CHAPTER XXI
A TRIFLE
Few men were less given to dreaming than James Carbhoy. Usually he had no spare time on his hands for such a pastime. Dreams? Well, perhaps he occasionally let imagination run riot amidst seas of amazing figures, but that was all. All other dreams left him cold. Now it was different.
He was reclining in an old-fashioned rocker chair outside the front door of his prison. The air of the valley was soft and balmy, the sun was setting, and a wealth of ever-changing colors tinted the distant mountain-tops; a wonderful sense of peace and security reigned everywhere. So, somehow, he found himself dreaming.
He filled the chair almost to overflowing and reveled in its comfort, just as he reveled in the comfort even of his prison. His hands were clasped behind his iron-gray head, and he drank deeply of the pleasant, perfumed air. His captivity had already exceeded three weeks, and the first irritation of it had long since passed, leaving in its place a philosophic resignation characteristic of the man. He no longer strove seriously to solve the problem of his detention. During the first days of his captivity he had thought hard, and the contemplation of possible disaster to many enterprises resulting from this enforced absence had troubled him seriously, but as the days wore on and no word came from his captors his resignation quietly set in, and gradually a pleasant peace reigned in place of stormy feelings.
James Carbhoy possessed a considerable humor for a man who spent his life in multiplying, subtracting and adding numerals which represented the sum of his gains and losses in currency, and perhaps it was this which so largely helped him. His temperament should undoubtedly have been at once harsh, sternly unyielding and bitterly avaricious. In reality it was none of these things. It was his lot to cause money to make money, and the work of it was something in the nature of an amusement. He was warm-hearted and human; he loved battle and the spirit of competition. Then, too, he possessed a deplorable love for the knavery of modern financial methods. This was the underlying temperament which governed all his actions, and a warm, human kindliness saved him from many of the pitfalls into which such a temperament might well have trapped him.
As he sat there basking in the evening sunlight he felt that on the whole he rather owed his captors a debt of gratitude for introducing him to a side of life which otherwise he might never have come into contact with. He knew at the same time that such a feeling was just as absurd as that the spirit of fierce resentment had so easily died down within him. All his interests were dependent upon his own efforts for success, and here he was shut up, a prisoner, with these very affairs, for all he knew, going completely to the dogs.
His conflicting feelings made him smile, and here it was that his humor served him. After all, what did it matter? He knew that some one had bested him. It was not the first time in his life that he had been bested. Not by any means. But always in such cases he had ultimately made up the leeway and gained on the reach. Well, he supposed he would do so again. So he rested content and submitted to the pleasant surroundings of his captivity.
There was one feature of his position, however, which he seriously did resent. It was a feature which even his humor could not help him to endure with complacency. It was the simple presence of a Chinaman near him. He cordially detested Chinamen – so much so that, in all his great financial undertakings, he did not possess one cent of interest in any Chinese enterprise.
Hip-Lee was maddeningly ubiquitous. There was no escape from him. If the millionaire's fellow prisoner, the pretty teamstress, entered his room to wait on him – and their captors seemed to have forced such service upon her – Hip-Lee was her shadow. If he himself elected to go for a walk through the valley – a freedom accorded him from the first – there was not a moment but what a glance over his shoulder would have revealed the lurking, silent, furtive figure in its blue smock, watchful of his every movement, while apparently occupied in anything but that peculiar form of pastime. James Carbhoy resented this surveillance bitterly. Nor did he doubt that beneath that simple blue smock a long knife was concealed, and, probably, a desire for murder.
However, nothing of this was concerning him now. The hour was the hour of peace. The perfection of the scene he was gazing upon had cast its spell about him, and he was dreaming – really dreaming of nothing. The joy of living was upon him, and, for the time being, nothing else mattered.
In the midst of his dreaming the sound of a footstep coming round the angle of the building to his right roused him to full alertness. He glanced round quickly and withdrew his hands from behind his head. Mechanically he drew his cigar-case from an inner pocket and selected a cigar. But he was expectant and curious, his feelings inspired by his knowledge that Hip-Lee always moved soundlessly.
