The Golden Woman Part 24

"'Bout the other," the man went on, turning back to the girl, and letting his eyes rest on her fair face, "that's easy, too. I was at the shack of the boys in the storm. You come along an' wer' lying right ther' on the door-sill when I found you. I jest carried you right here. Y' see, I guessed who you wer'. Your cart was wrecked on the bank o' the creek----"

"And the teamster?" Joan's eyes were eagerly appealing.

Buck turned away.

"Oh, guess he was ther' too." Then he abruptly moved toward the horses. "Say, I'll get on an' cut that hay."

Joan understood. She knew that the teamster was dead. She sighed deeply, and as the sound reached him Buck looked round. It was on the tip of his tongue to say some word of comfort, for he knew that Joan had understood that the man was dead, but the girl herself, under the influence of her new resolve, made it unnecessary. She rose from her seat, and her manner suggested a forced lightness.

"I'll go and feed the chickens," she said. "I--I ought to be capable of doing that."

Buck smiled as he prepared to go and see to the hogs.

"Guess you won't have trouble--if you know what to give 'em," he said.

Nor was he quite sure if the girl were angry or smiling as she hurried out of the barn.

CHAPTER XVI

GOLD AND ALLOY

The seedling of success planted in rank soil generally develops a wild, pernicious growth which, until the summer of its life has pa.s.sed, is untameable and pollutes all that with which it comes into contact. The husbandman may pluck at its roots, but the seed is flung broadcast, and he finds himself wringing his hands helplessly in the wilderness.

So it was on the banks of Yellow Creek. The seedling was already flinging its tendrils and fastening tightly upon the life of the little camp. The change had come within three weeks of the moment when the Padre had gazed upon that first wonderful find of gold. So rapid was its development that it was almost staggering to the man who stood by watching the result of the news he had first carried to the camp.

The Padre wandered the hills with trap and gun. Nothing could win him from the pursuit which was his. But his eyes were wide open to those things which had somehow become the care of his leisure. Many of his evenings were spent in the camp, and there he saw and heard the things which, in his working moments, gave him food for a disquietude of thought.

He knew that the luck that had come to the camp was no ordinary luck.

His first find had suggested something phenomenal, but it was nothing to the reality. A wealth almost incalculable had been yielded by a prodigal Nature. Every claim into which he, with the a.s.sistance of the men of the camp, had divided the find, measured carefully and balloted for, was rich beyond all dreams. Two or three were richer than the others, but this was the luck of the ballot, and the natural envy inspired thereby was of a comparatively harmless character.

At first the thought of these things was one of a pleasant satisfaction. These men had waited, and suffered, and starved for their chance, and he was glad their chance had come. How many had waited, and suffered and starved, as they had done, and done all those things in vain? Yes, it was a pleasant thought, and it gave him zest and hope in his own life.

The first days pa.s.sed in a perfect whirlwind of joy. Where before had sounded only the moanings of despair, now the banks of Yellow Creek rang with laughter and joyous voices, bragging, hoping, jesting. One and all saw their long-dimmed hopes looming bright in the prospect of fulfilment.

Then came a change. Just at first it was hardly noticeable. But it swiftly developed, and the shrewd mind of the watcher in the hills realized that the days of halcyon were pa.s.sing all too swiftly. Men were no longer satisfied with hopes. They wanted realities.

To want the realities with their simple, unrestrained pa.s.sions, and the means of obtaining them at their disposal, was to demand them. To demand them was to have them. They wanted a saloon. They wanted an organized means of gambling, they wanted a town, with all its means of satisfying appet.i.tes that had all too long hungered for what they regarded as the necessary pleasures of life. They wanted a means of spending the acc.u.mulations gleaned from the ample purse of mother Nature. And, in a moment, they set about the work of possessing these things.

As is always the case the means was not far to seek. It needed but one mind, keener in self-interest than the rest, and that mind was to hand. Beasley Melford, at no time a man who cared for the physical hards.h.i.+ps of the life of these people, saw his opportunity and s.n.a.t.c.hed it. He saw in it a far greater gold-mine than his own claim could ever yield him, and he promptly laid his plans.

