Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 66/Number 3/East of Sunrise/Chapter 12

ERE’S Sparling, Walt,” said Blake, as the two entered the office. “He can’t see, Sparling,” he explained; “he has covered forty miles of desert without the use of his eyes. Some stunt, if anybody asks you!”

“No,” said Seward, smiling; “it was easy. You see, I had a Cerillos horse to bring me in.”

“Blind!” gasped Mrs. Sparling, her voice throbbing with sympathy.

“Sun-blind, Leora,” explained Seward, apprised of Mrs. Sparling’s presence by the sound of her voice. “Merely a slight inflammation of the cornea—I think that is what the doctors call it—brought on by the glare of the sun. The pupils of the eyes close up, as no doubt you can see. But it’s unimportant; two or three days with ice packs on my eyes and I’ll see as well as ever. The important thing is, Vic, that here’s your money, minus just one twenty-dollar gold piece. I’ll make that up to you.”

He reached out the bag, and Sparling relieved him of it. “Kindly excuse my battered appearance, Leora. I just this minute rode in, and Jerry here was the first one to meet me. I came directly to the mine, because the quicker I get out from under that bag of gold the better I’ll feel. I’ll thank you for a receipt, Vic, so I can give it to Simms & Norcross next time I’m in Tres Alamos.”

Blake looked at Ethel, grinned, and shook his head. The message he meant to convey, as Ethel translated it, was that he had not told Seward she was there.

Sparling had dumped the gold eagles upon a table and was busily counting them. “All here but one,” he announced; “Leora, kindly write Banford a receipt for the full amount, less twenty dollars.”

Mrs. Sparling turned to the desk and tightened her lips. After writing for a moment she turned and put the sheet of paper in Seward’s hand. “There’s a receipt for the full amount, Walt,” she said; “after all you must have gone through with this money of ours I don’t think we need to haggle over a missing gold piece. A receipt isn’t necessary, either, since”

She was about to say “since Miss Norcross was there to see that the money had been delivered,” but Blake restrained her with a gesture.

“I want you to know, Walt, that I am grateful to you,” Mrs. Sparling went on, a tremble in her voice; “I am pretty sure you took all this trouble for me and that”

“You are wrong there, Leora,” Seward interrupted; “I’d do a lot for you and Victor, of course, but I’d never have undertaken to transport that gold to Cerillos if I hadn’t been afraid a little girl I know in Tres Alamos would have tried to bring it herself. It wasn’t exactly safe for her, and I’m rather fussy about letting her take any such long chances. A wonderful girl, Leora! Her name is Ethel—Ethel Norcross. I want you to meet her some time.”

Mrs. Sparling shifted her gaze to Ethel. A wonderful light had leaped into the girl’s eyes. She stepped forward quickly and flung her arms about Seward’s neck.

“Walt, Walt!” she whispered. “And Mr. Blake didn’t tell you I was here!”

Seward’s arms tightened about the slender form. Mrs. Sparling looked away again, with the haunting light in her eyes—a light that suggested dreams that might once have been realized, but were now lost forever.

“Well, anyway,” grumbled Sparling, “twenty dollars is twenty dollars, you know.”

Blake pulled a roll of bills from his pocket, stripped a “twenty” from the outside and dropped it at Sparling’s feet. “There it is, you measly little tightwad!” he snapped. “Come on, Walt, and let’s be going. Why do you want to hang around here. I thought you said Sparling was a friend of yours?”

“So he is, or was.” Seward answered; “a New York friend. He means all right. So long, Vic!” He put out his hand. “If I can ever do anything more for you, just get word to me.”

Sparling laid a flabby white hand in the sunbrowned palm.

“Good-by, Leora!”

“Good-by, Walt,” said Mrs. Sparling in a voice scarcely audible.

Then she stood and watched Blake striding away up the hillside, and Ethel and Seward following him, hand in hand.

“I’m ashamed of you, Vic!” she remarked, turning to her husband.

“All right,” he told her; “that evens the score for the way you flung Seward of Sacatone at me.”

“Does it?” she returned.

Sparling stared at his wife, but she was engaged in some work at the desk and did not look up.

Blake strode rapidly back to Los Cerillos, but Ethel and Seward went more slowly. Ethel started to tell him of the story brought to Tres Alamos by Eph Springer.

“I’ve had all that from Blake, Ethel,” he told her.

“Is it true, Walt?”

“Some of it. The plan was laid, and an attempt was made to carry it out. La Joya did her part, but if Chomibo and Lola Sanger hadn’t failed I would not be here.”

The little hand that was guiding Seward tightened on his.

“Who brought Sandy to Cerillos?”

“Nobody, Ethel; he seems to have come of his own accord.”

“How did he get away from you? I thought that you and Sandy were inseparable.”

