A Man in the Open Part 34

"Engaged," said Billy in triumph.

"Dew tell!"

"Yes, to Madame Scotson's nurse over in England."

"Does she patch your socks?"

"Now, mother," Pete interrupted, "when you was courting me did you patch my socks?"

"Wall, I--"

"Come to think," said the cargador, "I didn't have them, being then in the Confederate army. But, mother, you did sure scratch my face!"

"Wall, that's no dream," said mother, bridling.

Once after his Sat.u.r.day's tramp up the great hill, Pete returned looking very old. "I axed Bolt," he explained, "about this yere partners.h.i.+p."

"Well?" asked mother sharply. "Well?"

"Bolt says thar's pigs with pink bows to their tails, just stretchin'

and stretchin' around his sty."

The old woman turned her back, for Pete was crying.

In April there came a rush of warmth out of the west, licking up all the snow, save only on that high plateau where the Hundred and Spite House seemed to wait and wait in the white silence.

The spring storms came, the rains changed to snow, the snow changed to rain, with hail-storms, and thunder rolling over snow. The cheeky little b.u.t.tercups peeped up through the tails of the snowdrift, and far away, below Jesse's ranch in the Fraser canon, the Star brand mules wors.h.i.+ped their old bell mare among the marigolds. The ground was bare now about Pete's cabin, all sodden pine chips to the edge of the rain-drenched bush, and the willow buds were bursting.

Pete sat under a roof of cedar shakes which he had built to shelter the new "riggings." Around him in a horseshoe stood fifty complete _aparejos_, each with coiled lash and sling rope underneath, breeching and crupper, _sovran helmo_ and _cinchas_, sweat pad, blanket, and _corona_, while the head-ropes strapped the _mantas_ over all. He was riveting the last of sixty hackamores, as he dreamed of the great north trail, of open meadows by the Hagwilgaet, of the heaven-piercing spire of Tsegeordinlth at the Forks of Skeena.

"Mother," he said, "I'm no slouch of a cargador. Them red gin cases is still to rig for kitchen boxes, and it's all complete. The mules is fattening good, I hear, and the men's the same as last summer, all worth their feed, too."

But mother, grim and fierce in the throes of her spring cleaning, had not come to admire. "Pete," she shrilled, "two more buckets of water, and yew jest git a move on. And how long hev yew bin promisin' to whittle me them clothes-pins? Now jest yew hustle, Pete, or I'll get right ugly."

Pete only cut from the plug into his palm, and rolled the tobacco small for his corn-cob pipe. His winter servitude was ended, and he was master, the cargador before whom all men bow in the dread northlands.

Mother went off content to carry her own water, and Pete, with something of a flourish, lighted his pipe.

"Mother!" Pete let out a sharp call, and forgetting her business, mother came quite humbly, as though to heel. "Yes, Pete?"

He pointed with his pipe at a distant horseman rounding the flank of the hill.

"Brooke?" she whispered, both gnarled rheumatic hands clutched at her heart.

"I reckon," said Pete cheerfully. "Thinks he's a circus procession. That sorrel's clattering a loose near-hind shoe, and her mouth just bleeding as he saws with that spade bit. He's a sure polecat. Trots down-hill, too, and suffers in his tail. Incompetent, mother. Look at his feet!

He's bad as a stale salmon, rotten to the bones. Been drinking, too."

Brooke drew up and dismounted, leaving his rein on the horse's neck, instead of dropping it to the ground. When Brooke moved to sit on an _aparejo_, Pete ordered him to one of the kitchen boxes. "Not Bolt hisself may sit on _my_ riggings," said the old gray cargador.

"I thought," said Brooke quite kindly, "that this harness was mine."

"A half-interest," said mother, "sure-ly."

"I fear," said Brooke, "you sort of misunderstood. Old Taylor did say something about your usefulness as a working partner, and, of course, if we hadn't canceled that preposterous contract with the Hudson's Bay Company, there's no doubt your knowledge of the country up north would have been worth paying for. It was, as you say, d.a.m.ned awkward about his being blind as a bat; in fact, I was put to quite a lot of trouble getting the agreement witnessed. However," he produced a doc.u.ment which mother s.n.a.t.c.hed, "it's all there in black and white, and there's the old fool's signature--holds good in any court of law--proves that I've bought and paid for the whole _atajo_. You needn't claim I haven't a clear t.i.tle--so you needn't stare at me as if I'd forged the signature.

It's straight goods, I tell you."

Mother reeled backward, while she grabbed Pete's shoulders so that the agreement fluttered to Brooke's feet. She steadied herself, then with a husky croak, "You made Bolt sign _that_--blind, dying, so he dunno what's on the paper."

"Can you prove that?" asked Brooke indulgently, as though he spoke to children. "If you say things like that, it's criminal libel, and you're both liable to the Skook.u.m House. However," he shrugged his shoulders, and put the agreement away, "I don't want to be hard on you, Pete."

"Mister Mathson," mother hissed at him.

Pete, with a whispered word to mother, rose from his bench, and without appearing to see Mr. Brooke, walked past him across the sunlit yard, and on slowly up the great lifting curve of the road to Hundred Mile House.

The sun was setting behind him when Pete rested at last upon the snowclad summit, and dusk lay in lakes of shadow far below him. At the Hundred he found the lamps alight, and, as usual, Billy offered him a drink. "I ain't drinking," said Pete huskily, as he lurched past the bar into the dining-hall, and on to the little room on the right where Captain Taylor lay.

"Bolt!" he whispered.

"That you, Pete? Sit down," said the boss cheerily. "How's the claim, Pete? Getting coa.r.s.e gold, eh?"

"Gold? Say, Bolt, what's the matter, old fellow?"

"Matter? Why, nothing, Pete," the blind eyes shone keenly; "of course I'm not nearly to bedrock yet, and as to what I owe you've jolly well got to wait. How's old Calamity? I got Lost Creek Jim to work at last."

Was the boss dreaming of old times on Lightning Creek?

"Watty's in with the mail," said Bolt.

Watty had been dead these thirty years.

Then Pete sat down on the bedside, and the two miners prattled about the new flume, and the price of flour in a camp now overgrown with jungle.

A word to Billy would have been enough to get the _aparejos_ to a place of safety, pending the settlement of Pete's just claim as partner. But the cargador knew well that death had come to take the one man he loved.

This was no time for sordid business, disturbing Bolt Taylor's peace.

It was better to go quietly.

The sky was full of stars as Pete went homeward. The stars were big and round; the forest in an ecstasy kept vigil all alert, all silent, and the little streams of the thaw were saying their prayers before the frost sleep of the later hours. The man was at peace. It is not so very much to be cargador; but it is a very big thing indeed to be unselfish.

The trees kept vigil, the little streams crooned sleepy prayers, the stars in glory humbly served as lamps, and the man made no cry in his pain. Far down in the valley he saw a red flame rise.

Mother saw Brooke ride off to inspect his Star mules in their pasture far away down the Fraser Canon. She blacked the stove with malice, she shook the bedding in enmity, set the furniture to rights as though it were being punished, then sat on the damp floor brooding, while twilight deepened over a world of treachery. Brooke was a thief, the lying boss had used Pete and thrown him away wrung dry. And Pete was an old fool who would forgive.

She had dreaded the lonely summer when she was left with only squirrels for company. Now Pete would be "settin'" around, ruined, and out of work, the man who had been used and thrown aside, the laughing-stock of the teamsters who saw his pride brought low.

Cold and hot by turns, mother made herself tidy against Pete's return, got the supper ready, and sat watching the door-step. She smoked his spare corn-cob pipe devising vengeance, while the night closed over her head.