He drew her to him.
“Lucy,” he said, as he put his arm about her and kissed her, “I shall be thinking of you all the time. I was almost afraid to come over here to-day, but I see I had nothing to fear.”
“And do you know why?”
“Because you love me even as I love you.”
“Then you won’t forget—you won’t forget—that I am a ranch girl, and that my interests, and yours too if you but knew it, are ranch interests!”
“I will not forget,” he promised.
CHAPTER IV
IN THE WHIRLPOOL
The conflicting interests had so shaped themselves before Justin went to Denver that he knew it would be impossible for him to vote on certain questions with the representatives of the ranchmen. He reached this decision, after many long talks with Doctor Clayton, in the quiet of the doctor’s study. Yet he maintained a silence, trying to himself, which Clayton deemed discreet; and he went to Denver with many misgivings.
He had no sooner set foot in the hotel when Fogg’s smiling face made its appearance.
“Good; you’re here!” Fogg cried. “Now I’ll see that you have a first-class room. These hotel people will poke you off into any old corner, if you don’t watch them.”
He seized Justin’s valise, but relinquished it to the colored boy who came forward to take it, and walked with Justin to the clerk’s desk, where he made known with confidential words and gestures that his friend, Justin Wingate, the representative from Flatrock, was to have a good room, in a good location. And he went up with Justin to the room, to make sure that he had not been swindled by the wicked hotel men.
“This will be all right,” he declared, joyously. “My room is on the same floor. You must come in and look at it.”
Justin went in, and they talked awhile. Fogg did not ask him any questions, but seemed to assume that there could be no divergence of opinion between them on any vital point; they were old friends, and they understood each other!
On the mantel was a copy of that photograph of Justin and Mary Jasper, taken on the occasion of Fogg’s first visit to Paradise Valley. Fogg had put it there, to be seen, that it might further cement the ties that he hoped would bind Justin to him. It would bring back memories of pleasant days, he believed. It brought back, instead, memories of Peter Wingate and Curtis Clayton. When that picture was taken, the ranchmen had not invaded Paradise Valley. Sloan Jasper was tilling his little fields by the river undisturbed by the Davison cattle. And Jasper had been one of Wingate’s staunchest friends and admirers!
“You’ll find things a bit new here, of course,” said Fogg, as he returned with Justin to the latter’s room; “but I know Denver like a book, and I’ll be glad to help you in any way I can.”
Yet even Lemuel Fogg, observing that Justin did not say much, had an uneasy sense of insecurity.
“These quiet men do a lot of thinking,” was his troubled conclusion, “and they’re likely to be hard to manage, when they get crooked notions in their heads. I’ll have to keep my eyes on him, and I’ll get some other fellows to help me. We’ve got to swing his vote; we’ve simply got to do it!”
To Justin’s inexperienced eyes Denver was in a condition of political chaos. He was not accustomed to crowds, and at first they annoyed and bewildered him. Caucuses were apparently being held in every corner. Ranching interests, mining interests, agricultural interests, each seemed to have a host of champions. But the thing that excited every one, whether cattlemen, farmer, or miner, was the coming election of a United States senator.
Early on the day after his arrival, he found himself drawn into a caucus held in the interests of the cattlemen. Fogg piloted him into it adroitly, wishing to commit him irrevocably to that side. Justin sat down and looked about, not knowing what was to be done. Men came to him with friendly words, and were introduced by Fogg. A chairman was appointed, and the meeting began, with speeches. Their drift soon filled Justin with uneasiness. Having listened awhile, he arose nervously in his place. He did not wish to be misunderstood, or put in a doubtful position.
As he stood up, thoughts of Lucy Davison came to trouble him; and, knowing that every eye was trained on him, he became somewhat disconcerted. Fogg, watching him closely, saw his face flush to a deep red. Yet even Fogg, consumed by anxious expectancy, did not fail to note the commanding flash of the blue eyes and the stiffening of the lithe, erect form of this young man from the remote ranges of Paradise, as he began to speak. There was nothing rural or awkward in his manner. His bare shapely head with its masses of dark hair, his clear-cut profile, and his straight supple form clad in a neat business suit of dark gray, spoke of anything but verdant inexperience.