He set to work without any noise, any fuss. He was too foxy to shout until his purpose was beyond all possibility of failure. He simply disappeared from the camp for a week. His absence was noted, but no one cared. They were too full of their own affairs. The only people who thought on the matter were the Padre and Buck. Nor did they speak of it until he had been missing four days. Then it was, one evening as they were returning from their traps, the Padre gave some inkling of what had been busy in his thoughts all day.

"It's queer about Beasley," he said, pausing to look back over a great valley out of which they had just climbed, and beyond which the westering sun was s.h.i.+ning upon the distant snow-fields.

Buck turned sharply at the sound of his companion's voice. They were not given to talking much out on these hills.

"He's been away nigh four days," he said, and took the opportunity of s.h.i.+fting his burden of six freshly-taken fox pelts and lighting his pipe.

The Padre nodded.

"I think he'll be back soon," he said. Then he added slowly: "It seems a pity."

"His coming back?" Buck eyed his companion quickly.

"Yes."

"Wher' d'you reckon he's gone?"

The elder man raised a pair of astonished brows.

"Why, to Leeson b.u.t.te," he said decidedly. Then he went on quietly, but with neither doubt nor hesitation: "There's a real big change coming here--when Beasley gets back. These men want drink, they are getting restless for high play. They are hankering for--for the flesh-pots they think their gold ent.i.tles them to. Beasley will give them all those things when he comes back. It's a pity."

Buck thought for some moments before he answered. He was viewing the prospect from the standpoint of his years.

"They must sure have had 'em anyway," he said at last.

"Ye--es."

The Padre understood what was in the other's mind.

"You see," he went on presently, "I wasn't thinking of that so much.

It's--well, it amounts to this. These poor devils are just working to fill Beasley's pockets. Beasley's the man who'll benefit by this 'strike.' In a few months the others will be on the road again, going through all--that they've gone through before."

"I guess they will," Buck agreed. His point of view had changed. He was seeing through the older eyes. After that they moved on toward their home lost in the thoughts which their brief talk had inspired.

In a few days the Padre's prophecy was fulfilled. Beasley returned from Leeson b.u.t.te at the head of a small convoy. He had contrived his negotiations with a wonderful skill and foresight. His whole object had been secrecy, and this had been difficult. To shout the wealth of the camp in Leeson b.u.t.te would have been to bring instantly an avalanche of adventurers and speculators to the banks of Yellow Creek.

His capital was limited to the small amount he had secretly h.o.a.rded while his comrades were starving, and the gold he had taken from his claim. The latter was his chief a.s.set not from its amount, but its nature. Therefore he had been forced to take the leading merchant in the little prairie city into his confidence, and to suggest a partners.h.i.+p. This he had done, and a plausible tongue, and the sight of the wonderful raw gold, had had the effect he desired. The partners.h.i.+p was arranged, the immediate finance was forthcoming, and, for the time at least, Leeson b.u.t.te was left in utter ignorance of its neighboring Eldorado.

Once he had made his deal with Silas McGinnis, Beasley promptly opened his heart in characteristic fas.h.i.+on.

"They're all sheep, every one of 'em," he beamed upon his confederate.

"They'll be so easy fleecin' it seems hardly worth while. All they need is liquor, and cards, and dice. Yes, an' a few women hangin'

around. You can leave the rest to themselves. We'll get the gilt, and to h.e.l.l with the dough under it. Gee, it's an elegant proposition!"

And he rubbed his hands gleefully. "But ther' must be no delay. We must get busy right away before folks get wind of the luck. I'll need marquees an' things until I can get a reg'lar shanty set up. Have you got a wood spoiler you can trust?"

McGinnis nodded.

"Then weight him down with money so we don't need to trust him too much, and s.h.i.+p him out with the lumber so he can begin right away.

We're goin' to make an elegant pile."

In his final remark lay the key-note of his purpose. But the truth of it would have been infinitely more sure had the p.r.o.noun been singular.

Never was so much popularity extended to Beasley in his life as at the moment of his return to camp. When the gold-seekers beheld his convoy, with the wagons loaded with all those things their hearts and stomachs craved, the majority found themselves in a condition almost ready to fling welcoming arms about his neck. Their wishes had been expressed, their demands made, and now, here they were fulfilled.

A rush of trade began almost before the storekeeper's marquee was erected. It began without regard to cost, at least on the purchasers'