His eyes were upon the limits of the house when the intruder materialized. Promptly a wave of pleasurable relief swept over him as he beheld the pretty figure of his fellow captive. But he gave no sign, for the reason that the girl was obviously unaware of his presence, and it yet remained to be seen if the yellow-faced reptile, Hip-Lee, was at hand as usual.
He watched her silently. He was struck, too, by her expression of rapt appreciation of the scene before her, which added further to his reluctance to break the spell of her enjoyment. But as the hated blue smock did not make its appearance, the man could no longer resist temptation. The opportunity was too good to miss.
"It's some scene," he said in a tone calculated not to startle her, his gray eyes twinkling genially.
But Hazel was startled. She was startled more than she cared about. Her one object was always to avoid contact with Gordon's father, except under the watchful eyes, of Hip-Lee. She feared that keen, incisive brain she knew to lie behind his steady gray eyes. She feared questions her wit was not ready enough to answer without disaster to the plans of her fellow conspirators.
She hated the part she was forced to play, but she was also determined to play it with all her might. She must act now, and act well. So, with a resolute effort, she faced her victim.
"I – I just didn't know you were here, sir," she said truthfully, while her eyes lied an added alarm. "But – but talk low, or the – "
"You're worrying over that mongrel Chink," said Carbhoy quickly. "I expected to see his leather features following you around. I guess he's got ears as long as an ass, and just about twice as sharp. Say, I'm going to kill that mouse-colored serpent one of these times if he don't quit his games. Say – "
He broke off, studying the girl's pretty face speculatively. There was no doubt her eyes wore a hunted expression – she intended them to.
"They treating you – right?" he demanded.
Hazel's effort was better than she knew as she strove for pathos.
"Oh, yes, I s'pose so," she said hopelessly. "I'm let alone, and – I get good food. It – it isn't that."
"What is it?"
The man's question came sharply.
Hazel turned her face to the hills and sighed. The movement was well calculated.
"It's my folks." Then, with a dramatic touch, "Say, Mr. Carbhoy, do you guess we'll ever – get out of this? Do you think we'll get back to our folks? Sometimes I – oh, it's awful!"
Her words carried conviction, and the man was taken in.
"Say," he said quickly, "I'm making a big guess we'll get out later – when things are fixed. This is not a ransom. But it means – dollars."
He lit his cigar, and its aroma pleasantly scented the air.
Hazel sighed with intense feeling – to disguise her inclination to laugh.
"Yes, sir," she said hopelessly. "One hundred thousand dollars."
Gordon's father smiled back at her.
"I'd hate to think I was held up for less," he said. "It would sort of wound my vanity."
The girl could have hugged him for the serenity of his attitude. Nothing seemed to disturb him. She felt that Gordon had every reason for his devotion to his father, and ought to be well ashamed of himself for submitting him to the outrage which had been perpetrated.
"Who – who do you think has done this?" she hazarded hesitatingly. "Slosson?"
"Maybe. Though – "
"Slosson should have met you himself," the girl declared emphatically.
"He certainly should," replied Carbhoy, with cold emphasis. "He'll need to explain that – later. Say, how did you come to be driving me?"
Hazel suddenly felt cold in the warm air.
"I was just engaged to, because Mr. Slosson couldn't go himself. You see, father has a spare team, and I do a goodish bit of driving. You see, we need to do 'most anything to get money here."
"Yes, that's the way of things." The man's eyes were twinkling again, and Hazel began to hope that she was once more on firm ground.
Nor was she disappointed when the man went on.
"I guess we're all out after – dollars," he said reflectively. Then he removed his cigar and luxuriously emitted a thin spiral smoke from between his pursed lips. "It don't seem the sort of work a girl like you should be at, though. Still, why not? It's a great play – chasing dollars. It's the best thing in life – wholesome and human. I've always felt that way about it, and as I've piled up the years and got a peek into motives and things I've felt more sure that competition – that's fixing things right for ourselves out of the general scrum of life – is the life intended for us by the Creator."
Hazel nodded.
"Life is competition," she observed, with a wise little smile.
"Sure. That's why human nature is dishonest – has to be."
There was a question in the girl's eyes which the millionaire was prompt to detect.