Though he began in hesitation, having begun he did not falter, and he did not palter; but expressed himself simply, as an honest man expressing honest opinions without thought of subterfuge. He did not go into details, and he did not explain, further than to declare that he had not sought an election; but, having been elected unpledged, by the combined votes of farmers, cowboys, and citizens of the town, in a revolt against a candidate they did not like, he still stood unpledged, and would vote as his conscience dictated in all things. He was not to be considered, he said, as belonging to the party or interests represented by this caucus, and if he had known that those attending it were supposed to be pledged to do the will of the majority he would not have been there. They must understand his position. He would not deceive them.
Justin did not expect to create a sensation when he delivered that brief speech, but it was like hurling a bomb. Of all the men there Fogg was apparently the most surprised and hurt. He came to Justin immediately, as the caucus began to break into groups, and while Justin was trying to get out of the room. Angry men were shouting questions at Justin. Fogg resolved to maintain his conciliatory attitude.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said, in a low tone, hooking a finger in Justin’s buttonhole in a friendly manner. “You’ll live to regret it. You’re a young man just entering political life. You’re educated and you’ve got ability; and a young man of education and ability can make almost anything of himself, in a country like this. But not if he starts out in this way. You’ve got to stand with somebody. Don’t lose your head now. We’re the strongest party. Stand with us. We’re going to win this fight, and you can’t afford to be on the losing side.”
“Fogg,” said Justin, looking almost angrily at him, “I won’t be pulled and hauled about by you nor any other man. I’m not trying to control you, and you can’t control me. I came up here untrammeled. When it comes to voting in the house of representatives I intend to listen to the arguments for and against every measure, and then I shall make up my mind and vote for whatever seems to me to be right.”
“You can’t do that, Justin,” Fogg urged. He was nervously solicitous. “Legislatures are run by majorities, by parties. If every man stood by himself nothing could be accomplished. Sometimes we must vote for measures we don’t like in order to help along measures we do like. In a place like this men have to stand together. You can’t afford to herd by yourself, like an outcast buffalo. You’ll want to come up here again, or you will want an office of some kind. Now don’t be quick, don’t be nervous and gunpowdery; think it over, think it over.”
He patted Justin on the shoulder. He was much shorter than Justin and had to reach up, and it was a comical motion.
Justin released himself from Fogg’s grasp, and though men were still shouting at him and trying to reach him, he moved on out of the room without speaking to any one.
To his surprise, the tenor of his speech in the caucus seemed to be known everywhere almost immediately. Men came to him; some arguing with him, others praising him. He went out into the street to escape them. Returning, he was thinking of retreating to the privacy of his room, when a newsboy rushed through the corridor yelling, “Extra! All about the defection of the representative from Flatrock County!”
Justin Wingate’s “defection” was not an hour old, yet here it was blazoned in print. He snatched one of the papers and made for his room, where he read it in a state of exasperated bewilderment, for he found himself denounced in unmeasured terms. This paper was the organ of the cattlemen. “Scare heads” above the news columns of the first page informed an astonished world of cattlemen that a Judas Iscariot had arisen suddenly in their midst to betray them with an unholy kiss. In a brief paragraph on the editorial page Justin was spoken of as “The Cattlemen’s Benedict Arnold.” Elected chiefly by cowboy votes, he was, the paper said, preparing to “sell them out.”
Justin threw down the paper. Newsboys were yelling in the street. He left the room, thinking to get another paper. As he made his way toward the hotel office a smiling little man tapped him on the shoulder. He saw Fogg advancing with one of the offensive newspapers in his hands, and scarcely noticing the little man he turned about, seeking a way of escape, and found himself in another room. The little man closed the door behind Justin; and the men before him, rising from their chairs, began to cheer.
This was a caucus of the opposition, and Justin discovered that he was being hailed as an ally, and was expected to say something. He would declare himself to them, he resolved suddenly, even though these men might not like what he said, or the manner of its saying, any better than those others. He would tell them that he did not belong to any faction, and should vote only as his conscience led him. Then, if he must stand alone, he would do so.
He hardly knew what he said, yet it was well said. Clayton’s training had given him command of language, and his honest indignant feelings and ingenuous nature gave him force and candor. As he spoke the caucus broke into frantic cheering. Men stood in their chairs and yelled like wild Indians, or maniacs. Here Justin was not an Iscariot or an Arnold, but a “patriot” and a “savior.” This caucus represented the irrigationists, and Justin’s declaration that he would vote only as his conscience dictated assured them that he was not to be controlled by the ranchmen, and that the reports they had received from Paradise Valley concerning him were true.