Seward laughed. “Eph Springer told you that Red Galloway had come south to find me and warn me,” he said. “Well, he found me after I had lost my sight. His horse had got away from him during the sandstorm, and he managed to reach my camp by the hogback on foot. He had more nerve than I ever gave him credit for, Ethel, and he made off with Sandy and what he thought was the gold. He took my revolver, too, and my hat and coat. Galloway thought he was making a pretty complete job of it, I reckon.”

Ethel had an idea. “About what time did Galloway leave you, Walt?” she asked.

“Early in the afternoon.”

“And which way did he go?”

“Toward Sonora. He wanted me to tell Springer that he was cutting loose from him for good. With five thousand dollars in gold he thought he could cut a pretty wide swath in Mexico.”

“Red Galloway would go south through the pass, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And about what time would he reach the pass, driving the burro ahead of him?”

“Probably before daylight failed.”

“And wearing your coat and hat, and driving Sandy” Ethel paused, a tense note in her voice. “Walt,” she exclaimed, “do you think—would it be possible”

“I was just thinking of the same thing. Sandy, wandering by himself into Los Cerillos, makes it look rather plausible, doesn’t it? Well, I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the facts in the case.”

“If Lola Sanger can be found”

“She’ll not be found,” returned Seward briefly.

“Then perhaps La Joya, at Forty-mile, would know.”

“I have asked Blake not to make any trouble for La Joya. Or for Chombo,” Seward added.

“Why did you do that?” Ethel wanted to know.

“They were acting according to their lights,” Seward explained; “I spoiled a big sale for Chombo once, and he had reason to hate me in his half-breed way. As for Lola Sanger, I have twice captured her brother, and his career is at an end. Lola is devoted to Sanger, consequently she felt it her duty to be revenged against me. And who and what was Red Galloway? A desert rogue and a thief, as you well know. If one of Chombo’s arrows picked him off in the pass, then unwittingly Chombo did a good turn for law and order. It was Galloway’s horse that wandered to my camp by the hogback. Cerillos was the animal’s home camp, and whenever he got away from Red he put out always for Cerillos. I was lucky to capture the horse, for he brought me straight here when I gave him the rein. Why not let well enough alone?”

“You’re a strange man, Walt!” exclaimed the girl. “Don’t you want to play even with your enemies?”

“Somehow,” he replied with a smile, “I never do—unless my enemies make things too warm for me. If Chombo hasn’t had enough, I’ll take care of him; but if he’s had a lesson and is through, what more could I ask? Are we in the camp, Ethel?”

“Yes;, and I’m going to take you to the hotel and take care of you until you get your sight back.”

“No,” he answered; “you’re riding back to Tres Alamos with Blake and Reeves. I’m not going to the hotel, but to Hank Beesley’s shack. Mrs. Beesley and Hank will look after me.”

“And when will you be in Tres Alamos again, Walt?” asked the girl eagerly.

“As soon as I’m able to see, I'll return to the camp at the hogback. There’s some floats there I want to investigate. As soon as I discover that it doesn’t lead to anything important—as I probably will—I’m coming to Tres Alamos.”

“And you’ll see me?”

“Every time I’m in Tres Alamos, after this, I’m going to call on you, mujercita,” said Seward; “and every time I call I shall want you to sing for me that song beginning; ‘East of sunrise falls the night.’ How does it go? Just once, Ethel, right here.”

And there, by the corral back of the hotel, with Sandy cocking his long ears to listen, Ethel’s clear, sweet voice was lifted:

“There’s truth in that,” averred Seward; “it was east of Sunrise that the night fell for me, novia; and through that darkness I have found a light that, it had seemed for a long time, had gone out for me forever!”

Blake and Reeves, coming around the corner of the hotel, halted suddenly on seeing Ethel and Seward by the corral. They turned back and hastily effaced themselves.

“Jumpin’ catamounts!” gasped Reeves. “Them two think a heap of each other, don’t they? Who’d ever have guessed it, Jerry?”

“Well, Joe, I guessed it—when we started south to look for Seward. And Mrs. Sparling guessed it, too, if I’m any judge.”

Chombo el Arquero remains unmolested at his ranch, launching arrows at the sun and pinning bull’s-eyes to the ground a dozen feet from where he twanged his bow. But there is no hatred for Seward of Sacatone. He has heard that Seward kept the sheriff off his trail.

Out at the Posada del Rey Niño, La Joya still deals faro; but she has heard something, too, and would go far to help Seward of Sacatone.

Somewhere in the East is Lola Sanger. Revenge for her brother is no longer a part of her creed.

Over on Dead Mule Flat Eph Springer, outfitted with the biggest grubstake he had ever toted into the deserts, waited in vain for his pardner, Red Galloway.

And above the pass east of Sunrise Cañon, vultures floated on lazy wings, dipped earthward, and soared aloft again. “The end crowns the work,” always, for good and ill.