As the big man was walking away towards his hotel a woman met him.
"h.e.l.lo, Mart!"
"h.e.l.lo, Mag; what"s doing?"
She was humped and bedraggled, and her face looked white in the moonlight. "Nothing. Stake a fellow to a hot soup, won"t you?"
"Sure thing, Mag." He handed her a five-dollar gold piece. "Is it as bad as that? What"s t" old man doin" these days?"
"Servin" time," she answered, bitterly.
"Oh, so he is!" replied Haney, hastily. "I"d forgotten. Well, take care o" yourself," he added, genially, walking on in instant forgetfulness of the woman"s misery, for his mind was turned upon the talk which his younger brother Charley had given him not long before in Denver.
It was not a cheerful conversation, for Charley flippantly confessed that he didn"t hold any family reunions, and that all he knew of his brothers he gained by chance. "They"re all great boozers," he said, in summing them up. "Tim is a ward heeler in Buffalo--came to see me at the stage-door loaded to the gunnels. Tom is a greasy, three-fingered brakeman on the Central. Fannie married a carpenter and has about seventeen young ones. Mary died, you know?"
"No, I didn"t know."
"Yes, died about four years ago. She was like mother--a nice girl. Dad sent me a paper with a notice of her death. He never writes, but now and then, when Tim has a fight or Tom gets drunk and slips into the criminal column, I hear of them."
Charles did not say so, but Mart knew that he was lumped among the other poverty-stricken, worthless members of the family. He did not at the time undeceive his brother, but now that he was no longer a gambler and saloon-keeper, now that he was rich, he resolved not only to let his father know of his good-fortune and his change of life, but also (and this was due to Bertie"s influence) he earnestly desired to help his family out of their mire.
"We had good stuff in us," he said, "but we went wrong after the mother left us."
As he walked on down the street a strange radiance came into the world.
The distant peaks of the Sangre de Cristo range rose in dim and shadowy majesty to the south, and, wondering, astonished at the emotion stirring in his heart, the regenerated desperado turned to see the moon lifting above the crown of the great peak to the east. For the first time in many years his heart was filled with a sense of the beauty of the world.
CHAPTER III
BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
Bertie looked older and graver when Haney entered the Eagle Hotel, and his heart expanded with a tenderness that was partly paternal. She seemed so young and looked so pale and troubled.
She greeted him unsmilingly and calmly handed him the pen with which to register.
"How are you all?" he asked, with genuine concern.
"Pretty b.u.m. Mother gave out this week. It"s the heat, I guess. Hottest weather we"ve had since I came to town."
"Why didn"t you let me know?"
She avoided his question. "We"re too low here at Junction. Mother ought to go a couple of thousand feet higher. She needs rest and a change.
I"ve sent her out to the ranch."
"You"re not running the house alone?"
"Why, cert!--that is, except my brother"s wife is taking mother"s place in the kitchen. I"m runnin" the rest of it just as I"ve been doin" for three years."
He looked his admiration before he uttered it. "You"re a wonder!"
"Don"t you think it! How does it happen you"re down to-day? You said Sat.u.r.day."
"I"ve sold out--signed the deeds to-day. I"m out of the liquor trade forever."
She nodded gravely. "I"m glad of that. I don"t like the business--not a little bit."
He took this as an encouragement. "I knew you didn"t. Well, I"m neither saloon-keeper nor gambler from this day. I"m a miner and a capitalist--and all I have is yours," he added, in a lover"s voice, bending a keen glance upon her.
The girl was standing very straight behind her desk, and her face did not change, but her eyes shifted before his gaze. "You"d better go in to supper while the biscuit are hot," she advised, coolly.
He had tact enough to take his dismissal without another word or glance, and after he had gone she still stood there in the same rigid pose, but her face was softer and clouded with serious meditation. It was wonderful to think of this rich and powerful man changing his whole life for her.
Winch.e.l.l, the young barber, came in hurriedly, his face full of accusation and alarm. "Was that Haney who just came in?" he asked, truculently.
"Yes, he"s at supper--want to see him?"
"See him? No! And I don"t want _you_ to see him! He"s too free with you, Bert; I don"t like it."
She smiled a little, curious smile. "Don"t mix it up with _him_, Ed--I"d hate to see your remains afterwards."
"Bert, see here! You"ve been funny with me lately." (By funny he meant unaccountable.) "And your mother has been hinting things at me--and now here is Haney leaving his business to come down the middle of the week.
What"s the meaning of it?"
"It isn"t the middle of the week. It"s Friday," she corrected him.
He went on: "I know what he keeps coming to see you for, but for G.o.d"s sake don"t you think of marrying an old tout and gambler like him."
"He isn"t old, and he isn"t a gambler any more," she significantly retorted.
"What do you mean?"
"He"s sold out--clean as a whistle."
"Don"t you believe it! It"s a trick to get you to think better of him.
Bert, don"t you dare to go back on me," he cried out, warningly--"don"t you dare!"
The girl suddenly ceased smiling, and a.s.serted herself. "See here, Ed, you"d better not try to boss me. I won"t stand for it. What license have you got to pop in here every few minutes and tell me what"s what? You "tend to your business and you"ll get ahead faster."
He stammered with rage and pain. "If you throw me down--fer that--old tout, I"ll kill you both."
The girl looked at him in silence for a long time, and into her brain came a new, swift, and revealing concept of his essential littleness and weakness. His beauty lost its charm, and a kind of disgust rose in her throat as she slowly said, with cutting scorn:
"If you really meant that!--but you don"t, you"re only talking to hear yourself talk. Now you shut up and run away. This is no place for chewing the rag, anyway--this is my busy day."
For a moment the man"s face expressed the rage of a wild-cat and his hands clinched. "Don"t you do it--that"s all!" he finally snarled.
"You"ll wish you hadn"t."