Escaping from these men Justin returned to his room, to which Fogg came soon, though Justin was in no mood to receive him. Fogg closed the door softly and dropped somewhat heavily into a chair. His fat face looked worried.
“You don’t doubt that I’m your friend, Justin?” he said, cautiously.
“I don’t know that I’ve any right to doubt it; you’ve always been my friend, heretofore.”
“And I’m your friend now—the best friend you’ve got in this city.”
“The only one, I suppose,” said Justin, tipping his chair against the wall and looking at Fogg keenly. “I’m a stranger here.”
“So I’ve come to talk this matter over with you. I don’t need to go into details—you know how you were elected, by a queer combination of opposing interests. The cowboys who voted for you did it because they like you and dislike Ben Davison, and not because they want you to oppose the ranch interests in the legislature. If they considered the matter at all, which is doubtful, they thought they could trust you not to do anything here that would be to their injury. Likely you think you owe your election to the farmers, but you don’t; they supported you, but it was the cowboy vote which elected you.”
“I have never questioned that fact,” said Justin.
“Perhaps not, but you seem to forget it. Now, there’s another thing, of even greater importance, it appears to me, which you ought to take into consideration. The cattlemen are a power in this state. At present they are allied with the party in control here, and the same party is in control at Washington. You know what that means.”
“I should be a fool if I didn’t.”
“Just so; and understanding the situation, is it the part of wisdom—under all the circumstances now, Justin—is it the part of wisdom for you to oppose that party? The opposition, which is just now making such a noise, is a composite thing bound together with a rope of sand. A half-dozen factions have thrown their influence to the minority party and are making a desperate effort to get control of the legislature. Suppose they succeed this time, where will they be next year, or two or four years from now? They are antagonistic on every question but this, and they will fall apart; nothing else can happen, as you must see yourself. Don’t you see that?”
“Yes, I can see that all right.”
“Well, then, what is to be gained, in a personal way, by going over to them? I’m not going to argue the thing with you, but just make these statements to set you to thinking.”
Fogg knew when he had said enough, and he arose to go.
“What did that paper mean, by attacking me in that way?” Justin asked.
Fogg sat down again.
“Newspaper men are as likely to make fools of themselves as other men. They rushed that edition onto the street as a ‘beat,’ or ‘scoop.’ They’re sorry they did it already, if they’ve got as much brains as I think they have.”
“Why should it be assumed in the first place that I intended to ally myself with the cattlemen, and why should the simple statement which I made in that caucus cause me to be branded as a Judas and Benedict Arnold?”
“It was simply an exhibition of what those fellows would call journalistic enterprise, I suppose. They wanted to make a sensation, and sell papers. They even sold a copy to you.” Fogg laughed. “You wouldn’t have bought that copy, otherwise.”
“Well, I wasn’t pleased by it. If anything would make me vote against the cattlemen when I thought I ought to vote with them, such attacks as that would.”
Fogg laughed again, and ran his fingers over the shining gold chain that lay across his rotund stomach.
“The fellow that stands in the limelight has got to take his medicine, and it’s no use kicking. The only way to do is to go straight ahead and take no notice of what the papers say. That’s what I try to do, though I admit I get my mad up sometimes over some of the things they print about me. That paper, which poured vitriol on you to-day, will shower you with rosewater and honey to-morrow, if what you do pleases it.”
“I shan’t try to please it!” Justin declared, angrily.
“No, I wouldn’t; I’d try to please myself, and I’d try to look out for Number One. Well, I must be going!” He rose again. “And just think over what I’ve said to you in friendship. The range will be here, and the cattlemen, when all these other little barking dogs are dead and forgotten. My word for it, a desire for loot and plunder is really all that holds them together now, though they’re making such a howl about public virtue and honesty. I’ve been in the political whirl before, and I know those men right down to the ground.”
He extended his hand as he reached the door, and Justin, having risen also, took it.
“I’m your friend,” said Fogg, as a final word, “and what I’ve said is for your own good.”
