Down the Mother Lode Part 15

"'Nother boy heap mad."

"Another boy? Aren't you doing the was.h.i.+ng?"

"No do. Me--" but Jo had gone to the back yard. She found the tallest Chinaman she had ever seen, meekly bending to the was.h.i.+ng, and quickly obeying the sharp orders rained upon his queue-circled poll by Hop Sing.

"But--Sing," protested Jo, stifling any sort of smile.

"Him no good! No got place! Me pay one-dollar-hop him stop one month, Chinee house. He no pay. Me makem work."

"Yes, but--what is that? Those are shots on the stage road over the hill! Oh, it must be another holdup! And Rand is shotgun messenger on the stage today. Hark! Hear the horses running! They're coming--fast.

They're trying to make the town!"

"Ketchem, more horse run behind," answered Sing, listening intently, his slanting eyes glittering.

"Sing, you go and see what--"

"Can do! You get that boy, make 'em wash, alle same. He no good! You look see?" Joe turned to spy the frightened deputy washerman wriggling under the verandah. "Bime-by I kill 'um," remarked Sing, composedly. "No got time now. Missie Jo, wagon come, maybeso better you stop house-o."

Six horses topped the long hill, pulling the huge rockaway stage. They were coming at full speed, and the near wheeler was dripping with blood.

A dead man hung over the high dashboard, where his feet had caught when he fell.

Leaning far out over the team was a young man holding the reins in one hand, while he lashed the shot-crazed horses to their last ounce of speed with the fifteen-foot whip. His sawed-off shotgun lay on the seat beside him. It was Rand!

"Oh, thank G.o.d!" moaned Joe, but in another moment, "Poor old Salt Peter! They must have killed him when he wouldn't stop. Sing--" but Hop Sing had vanished, leaving only his white ap.r.o.n across the wash bench.

As the stage thundered around the turn at the end of the main street, the wounded horse threw up his head, coughed b.l.o.o.d.y spume over the pointers (the second pair), and fell. Men were already scrambling onto their horses, and loping in from all directions. Rand cut out a buckskin leader, mounted, and dashed frantically back up the road followed by a dozen hors.e.m.e.n.

"Rand, who was it?"

"I don't know, exactly. Thought I saw Digger Dan--" They were over the hill, and Jo heard no more.

Hop Sing did not turn up for supper, but his tall subst.i.tute did fairly well, and Jo did not worry. Some time after dark, a weary Rand appeared.

"Well, Miss Jo, we got Digger Dan. At least we thought it was, but he won't say a word except that he wants to see you. I've come to escort you over to the jail. Will you trust yourself to me that far?"

"That far, yes," archly, "'tis but a short s.p.a.ce." Not for worlds would she have him guess her anxiety of the afternoon.

"I wish that 'twere for always."

"What can Digger Dan want of me," she evaded, thankful for the darkness which hid her blushes. "Rand, hear the wolves howling!"

"They are only coyotes, dear--Miss Joe, and afraid to venture into town except to the chicken roosts."

"Why, it's Hop Sing!" exclaimed Jo, upon first sight of the prisoner.

"They've cut off half his queue and braided his hair in two pig tails, and put different clothes on him, and he does look like an Indian. How very extraordinary!"

"Kethem Digger Dan cloe," blazed Sing.

"That's a likely tale," said the sheriff, "betcha he knows more about stage robbin' than he'll let out."

"I am sure he does not about this one. He was with me every moment."

Nevertheless, she could not help remembering the subst.i.tute Chinaman whom Sing had put in to do his was.h.i.+ng. But, though the complex Oriental nature will never be quite understood by the Occidental, she had confidence in the loyalty of the Chinaman, who had served them for five years, and whose life had once been saved by her father.

"Ah Sing, will you tell me what happened," she asked, knowing well that a command would only elicit a stolid "No savvey." Put as a favor, or a confidence, he might respond.

"Him Digger Dan, no good! He stealem me clo'e. Ketchem. Missa Land (Rand) an' plenty man come, he lun (run). I ketchem him! Tlee (three) lobber (robber) come. To-o muchee men. I no can fight! He--"

"They tied him on a horse and drove it down the canyon for us to follow, while they got away."

"I tell you, he knows more about it than he's telling!"

"I don't think so, sheriff," said Rand, positively. The man turned to him, suspiciously.

"Me go home, all same Missie Joe?" Hop Sing raised an expressionless face and glared at the broad belt of the sheriff.

"Well, you can go, but I'm going to keep an eye on you and see that your ap.r.o.n's hanging in the Halstead's kitchen every day of your heathen life."

Later that night when Rand started home, strange incantations were going on in Sing's lean-to. In four china bowls punk was burning, and an old Chinaman was muttering weird invocations over the clothes of Digger Dan slowly smouldering in a coal-oil can in the middle of the floor. Hop Sing held one hand in the smoke, raised the other aloft and made a blood-curdling oath of some sort which, by the expression of his face, probably consigned the owner forever more to the nethermost depths 'of Tophet.

"Why, where is Ali Sing?" asked Jo the next morning, when she found the tall slave still in the kitchen.

"He got heap sick cousin. He go way. I stay. He come back bime-by." Jo knew that it was useless to question further.

The summer drifted by and still Sing did not return. Rand walked in one day with the first flurry of snow, from his claim in the south. He caught both of Jo's hands in his without a word, kissed them tenderly and let them go.

"Rand," she faltered, "it is so long since I've heard from you. You have been acting so strangely-for months!"

"Jo, have you not heard the talk that has been whispered with my name ever since Sing disappeared? They say that I know too much about the holdups; that I helped the Chinaman to escape; that Digger Dan and Hop Sing are one; that--"

"I would not listen to such falsehoods," cried the girl, her grey eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

"You blessed little woman! But considering this, how can I say to you what--tell you that which glorifies the very life in my frame. How can I offer you a name tarnished by the suspicions of my fellow men?"

"Rand, I acknowledge no such allegations. Oh, I may be lost to all sense of womanly reserve, but--"

"When my name is cleared, I shall hope to enter Paradise. Till then I must not. I cannot bring disgrace upon you. I shall return to my old post of shotgun messenger--"

"Rand! No! Listen to me one moment. Last evening Digger Dan came to this very place. He told me that if you went back to the stage you would certainly be killed. They have been robbing all summer. It is said that Joaquin is in the mountains."

"No, they are Tom Bell's men."

Jo glanced up, startled. "Whoever it is, has sent you a warning."

"Miz Halstead," called a strident voice, "th' stage's jest in, an'

you're paw's took awful sick up on the Middle Fork, at his mine."

"I shall have to go on the morning stage. Will you not please--" to Rand.

"Jo, I do not fear death. It is dishonor that maddens me, for your sake.