"Sure it's dishonest. Can you show me a detail of human nature which is truly honest? Say, I've watched it all my life, I've built every sort of construction on it. Wherever I have built in the belief that honesty is the foundation of human nature things have dropped with a smash. Now I know, and my faith is none the less. Human nature is dishonest. It's only a question of degree. I'm dishonest. You're dishonest. But in your case it's only in the higher ethical sense. You wouldn't steal a pocket-book. You wouldn't commit murder. But put yourself into competition with a girl friend baking a swell layer cake, calculated to disturb the digestion of an ostrich. Say, you'd resort to any old trick you could think of to fix her where you wanted her."
Hazel laughed.
"I wouldn't shoot her up, but – I'd do all I knew to beat her."
"Just so."
"After what's happened to us here I guess human nature isn't going to find a champion in me," Hazel went on. "Still, it's pretty hard to lose your faith in human nature that way."
"Lose? Who said 'lose'?" cried the man, with a cordial laugh. "Not I. If I suddenly found it 'honest,' why, I'd hate to go on living. Human nature's got to be just as it is. Honesty lies in Nature. That's the honesty that folks talk about and dream about. It isn't practicable in human life. Dishonesty is the leavening that makes honesty, in the abstract, palatable. Say, think of it – if we were all honest like idealists talk of. What would we have worth living for? Do you know what would happen? Why, we'd all be sitting around making hymns for everybody else to sing, till there was such an almighty hullabaloo we'd all get crazy and have to sign a petition to get it stopped. We'd all be fixed up in a sort of white suit that wouldn't ever need a laundry, and every blamed citizen would start right in to turn the world into a sort of hell by always telling the truth. Just think what it would mean if you had to tell some friend of yours what you thought of her for sneaking your latest beau."
"It certainly would be liable to cause a deal of trouble," laughed Hazel.
"Trouble? I should say." The millionaire chuckled softly as he returned his cigar to his mouth. "Say, I was reading the obituary of a preacher – my wife's favorite – the other day. He lost his grip on life and fell through. That reporter boy was bright, and I wondered when I was reading what he'd have said if he'd spoke the truth as he saw it. To read that obituary you'd think that preacher feller was the greatest saint ever lived. I felt I could have wept over that poor feller, the talk was so elegant and poetic. I just felt the worst worm ever lived beside that preacher. I felt I ought to spend the last five dollars I had to fix his grave up with pure white lilies, if I had to go without food to do it. It was fine. But the writer never said a word about that preacher living in a swell house in Fifth Avenue, and the $20,000 he took every year for his job, and the elegant automobile he chased around to the houses of his rich congregation in. If he'd died in the slums on the east side I guess that newspaper wouldn't ever have heard of him, and that writer wouldn't have got dollars for the pretty language it was his job to scratch together for such an occasion."
"It doesn't sound nice put that way," sighed Hazel. "I suppose it's all competition even trying to make folks live right. I suppose that preacher was successful in his calling – the same as you are in yours. I suppose his human nature was no different to other folks'."
"That's it. Life's splendidly dishonest and a perfect sham. Come to think of it, Ananias must have been all sorts of a great man to be singled out of a world of liars. On the other hand, he'd have had some rival in the feller who first accused George Washington of never lying. Psha! life's a great play, and I'd hate it to be different from what it is. We're all just as dishonest as we can be and still keep out of penitentiary: which makes me feel mighty sorry for them that don't. From the fisherman to the Sunday-school teacher we're all liars, and if you charged us with it we'd deny it, or worse, and thereby add further proof to the charge. I've thought a deal over this hold-up, and it seems to me those guys bluffed us some."
"You mean about the – ransom," said Hazel, the last sign of amusement dying swiftly out of her eyes.
"Why, yes." The millionaire smoked in silence for some moments. Then quite suddenly he removed the cigar from between his lips. "Maybe you don't know I'm working on a big land scheme in these parts. It seems to me some bright gang intend to roll me for my wad. I don't guess Slosson's in it."
"Then who is it, sir?" demanded the girl, with unconscious sharpness.
The man's steady eyes surveyed her through their half-closed lids. He shook his head.
"I can't just say – yet. We'll find out in good time." His smile was quietly confident. "Anyway, for the moment some one's got the drop on me, and I'll just have to sit around. But – it's pretty tough on you, Miss – Miss – "
"Mallinsbee," said Hazel, without thinking.