When he was gone Justin sat down to think it over. He knew there was much truth in Fogg’s statements. The conglomerate opposition struggling now to gain control of the legislature would fall to pieces inevitably by and by. If he voted with the ranch interests he would please the cowboys who had worked for his election, he would please Fogg and Davison, and he would not displease Lucy Davison. But would he please himself? Would he please Curtis Clayton? He could not hope by so doing to please the farmers.
Justin had ambition, though he was not consumed by it. He did not wish to wreck his future. Philip Davison, in that memorable interview, had told him to do something, be something, accomplish something. In the interval between that time and now no opportunity had come to him. He had left the ranch, where he could earn only cowboy’s wages, though not wholly because of the low wages. He had for a time secured employment in the town, but the position had been neither promising nor permanent. He had been thinking seriously of going to Denver, to try his fortunes in its larger field, when the fire came which incapacitated him, and after the fire this unexpected election.
He was in Denver now, and he was a member of the legislature. Ambition and a desire to show to Philip Davison that he was not unworthy of his regard and friendship, not unworthy even to become the husband of Lucy Davison, urged him to one course; Clayton’s teachings and influence, and his own inner feeling as to what was right and what was not right, was urging him to the opposite course. Should he continue to offend Philip Davison and at the same time wreck his political prospects?
“But what can I do?” was his mental cry, as he struggled with this problem. “I can’t vote for things which I know are not right, nor for men I know I can’t trust.”
Early in the morning he encountered Fogg. The encounter was not by chance, though Fogg pretended that it was.
“I hope you thought over those things carefully?” he inquired, unable to conceal his anxiety.
“I have thought to this point,” said Justin; “I will vote with the cattlemen wherever my conscience will let me, but I can’t vote for your candidate for United States senator.”
Fogg stood aghast.
“That puts you in the camp of the irrigationists, with all that mongrel crew!”
“I can’t help it.”
Justin’s tone was decided. His face was feverish. He had passed a bad night.
“I can’t help it, if it does, Fogg. The things that man stands for are not right, and I can’t support him.”
Fogg detained him, and threshed the old arguments over; he even used the potent argument that Justin ought not to follow deliberately a course that must inevitably injure Philip Davison very much in a financial sense; but, having with deep travail of soul reached that one conclusion, Justin Wingate was now as immovable as a rock.
CHAPTER V
HARKNESS AND THE SEER
Harkness and Clayton had come to Denver; Clayton to “hold up the hands” of Justin, guessing what he would be called on to encounter, and Harkness to see the “sights” in this time of political turmoil. The cowboys were virtually in a state of revolt. It was not possible that it could be otherwise. When Harkness, enraged and resentful, led them in that rebellion against Ben Davison, ranch discipline was destroyed and he lost control of them himself. Not that he now cared. The impulse which led him to strike Ben to the earth by the ranch house door had guided him since. He knew that the restraining hand of Fogg, who had present interests to serve, alone checked the wrath of Philip Davison. He, and all the other cowboys, must go, as soon as this thing was settled. Nothing else was possible, when such a man as Philip Davison was to be dealt with.
Harkness met Justin on the street in front of the hotel and made straight for him. It was not a bee-line, for Harkness was comfortably intoxicated. He had the cowboy failing. Though he never touched liquor while on the ranch and duty demanded sobriety, he could not resist the temptation to drink with a friend or an acquaintance when he was in the city. He greeted Justin with hilarious familiarity, and the scent of the liquor mingling with the scent of cinnamon drops Justin found almost overpowering.
“Shake!” he cried, reeling as he took Justin’s hand. “Justin, I’m yer friend! Don’t you never fergit it, I’m yer friend! And there ain’t no strings on you! Understand—there ain’t—no—strings—on—you! We fellers elected you 'cause we like you, and 'cause we couldn’t vote for Ben Davison. ‘To hell with Ben Davison,’ says I to the boys,—‘to hell with him; he took my wife’s horse and left her and Helen to burn to death in that fire! I’ll see him damned 'fore—'fore I’ll vote fer him!’ And so I would, Justin; an’ we—we (hic) voted f’r—fer you, see! We voted fer you. Davison’s goin’ to d’scharge me an’ I know it, but let him. I don’t haf to be cowboy, I don’t. Let him d’scharge (hic) and damn to him! Let him d’scharge. But you go right ahead an’ do as you want to. You’re honest, an’ you’re all right, an’ we’re backin’ you.”
