"I wouldn"t count on Searle," drawled Van significantly. "He may have to walk."
"Not across the awful desert?"
"If he goes around he"ll be longer."
"Why--but----" she gasped, "there is nothing to eat--no water--there isn"t anything on the desert, is there?--anywhere?"
He was looking intently into the deep brown depths of her eyes as he answered:
"There"s so little to eat that the chipmunks have to fetch in their lunches."
Beth continued to gaze upon him. If she noted the lights of laughter lying soberly subdued in his eyes, she also discerned something more, that affected her oddly. Despite the horseman"s treatment of her escort--a treatment she confessed he had partially deserved--and despite the lightness of his speeches, she felt certain of the depth of his nature, convinced of the genuine earnestness of his purposes--the honesty and worth of his friendship.
She knew she was tremendously indebted for all he had done and was doing, but aside from all that, in her heart of hearts she admired bravery, courage, and a dash of boldness more than anything else in the world.
She was not yet certain, however, whether the man at her side was brave or merely reckless, courageous, or indifferent to danger, bold or merely audacious. She knew nothing about him whatsoever, nothing except he must be tired, lame, and bruised from exertions undertaken in her behalf. It had been a long, long day. She felt as if they had known each other always--and had always been friends.
Her mind went back to the morning as if to an era of the past. The thought of the convicts who had captured Bostwick aroused new apprehensions in her breast, though not for the man with the car.
Someway Searle seemed strangely far away and dimmed in her regard. She was thinking of what she had overheard, back there at the Monte Cristo mine.
"This has been a trying day," she said, apparently ignoring Van"s last observation. "You have taken a great deal of trouble for--for us--and we appreciate it fully."
Van said gravely: "Taking trouble is the only fun I have."
"You laugh at everything," she answered, "but isn"t it really a serious thing--a menace to everyone--having those convicts out of prison?"
"It isn"t going to be a knitting-bee, rounding them up," Van admitted.
"And meantime they"re going to be exacting of everyone they meet."
She looked at him half seriously, but altogether brightly.
"And what if they chance to meet you?"
"Oh, we"d exchange courtesies, I reckon."
She had no intention of confessing how much she had overheard, but she was tremendously interested--almost fearful for the man"s safety, she hardly dared ask herself why. She approached her subject artfully.
"Do you know them, then?"
"Well, yes, the leader--slightly," he answered. "I sent him up for murder, stealing cattle, and robbing sluices. He was too annoying to have around."
"Oh! Then won"t he feel ugly, resentful?" she inquired earnestly.
"Won"t he try to hunt you up--and pay you back?"
Van regarded her calmly.
"He told me to expect my pay--if ever he escaped--and he"s doubtless got his check-book along."
"His check-book?"
"Colt--forty-four," Van drawled by way of explanation.
She turned a trifle pale.
"He"d shoot you on sight?"
"If he sighted me first."
Her breath came hard. She realized that the quiet-seeming horseman at her side would kill a fellow-being--this convict, at least--as readily as he might destroy a snake.
"How long ago did you put him in jail?" she inquired.
"Four years ago this summer."
"Have you always lived here--out West?"
"I"ve lived every day I"ve been here," he answered evasively. "Do I look like a native?"
She laughed. "Oh, I don"t know. We came here straight from New York, a week ago, Elsa and I. Mr. Bostwick joined us two days later. I really know nothing of the country at all."
"New York," he said, and relapsed into silent meditation. How far away seemed old New Amsterdam! How long seemed the brief six years since he had started forth with his youthful health, his strength, determination, boyish dreams, and small inheritance to build up a fortune in the West!
What a mixture of sunshine and failure it had been! What glittering hopes had lured him hither and yon in the mountains, where each great gateway of adventure had charged its heavy toll!
He had lost practically all of his money; he had gained his all of manhood. He had suffered privation and hardship; he had known the vast comfort of friends--true friends, as certain as the very heart in his breast to serve him to the end.
Like a panoramic dream he beheld a swift procession of mine-and-cattle scenes troop past for swift review. He lived again whole months of nights spent out alone beneath the sky, with the snow and the wind hurled down upon him from a merciless firmament of bleakness. Once more he stumbled blindly forward in the desert--he and Gettysburg--perishing for water, giving up their liquid souls to the horribly naked and insatiate sun. Again he toiled in the shaft of a mine till his back felt like a crackly thing of gla.s.s with each aching fissure going deeper.
Once more the gold G.o.ddess beckoned with her smile, and fortune was there, almost in reach--the fortune that he and his partners had sought so doggedly, so patiently--the fortune for which they had starved and delved and suffered--only to see it vanish in the air as the sunshine will vanish from a peak.
Old hopes, like ghosts, went skulking by, vain charlatans, ashamed. But friendships stood about in every scene--bright presences that cast a roseate glow on all the tribulations of his life. And it seemed as if a failure here was half a failure only, after all. It had not robbed him either of his youth, his strength, or a certain boyish credulity and trust in all his kind. He still believed he should win his golden goal, and he loved the land that had tried him.
His last, his biggest venture, the Monte Cristo mine was, however, gone--everything sold to meet the company debts. Nevertheless, he had once more purchased a claim, with all but his very last dollar in the world, and he and his partners would soon be on the ground, a.s.saulting the stubborn adamant with powder, pick, and drill, in the fever of the miner"s ceaseless dream.
To-day, as he rode beside the girl, he wondered at it all--why he had labored so persistently. The faint, far-off shadow of a sweetheart, long since left behind, failed to supply him a motive. She had grown impatient, listened to a suitor more tangible than Van"s absent self, and so, blamelessly, had faded from his scheme of hopes, leaving no more than a fragrance in his thoughts, with certainly no bitterness or anger.
"Old New York," he repeated, at the end of his reverie, and meeting once more the steady brown eyes of the girl with whom the fates had thrown him, he fetched up promptly with the present.
"How long has your brother been out here in Goldite?"
"About a month," she answered. "He"s been in the West for nearly a year, and wrote Mr. Bostwick to come."
"Mr. Bostwick is doubtless a very particular friend of your family."
"Why, yes, he"s my---- That is, he _was_--he always has been a very particular friend--for several years," she faltered suddenly turning red.
"We haven"t any family, Glen and I--and he"s my half brother only--but we"re just like chums---and that was why I wanted to come. I expect to surprise him. He doesn"t know I"m here."
Van was silent and she presently added:
"I hope you and Glen will be friends. I know how much he"ll wish to thank you."