"Mallinsbee?"
The man's gray eyes became suddenly alert, and Hazel felt like killing herself. She believed, in that one unguarded moment, she had ruined everything. She held her breath and turned quickly towards the setting sun, lest her face should betray her.
Then her terror passed as she heard the quiet, kindly laugh of the man as he began speaking again.
"Well, Miss Mallinsbee, here we are, and here we've just got to stay. I came here to get the best of a deal. We're all out to do some one or something, somehow or somewhere. It don't much matter who. And when a man acts right he don't squeal when the other feller's on top. He just sits around till it's his move, and then he'll try and get things back. I'm not squealing. It's my turn to sit around – that's all. Meanwhile, with the comforts at my disposal – good wines, good cigars and mountain air – I'm having some vacation. If it weren't for that darned Chink with his detestable blue suit I'd – "
"Hush!" Hazel had turned and held up a warning finger.
In response the man glanced sharply about him. There, sure enough, standing silent and immovable at the corner of the building, was the hated vision of blue with its crowning features of dull yellow.
James Carbhoy flung himself back in his rocker. All the humor and pleasure had been banished from his strong face, and only disgust remained.
"Oh, hell!" he exclaimed, and flung his cigar with all his force in the direction of the intruder.
CHAPTER XXII
ON THE TRAIL
It was a night to remember, if for nothing else for the exquisite atmospheric conditions prevailing. The moon was at its full, like some splendid jewel radiating a silvery peace upon a slumbering world. The jeweled sky suggested the untold wealth of an infinite universe. The perfumed air filled lungs and nostrils with a beatific joy in living, and the darkened splendor of the crowding hills inspired a reverence in the human heart so profound, that it left scarce a place for the smallness of mundane hopes and yearnings. The splendor, the breadth of beauty sank into the human soul and left the spirit straining at its earthly bonds, and gazing with longing towards the infinite power which ordered its existence.
For ten miles of the journey from the old ranch-house Hazel rode under the sublime influence of feelings so inspired. Nothing of the conditions were new to her. The mountain nights in summer were as much a part of her existence as was the ranching life of her home. She knew them as she knew the work that filled her daylight hours. But their effect upon her never varied – never weakened. No familiarity with them could change that feeling of the infinite sublimity somewhere beyond the narrow confines of human life. She drank in the deep draughts of perfect life, she gazed abroad with shining eyes of simple happiness on the splendid world, and a superlative thankfulness to the Creator of all things that life had been thus vouchsafed her uplifted her heart and all that was spiritual within her.
The journey to her home was twenty miles, but her favorite mare possessed wings so far as its mistress was concerned. The distance was all too short for the splendid young body, and that youthful mood of delight. Hazel reveled in the expenditure of the energy required, as the mare, beneath her, seemed to revel in the physical effort of the journey.
For the greater part of the road the cobwebs of affairs she was engaged upon left Hazel indifferent. The delight of life left no room for them. But after the half way had been passed there came to her flashes of thought which reduced her feelings to a more human mood.
Nor was that mood of the easiest. She experienced feelings of disquiet, even alarm. She felt vexed, and a great resentment, and even genuine anger, began to take possession of her. But these were interspersed with moments when a certain irresponsibility and humor would not be denied, and underlying all and every other emotion was a great passionate longing, which she scarcely admitted even to herself.
Her mind was fixed upon two men: father and son. For the time at least, they were the pivot of all things worldly for her. In her thoughts the son possessed attributes little short of a demi-god, while the father had become a being endowed with a deep, reflected regard. There was room in her woman's heart for both in their respective places. She knew she loved them, and her variations of mood were inspired by the cruelly farcical atmosphere of the position surrounding them both. She was angry with Gordon, bitterly angry at one moment, at the next she reveled in the exquisite impudence of his daring. At one moment her woman's tender pity went out to the big-hearted man who had been submitted to such indignities by his own son and herself, and all those concerned in the conspiracy, and, at the next, she found herself smiling at the humor of his attitude towards his persecutors. Then, too, over all these complications of feeling she was stirred with alarm at that painful memory of the unguarded moment, when, lulled by her interest in the millionaire's talk, she had admitted her name to him. Visions of hideous possibilities rose before her eyes. If he should chance to know her father's name. Why not? Surely he knew. But after that one sharp interrogation he had given no sign.