When Fogg appeared—he had not yet abandoned hope of Justin—Harkness swayed up to him pugnaciously. He had never liked Fogg, and he liked him less now. Fogg’s oiliness sickened the cowboy stomach.
“Fogg,” he blustered, “Justin’s my friend, see! And there ain’t no strings on him. He’s honest, an’ we’re backin’ him. You want to hear my sentiments? ‘To hell with Ben Davison!’ Them’s my sentiments, an’ I ain’t 'shamed of ’em. Davison’s goin’ to d’scharge me an’ I know it. Le’m d’scharge. Who keers f’r d’scharge? I don’t haf to be cowboy, I don’t. But you treat Justin right. You’ve got to treat (hic) treat him right, fer he’s my friend, see!”
Fogg protested that he had never contemplated treating Justin in any other way, and that Justin was his good friend as well as Harkness’s.
Wandering about Denver that day, “staring like a locoed steer,” as he afterward expressed it, Harkness came to a stand in front of a doorway and looked at a man who had emerged therefrom. The man was William Sanders, but he passed on without observing Harkness.
“What’s he doin’ up here?” Harkness queried, as he watched the familiar figure disappear in the crowd.
Sanders had gone, and to get an answer to his question Harkness stared at the doorway, and the building, a somewhat imposing edifice of brick, situated on one of the principal streets. It was given over to offices of various kinds, he judged; but what fixed his eye was a sign with a painted index-hand pointing to it.
“Madame Manton, Seer, Fortune teller, Palmist, and Clairvoyant. Fortune telling and astrology. The past and the future revealed. Lost articles found, dreams interpreted, lovers re-united.”
There was a statement below this, in much smaller letters, setting forth that Madame Manton, who was a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and from birth gifted with miraculous second-sight, had just returned to America after a prolonged stay in European capitals, during which she had achieved marvellous successes and had been consulted on important matters by the crowned heads.
Harkness did not know whether to connect the egress of William Sanders from that doorway with this fortune teller or not, but the vagaries of his intellectual condition impelled him to enter. Following the direction of the pointing hand, he was soon climbing a stairway which led to the door of this professed mistress of the black arts. Here another sign, with even more emphatic statements, greeted him. On this door Harkness hammered lustily.
“Come in!” said a voice.
Harkness tried the knob with fumbling fingers, then set his massive shoulders to the panel, and was fairly precipitated into the room where a rosy half-light glowed from a red lamp, and the sunlight, showing through heavy red curtains, conjured queer shadows in the corners. At the farther end of the room sat a woman. She was robed in red, and her chair was red. A reddish veil hid her face. But the hand she extended was small and white, and flashed the fire of diamonds.
Harkness was so taken aback that he was almost on the point of bolting from the room. But that would have savored of a lack of courage, and his drink-buoyed mind resented the imputation. He would not run, even from a red fortune teller. Seeing a chair by the door he dropped into it, stared at the woman, and not knowing what else to do took out his red handkerchief to mop his red face. The odor of cinnamon drops floating out from it combined with that of the whiskey and filled the room.
“If you will be kind enough to close the door!” said the woman.
She was looking at him intently. He closed the door, and dropped back into the chair. He crossed his legs nervously, then uncrossed them, wiped his face again with the scented handkerchief, and finally stuck his big hands into his big pockets to get rid of them. He was dressed in half cowboy garb, and it began to dawn on him that he was “cutting a pretty figure,” sitting there with that fortune teller.
“I suppose you’d like to have your fortune told?” she questioned.
“I dunno 'bout that!” he protested, his big hands burrowing deep into his pockets. “I seen a feller come from this way, and I kinder p’inted my toes in the same direction. Mebbe you was tellin’ his fortune?”
“No one has been here for more than an hour.”
“Then I reckon I was mistook. Do you make up these here fortunes out of your own head, or how?”
“I tell whatever is to be told.”
“Fer coin?”
“Yes, for coin. Even a fortune teller must live. Put five dollars on that tray beside you and I will begin.”
“If you can tag me, I’ll make it ten!”
Harkness put a crisp five dollar bill on the tray. If she had said ten he would have placed that there. Liquor made him generous.
“You do not believe in fortunes?”
