“Wait a minute, Andy!”
A man rose in the crowd – a tall old man with a melancholy face – the same who had summoned Hobby Lull to the door.
“Why, hello, Pete! I didn’t see you come!” said the judge.
“That’s funny, too. I have been here half an hour. You’re getting old, Andy – getting old!”
“Oh, you go to thunder! Say, can you straighten up this mess?”
“I can help, at least – or so I believe. I was with the search party.”
“Well, who calls this witness – the defense or the prosecution?” inquired the court.
“Oh, let me call myself – as the friend of the court, amicus curiæ, just as they used to do in England – do yet, for all I know. I’ve not heard your evidence – though I saw some just now, outside. But I’ve got a few facts which you may be able to fit in somewhere. I don’t know the defendant, and am not for or against the prosecutor or for anybody or anything except justice. So I’ll take it kindly if you’d let me tell my story in my own way – as the friend of justice. I’ll get over the ground quicker and tell it straighter. If anyone is not satisfied they can cross-examine me afterwards, just as if I had been called by one side or the other.”
Judge Hinkle turned to Wade. “Any objections?”
“No,” said Wade. “I guess justice is what we all want – results, as you said yourself.”
He was a subdued man. His three witnesses stirred uneasily, with sidelong glances. Spinal Maginnis kept a corner of his eye on those witnesses.
“Suits me,” said Johnny.
“I got to get me a drink,” whispered Caney, and rose, tiptoeing. But Maginnis rose with him.
“Sit down, Mr. Caney,” he said. “You look poorly. I’ll fetch you some water.”
Pete Harkey took the stand and was duly sworn. He crossed his legs and addressed the judge.
“Well, we went up in Redgate, Dan Fenderson and I and a bunch. We thought there was no use of more than one coming here to-day, because we all saw just the same things.”
Hinkle nodded. “All right, Pete. Tell us about it.”
“Well, now, Andy – Your Honor – if it’s just the same to everybody, I’ll skip the part about the tracks and finding Adam until cross-examination. It’s just going over the same old ground again. I’ve been talking to Hobby, and we found everything just about as you heard it from these boys.” His eye shifted toward the witness bench. “All except one little thing about the tracks, and that was done after the murder, and might have been happen-so. And I was wanting to hurry up and get back to Garfield to-night. We’re going to bury Adam at sundown.”
“All right, Pete. But we’ll cross-examine you – if not to-day, then to-morrow. It pays to work tailings, sometimes.”
“That’s queer, too. I was just coming to that – in a way. Mining. Adam went up there to prospect for gold – placer gold. When the big rain came, the night he was killed, all tracks were washed out, of course. We hadn’t got far when dark came – and then the rain. But yesterday I went combing out the country to look for Adam’s outfit of camp stuff, and also to see if perhaps he had found any claims before he was killed. And I found this.”
He handed to the judge a small paper packet, folded and refolded, and wrapped round with a buckskin string. The judge opened it.
“Coarse gold!” he said. “Like the Apache gold in the seventies! Pete, you’ve got a rich mine if there’s much of this.”
“It is rich dirt,” said Pete. “I got that from less than a dozen pans. But it is not my mine.”
“How so?”
“I got home late last night. This morning I looked in all the pockets in the clothes Adam was wearing. Here is what I found in his vest.” He handed to Hinkle a small tobacco sack, rolled to a tiny cylinder.
“The same kind of gold – big as rice!” said Hinkle. “So Adam Forbes found this?”
Caney’s hand crept under his coat.
“Judge for yourself. I found three claims located. Three. But no name of Adam Forbes to any notice. One claim was called the ‘Goblin Gold – ’”
Charlie See rose up as if he were lifted by the hair of his head. “The other names, Pete! Not the locators. The claims – give me the names of the other two claims!”
“‘Nine Bucks’ was one – and the ‘Please Hush.’”