She sighed a sort of half-hearted relief, but remained unconvinced. It was this last contingency which had inspired her night journey home. She had ridden out the moment she had been certain that their captive had retired for the night.
There were still some eight miles to go before the ranch would be reached when Hazel experienced a fright, which left her ready to turn and flee back over the way she had come as swiftly as the legs of her mare could carry her.
On clearing a bluff of spruce, around which her course lay, in the full radiance of the moon's high noon, she suddenly beheld a horseman riding towards her, a ghostly figure moving soundlessly over the high grass.
Such was the effect of this vision upon her, that, beyond being able to bring her mare to an abrupt halt, panic left her paralysed. In all her years she had never encountered a horseman riding late at night in the mountains. Who was he? Who could he be? And an eerie feeling set her flesh creeping at the ghostliness and noiselessness of his coming.
She sat there stupidly, her pretty cheeks ashen in the moonlight. And all the time the man was coming nearer and nearer, traveling the same trail she would have done had she pursued her course. Then an abject terror surged upon her. He must meet her!
In an instant her paralysis left her, and she gathered her reins to turn her mare about. But the maneuver was never effected. She had suddenly recognized the horse the man was riding. It was Sunset. The next moment she further recognized the broad shoulders of the man in the saddle, and a glad cry broke from her, and she urged her mare on to meet him.
"Gordon!" she cried, in a world of delight and relief as she came up with him.
"You, Hazel?" came the joyous response of her ghostly visitor.
"You just scared me all to death," protested the girl, as the big chestnut ranged up beside her.
"I did?" Gordon was smiling tenderly down at the pretty figure, so fascinating in the moonlight as it sat astride the brown mare.
"My, but I thought – I – oh, I don't know what I thought. But what are you doing around – now?"
The girl was smiling happily enough. Even in the silver of the moonlight it was obvious that the color had returned to her cheeks.
"I was going to ask you that," returned Gordon. "But I guess I best tell you things first." Then he began to laugh. "I was coming out to see you, but – not you only. Say, I'm just the weakest conspirator ever started out to trap a mouse. Look at me. Say, get a good look. It isn't the sort of thing you'll see every time you open your eyes. I was sick to death feeling the old dad was shut up a prisoner, and I felt I must get along, even if it was only just to get a peek, and be sure he wasn't suffering."
Hazel's eyes were tenderly regarding the great creature in the bright moonlight. She had been so recently angry at this son's heartless action, that his expression of contrition made her feel all the more tender towards him.
"He's in bed, and – I'd guess he's snoring elegantly by now," she said, with a smile. "I – I waited to start out till he was in bed." Then her eyes met his. "What were you coming to – see me for?"
The direct challenge very nearly precipitated matters. Gordon had excuses enough for seeing her, but only one real purpose. He hesitated before replying.
"We've made good," he said at last, by way of subterfuge, and the girl drew a deep breath of joyous content.
"You've – made – good?" she questioned, more in the way of reassuring herself than desiring a reply.
Gordon moved his horse so that she could turn about.
"Let's go back to the – prison," he said, his words charged with the excited delight stirring within him.
"Yes, we've made good." The girl turned her mare about and the two moved on the way she had already come, side by side. "Listen, while I tell you. Say, I could sort of shout it around the hill-tops – if they weren't so snowy and cold. Snake's Fall is just a surging land market for us at Buffalo. There are real estate offices opening everywhere, and everybody you meet on the sidewalk is a broker of some sort. The Bude and Sideley folk turned their holdings loose directly we got the surveyors and engineers of the railroad up, and the folks all jumped. Then the men at Snake's, who held in ours, followed suit. But your father, bless him, held tight. The boom fairly rose to a shriek, and we've been fighting to sit tight, and let the prices go up skywards. Then we had a meeting, and your father loosened up a bit. Just to keep the spurt on. Meanwhile I've handled things down east, and kept the wires singing. The railroad have started a great advertising campaign at my orders. The coal company, too, are talking Snake's Fall, and Buffalo Point. In a month there'll be such a rush as only America, and this continent generally knows how to make. Even now sites are changing hands at ridiculous prices. Meanwhile I've got the railroad busy. Already ten construction trains have come through, and they've started on the new depot." He drew a deep sigh of satisfaction. Then in a sort of shamefaced manner he went on. "But I've had to weaken in the old dad's direction. I can't make good and leave him out all together. You see, that play of Slosson's in Snake's will have to be made good, and my father will have to make it that way. So I've got your father to give me a six months' option on a stretch of land adjoining the coalpits which he hadn't ceded to the Bude people. You see, if there's coal there it'll put my father right with the game, and we shan't have hurt him any. Meanwhile things will go on, and we'll have to keep the old dad for another month. Then I sell, and – "
"You'll have won out," broke in Hazel, her eyes shining in the moonlight. Then a shadow crossed her face. "But when your father knows what you've done? What then?"
