stood there, watching.

“Lucky he had them good clothes on,” he thought irrelevantly. “He looks better'n any young feller in there. Be a shame to call him away. I'll sneak around and see if I can find Frank.”

He opened the gate with needless caution and started across the lawn toward the side of the house, when the glow of a lighted cigar at the extreme end of the veranda caught his eye. He advanced toward it and spoke, while looking over the railing:

“That you, Frank?”

“Why, it's Josh! Sure it is I. Come up and have a smoke.”

“No,” Josh explained in a low voice. “I just called for Tommy. I didn't know they was a party”

“Neither did we,” laughed the mine owner. “It was a surprise party. They do those things here in Shingle. Come on up.”

“No, I can't do that. You see, if Tommy saw me here he'd insist on goin' back with me. He's as thoughtful and unselfish as if I was his dad. And I don't want him to break away; he's havin' such a good time. Remember, Frank, we used to be able to work all day, then walk anywhere from five to ten miles, dance all night, and walk home in time to work next mornin'? Gosh all hemlocks! It was fine!”

“It was that!” assented Barnes. “But now”

“Too hard work!” the prospector finished the sentence. “No, I'm not comin' in. When-you get a chance, tell Tommy I've gone home, and that I said if the crowd was any good they'd all be here to come out on the porch and see the sun rise. And for him not to bother, but to come home when he gets good and ready. I always did like to be the last one when I was twenty-five, just as I always did see the last circus tent peg pulled when I was a boy back in Missoury.”

“All right, I'll tell him. You're right. Can't ever be young twice.”

Josh trudged steadily away and back to the lighted street, intent on passing directly through it and out to the trail. It was later than he realized, for the light over the hills to the east presaged the moonrise, and the streets were less populated. He was passing a shop where a clerk was just in the act of turning out the lights for the night, when a voice halted him and he stopped to speak to Specimen Jones, who apparently had something to communicate.

“I was hopin' to see you,” said Specimen, glancing around to make certain that he could not be overheard, and frowning when he saw a group close by. “I'll walk a ways with you.”

“What's up?” asked Josh, when they had passed the last of the lighted buildings and were in the middle of the long road that led to the end of the camp.

“I don't quite know,” said Specimen thoughtfully; “that is, I can't quite get what it means. It's about that affidavit of Pete's. Somethin' has made him all-fired anxious to get it back again. I got an idea he has seen Vance—you know” and he held up a working thumb and an index finger, indicative of counting money. “And now he's sorry he took the twenty-five. He was mighty ugly and fussed up when I told him I'd given you the affidavit before he met me, and wanted to know if I thought you'd give it back. I laughed at him. 'Give it back?' says I. 'Not on your life, Josh won't!' 'Then I'll take it away from him,' says he, losin' his temper. That sure did hand me a real laugh. 'You let that job out, unless you're tryin' to commit suicide,' says I. That sort of cooled him off. He's not there with the nerve by a whole lot. He did time for sandbaggin' a man from behind in a Sacramento alley, so you see the sort he is. I thought I'd ought to tell you. I was worried about it, some. Thought maybe I'd have to walk clean out to your cabin to put you on your guard.”

The prospector laughed contemptuously.

“He'll not get that paper back,” he asserted. “I'm gettin' old, but I can still take care of myself. In fact, that's been my main job 'most all my life; but I'm obliged, all the same, Specimen. Where is this feller Pete, now? I sort of think I'd ought to look him up and have a few sweet words in confidence with him.”

“I don't know where he went,” said Jones dubiously. “He hunted me up about an hour ago. I put him off by tellin' him that you had most likely gone to your hotel; but he'd found out, somehow, that you was out on Bonanza, and I pretended I didn't think it was so. I ain't seen him since. Hadn't I better go out with you, Josh, if you're goin' home?”

Josh laughed boisterously at this offer, and slapped Specimen on the back.

“Great Scott, man! He won't do nothin'. But if he tries anything on, I'll be there, all right.”

As if dismissing all perplexities from his mind, Josh turned down the long trail, venting a mellifluous whistle. He came to a place where the path cut through an old watercourse, bordered by high, sheer sides of stone, gray and mellow in the moonlight. The whistle was abruptly punctured by the venomous, significant report of a rifle shot.

Josh fell straight forward, with outflung hands, and lay still and inert on the trail, while a slow, dark stain crept across the stone beneath his head. The echoes of the shot, caught by near-by cliffs, sounded loudly, were tossed farther, and answered in diminuendo from distant crags, and again the serenity of the night was unbroken. Crickets and night birds, frightened to apprehensive silence, cautiously renewed their chirping; but Josh did not move. Again the night life became suspicious. Something moved from behind a bowlder, watchfully intent on the fallen prospector. A man advanced with extreme caution, his rifle ready for instantaneous use, and kicked the fallen man in the ribs to discover signs of life. The body responded but inertly under the impact of the heavy boot. The hands were still lifeless. The man thrust a toe beneath the prospector and rolled him over until Josh lay on his back with his face upturned to the moonlight, and its pallor was accentuated by the dark stream from the temple that altered its course and sought passage through his white, disordered hair.

“Got him, all right!” muttered the assailant vindictively, and dropped the rifle to one side on the bare rock and fumbled at the prospector's shirt. There was small time wasted, inasmuch as the white ends of the legal paper protruded. The man straightened up, opened the sheets, peered at them in the moonlight, identified the meaning, and chuckled. He slipped the affidavit into his pocket, grinned at the white face, picked up his rifle, and slipped hurriedly away over the mountainside with the adept certainty of the veteran frontiersman.