Charlie turned and took one step, his tensed weight resting on the balls of his feet, his left arm lashed out to point. All eyes turned to the witness bench – and two witnesses looked at one.
“Caney!” thundered Charlie See.
Leaping, Caney’s arm came from his coat. See’s hand was swifter, unseen. In flashes of fire and smoke, Caney, even as he leaped up, pitched forward on his face. His arm reached out on the floor, holding a smoking gun, and See’s foot was on the gun.
A dozen men had pulled down Toad Hales and Jody Weir. Gwinne’s gun was out.
“Stand back! The next man over the rails gets it!” Maginnis jumped beside him. The shouting crowd recoiled.
“Sit down! Sit down, everybody!” shouted the judge. He pounded on his desk. “Bojarquez! Ross! Foster! Come up here. I make you deputies. Get this crowd out or get order.”
The deafening turmoil stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
“Gwinne, arrest those two men for the murder of Adam Forbes,” ordered Hinkle.
“Well, gee-whiz, I’d say they was under arrest now. Here, gimme them.” He reached down and handcuffed Weir and Hales together. “How’s Caney, Dines? Dead?”
Johnny knelt by the fallen man. “Dead as a door nail. Three shots. Did he get you anywhere, See?”
“No. He was just one-sixteenth of a second too late.” Charlie See looked hard at the cylinder of his gun. He had fired only two shots. “Pete, it’s a wonder he didn’t hit you. You was right in line.”
“I wasn’t there,” said Pete dryly. “Not when the bullets got there. Not good enough.”
Gwinne and Maginnis took the two prisoners to jail, by the back door.
“Now for a clearing up,” said Judge Hinkle. “You seem to have inside information, Mr. See. Suppose you tell us about it?”
“No chance for a mistake, judge. I had a long talk with Adam the night before, about a lost gold mine at Mescalero. And three of the phrases that we used back and forth – it seems he picked them out to name his find. ‘Goblin Gold.’ I used the word ‘gobbling’ gold – joking, you know. And the story was about ‘nine bucks’; and it wound up with an old Mescalero saying ‘Won’t you please hush?’ It wasn’t possible that those three names had reached the papers Pete found, except through the dead man’s mind. Adam called these three men to witness for him, likely. Then they killed him for his mines. They destroyed his location papers, but they kept the names. Easier than to make up new ones. That’ll hang ’em.”
“Sounds good. But how are you going to prove it? Suppose they get a good lawyer and stick to their story? They found a mine, and you got in a shooting match with Caney. That don’t prove anything.”
“Well, I’ll bet I can prove it,” said Johnny Dines. “Ten to one, that letter Forbes gave me to mail was his location papers. He seemed keen about it.”
“Did he say anything about location papers? Was the letter addressed to the recorder?” demanded Pete.
“Look now!” said Johnny. “If this theory of See’s is correct, and if that really was location papers in the letter I mailed – why, that letter won’t get here till two o’clock this afternoon, whether it is the location papers or what. And the postmaster and the recorder are both here in this court room, judge. Gwinne was pointing out everybody to me, before you called court. So they can mosey along down to the post office together – the postmaster and the recorder. And when that letter comes you’ll know all about it.”
“Ah, that reminds me,” said the judge – “the case of the Territory of New Mexico vs. John Dines is now dismissed. This court is now adjourned. John Dines, I want to be the first to congratulate you.”
“Thanks, Judge. – Hiram,” said Johnny, “Cole told me to report to you. He said I was to go to the John Cross pasture and pick me a mount from the runaways there.”
“But, Johnny, you can’t ride those horses,” said Bojarquez.
Johnny flushed. “Don’t you believe it, old hand. You’re not the only one that can ride.”
Bojarquez spread out his hands. “But bareback? Where ees your saddle? And the Twilight horse? The bridle, he ees broke. Scarb’ro’s in Chihuahua by now.”
“Dinner’s on me,” said Johnny.
Charlie See drew Johnny aside and spoke to him in confidence.