Gordon seemed to consider his reply carefully.
"You can leave that to me, Hazel," he said at last, with a whimsical smile. "There's surely got to be a grand finale to this, and when it comes I'll still need your help. Say, why were you riding in to the ranch – at dead of night?"
The abrupt question shocked the girl out of her delighted content. The memory of her trouble came overwhelmingly upon her. But Gordon was waiting.
"You're making good, but I've made pretty bad," she said, thrusting a desire to burst into tears resolutely from her. "I'm just every sort of fool and I – don't know how much damage I haven't done. Everything's gone right until this evening. Hip-Lee has just been as near perfect as a Chinaman can be. We've carried out all our plans right through, and I've never been near your father without Hip-Lee looking on. That is – until this evening." The girl sighed. The confession of her blundering was hard to make. "It was this way," she went on presently. "Your father was out walking. I hadn't seen him return. I was in the kitchen fixing his supper, and it was sticky hot, and I just hated the flies, so I went out for a breath of air. Hip-Lee had been playing his spy game on your father. Well, I just stood out front of the house taking a look at the hills, and wishing I was amongst their snows, when your father spoke. He had got back, and was sitting outside the house, and, maybe, like me he was yearning for that snow. Well, I just couldn't run away – so we talked. I guess we'd talked quite awhile, and I'd kind of forgotten things, and in the middle of his talk he started to address me by my name, and got as far as 'Miss.' Then, without a thought, I spoke my name. He just seemed startled, but never said a word about it, and now I'm worried to death. Was there ever such – "
The girl broke off, and it seemed to Gordon, in spite of her attempted smile, she was very near tears. Instantly he smothered his own feelings of alarm at her story and endeavored to console her. He laughed, but in Hazel's hyper-sensitive condition of anxiety, his laugh lacked its usual buoyancy.
"That's nothing to worry over," he said. "I'd say if your name had meant anything to him he wouldn't have given you breathing time before you'd learned a heap of things that wouldn't have sounded pretty. Dad's no end of a sport, but when he gets a punch, and the fellow who gives it him don't vanish quick, he's got a way of hitting back mighty hard. I don't guess that break's going to figure any in our play. He never said a word?"
"Not a word." Hazel tried to take comfort, but still remained unconvinced. "Anyway what could he do?"
Gordon remained serious for some moments. Then his eyes lit again.
"Not a thing," he said emphatically, and Hazel knew he meant it.
For some time they rode on in silence, and thought was busy with them both. Hazel was thinking of so many things, all of which somehow focussed round the man at her side, and her ardent desire to obey his lightest commands in the schemes of his fertile brain. Gordon had dismissed every other thought from his mind but the delightful companionship of this ride, which had come all unexpectedly. The girl's mare led slightly, and the sober chestnut kept his nose on a level with her shoulder, and thus Gordon was left free to regard the girl he loved without fear of embarrassment to her. But somehow Hazel was not unaware of his regard. A curious subconsciousness left her with the feeling that her every movement was observed, and a pleasant, excited nervousness began to stir her. She hastily broke the silence.
"You said you'd still need my help when – the grand finale came," she demanded.
"Sure," came the prompt reply. Then very slowly the man added; "I can't do anything without your help – now."
The girl glanced round quickly.
"You mean – with your father a prisoner?"
The man's smile deepened, and his blue eyes gazed thoughtfully, ardently, into the hazel eyes, which, in a moment, became hidden from him.