“Not any, lady. I stumbled into this game, and I’m simply playin’ it fer the fun of it, same’s I used to go into a game of cards with Ben Davison, when I knowed good and well he’d skin me. I’m goin’ up ag’inst your game, lady, and payin’ before the game begins. It’s cut out fer me to lose, but I’ll double the bet and lose it willin’ if you can put your finger on me an’ tell me whatever about myself. I don’t reckon you can do it.”
A low laugh of amusement came from behind the veil.
“You might as well put down the other five dollars now, to save you the trouble of doing it later.”
Then she leaned forward and stared at him so intently that he felt almost nervous. There was something uncanny in that rigid stare, and in the strained tones of her voice, when she spoke after prolonged silence. He fancied he could see her glowing eyes through the mesh of the veil.
“Your last name begins with an H. Let me see! It is something like Hearing. No, it can’t be that! It’s Hark—Hark—Harkening. No, that can’t be. I can’t get it; but I didn’t promise to tell names. There are a great many cattle where you live. Yes, and you are married. That’s strange, for not many cowboys are married. You have a little girl.”
She put her hand to her head, and was silent a moment.
“That’s very queer. The name of your little girl, her first name, begins with an H.” She uttered a little inarticulate cry. “And, oh, dear, she seems to be surrounded by fire; flames are on all sides of her, and smoke! And she is frightened.”
Harkness started from his chair.
“She ain’t in any fire now?”
The woman dropped back with a sigh.
“No, not now,” she admitted; “that is past. I am telling you things you know about, so that you will see that I have the power I claim. Some one, some one on horseback, is saving her from that fire.”
“And a certain cuss is skedaddlin’ without liftin’ a finger to help her!” said Harkness grimly. “Put that in the picture, fer I ain’t fergittin’ it.”
The disclosures which followed astonished the intoxicated cowboy. He could not have revealed them more clearly himself. The fortune teller took excursions into the future too, in a way to please him; and, as she could tell the past so well, he was glad to believe in her glittering portrayals of delights to come.
Altogether Harkness was bewildered to the point of stupefaction. He was sure he had never seen this woman nor she him, and her knowledge produced in him a half-frightened sensation. Though he always resolutely denied it to himself and to others, he was deeply superstitious. If he began to sing as soon as he rose in the morning, he tried to dissipate the bad luck that foretold by singing the words backward. If he chanced to observe the new moon for the first time over his left shoulder, he turned round in his tracks three times and looked at it over his right. If he saw a pin on the floor with its point toward him he picked it up, for that was a sign of good luck. And he had such a collection of cast-off horseshoes he could have started a shoeing shop on short notice.
Harkness was so well satisfied with the fortune teller that when she concluded he dropped the second five dollar bill on the tray.
“You’re as welcome to it, lady, as if it was water,” he declared. “Five dollars won’t count even a little bit when I come into the fortune you p’inted out to me. You’re a silver-plated seer from the front counties. You’ll find Dicky Carroll jumpin’ into this red boodoir the first time he hits Denver. I’ll tell him about you, and it’ll set him wild.”
Then he plunged down the stairway, fully convinced that he had received the full worth of his money, not at all knowing that he had imparted much more information than he had received.
When he was gone the woman leaned back in her red chair and laughed until the tears came into her eyes. She laid aside the reddish veil, thus revealing the features of Sibyl Dudley, and wiped away the tears with a filmy handkerchief.
Then she began to make an estimate of the value of the information she had received from this intoxicated cowboy, and from William Sanders. It was considerable. She had formed many of her statements so craftily that they were questions, and she had made these men talk about themselves and their affairs in really garrulous fashion.
When a little time had elapsed she ventured into the street, in an entirely different garb and veiled more heavily. Walking across the street she hailed a cab, and was driven home, halting however at a corner to purchase copies of the latest Denver papers. At home she began to absorb their contents.
Sibyl Dudley’s finances were at a low ebb. Mr. Plimpton, the stock broker, had met a reverse of fortune, and criminal proceedings being hinted by men he had fleeced, he had gone into exile. Where he was Sibyl did not know, and if she had known he could not have helped her, for he had now no money. With debts thickening about her, and no new admirer with a plethoric bank account yet appearing, she was being driven to desperate extremities. To tide over this day of evil fortune she had, carefully veiled that no one might know her, become Madame Manton.