“How does it happen you know so pat just when a letter gets to Hillsboro when it is posted in Garfield?”
“A letter? Oh – Hobby Lull, he told me.”
“Yes, yes. And what was the big idea for keeping still about that letter while they wove a rope to your neck?”
“Why, my dear man,” said Johnny, “I can’t read through a sealed envelope.”
Charlie sniffed. “You saw a good many things mighty clear, I notice, but you overlooked the one big bet – like fun you did! Caney and Weir and Hales – don’t you suppose they knew that letter was on the way? And that it was never to reach the recorder?”
“Since you are so very shrewd,” said Johnny, “I sometimes wonder that you are not shrewder still.”
“And keep my mouth shut? That’s how I shall keep it. But I just wanted you to know. You may be deceiving me, but you’re not fooling me any. Keep your secret.”
“Thank you,” said Johnny, “I will.”
“Good boy. All the same, Hobby and I will be up at the post office. And I know now what we’ll find in that letter you mailed. We’ll find Adam’s location papers, with them three murderers for witness.”
And they did. They found something else too; a message from beyond the grave that in his hour of fortune their friend did not forget his friends.
They buried Adam Forbes at sundown of that day. No thing was lacking; his friends and neighbors gathered together to bid him Godspeed; there were love and tears for him. And of those friends, three were all road stained and weary; they had ridden hard from Hillsboro for that parting; Lull and Charlie See and old Pete. It was to one of these that all eyes were turned when the rude coffin was lowered into the grave.
“Pete?” said Jim-Ike-Jones.
And old Pete Harkey stepped forth and spoke slowly, while his faded old eyes looked past the open grave and rested on the hills beyond.
“More than at any other time we strive to center and steady our thoughts, when we stand by the loved and dead. It is an effort as vain as to look full and steadily at the blinding sun. I can tell you no thing here which you do not know.
“You all knew Adam Forbes. He was a simple and kindly man. He brought a good courage to living, he was all help and laughter, he joyed in the sting and relish of rushing life. Those of you here who were most unfriends to him will not soon forget that gay, reckless, tender-hearted creature.
“You know his faults. He was given to hasty wrath, to stubbornness and violence. His hand was heavy. If there are any here who have been wronged by this dead man – as I think most like – let the memory of it be buried in this grave. It was never his way to walk blameless. He did many things amiss; he took wrong turnings. But he was never too proud to turn back, to admit a mistake or to right his wrongdoing. He paid for what he broke.
“For the rest – he fed the hungry, helped the weak, he nursed the sick and dug graves for the dead. Now, in his turn, it is fitting and just that no bought hand dug this grave, but that his friends and his foes did him this last service, and called pleasant dreams to his long sleep.
“We have our dear dreams, too. It can do no harm to dream that somewhere down the skies that brightness and fire and light still flames – but not for us.
“It is written that upon Mars Hill the men of Athens built an altar ‘to the Unknown God.’ It was well builded; and with no misgiving we leave our friend to the care – and to the honor – of the Unknown God.”
He stood back; and from the women who wept came one who did not weep, dry-eyed and pale; whose pitying hand dropped the first earth into the grave.
“Stardust to Stardust,” said Edith Harkey.
That night Pete Harkey stood by the big fireplace of the big lonesome house.
“Shall I light the fire, Edith?”
“Not to-night, father.”
In the dimness he groped for a chair; he took her on his knee, her arms clung fast.
“Is it well with you, Edith?”
Then, in the clinging dusk she dared the truth at last; to ears that did not hear. For his thought was with the dead man. She knew it well; yet once to tell her story – only once! Her voice rang steady, prouder than any pride: “I have loved Greatheart. It is well with me.”
“Poor little girl,” he said. “Poor little girl!” The proud head sought his breast and now her tears fell fast.
And far away, Charlie See rode south through the wizard twilight. There was no singing now. For at the world’s edge some must fare alone; through all their dreams one unforgotten face – laughing, and dear, and lost.