"Lannigan, what did I tell you?"
It was obvious enough that Lannigan knew what she had told him for he immediately jerked his hands off the oilcloth, and hid them under the table.
He answered with a look of innocence:
"Why, I don"t know ma"am."
"Go out and wash them hands!"
Hands, like murder, will out. Concealment was no longer possible, since it was a well-known fact that Lannigan had hands, so he held them in front of him and regarded them in well-feigned surprise.
"I declare I never noticed!"
It was difficult to imagine how such hands could have escaped observation, even by their owner, as they looked as though he had used them for scoops to remove soot from a choked chimney. Also the demarcation lines of various high tides were plainly visible on his wrists and well up his arms. He arose with a wistful look at the platter of ham which had started on its first and perhaps only lap around the table.
Uncle Bill glanced up and commented affably:
"You got ran out, I see. I thought _she"d_ flag them hands when I saw you goin" in with "em."
Lannigan grunted as he splashed at the wash basin in the corner.
"I notice by the Try-bune," went on Uncle Bill with a chuckle, "that one of them English suffragettes throwed flour on the Primeer and--" His mouth opened as a fresh headline caught his eye, and when he had finished perusing it his jaw had lengthened until it was resting well down the bosom of his flannel shirt . . . The headline read:
BRAVE TENDERFOOT SAVES HIS GUIDE FROM DEATH IN BLIZZARD T. VICTOR SPRUDELL CARRIES EXHAUSTED OLD MAN THROUGH DEEP DRIFTS TO SAFETY A MODEST HERO
Uncle Bill removed his spectacles and polished them deliberately. Then he readjusted them and read the last paragraph again:
"The rough old mountain man, Bill Griswold, grasped my hand at parting, and tears of grat.i.tude rolled down his withered cheeks as he said good-bye. But, tut! tut!" declared Mr. Sprudell modestly: "I had done nothing."
Uncle Bill made a sound that was somewhere between his favorite e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and a gurgle, while his face wore an expression which was a droll mixture of amazement and wrath.
"Oh, Lannigan!" he called, then changed his mind and, instead, laid the paper on his knee and carefully cut out the story, which had been copied from an Eastern exchange, and placed it in his worn leather wallet.
IX
THE YELLOW-LEG
While seated in the office of the Hinds House, with his eyes rolled to the ceiling, listening in well-feigned rapture to "Rippling Waves" on the cabinet organ, and other numbers rendered singly and ensemble by the Musical Snows, Mr. Dill in reality was wondering by what miracle he was going to carry out Sprudell"s specific instructions to keep his errand a secret.
"The great, white light which plays upon a throne" is not more searching than that which follows the movements of a possible Live One in a moribund mining camp, and, in spite of his puttees, Ore City hoped against hope that some benefit might be derived from the stranger"s presence.
Dill"s orders were to get upon the ground which had been worked in a primitive way by a fellow named Bruce Burt--now deceased he was told--and relocate it in Sprudell"s name together with seven other contiguous claims, using the name of dummy locators which would give Sprudell control of one hundred and sixty acres by doing the a.s.sessment work upon one. Also Dill was instructed to run preliminary survey lines if possible and lose no time in submitting estimates upon the most feasible means of washing the ground.
Seated in his comfortable office in Spokane, Mr. Dill had foreseen no great difficulties in the way of earning his ample fee, but it seemed less ample after one hundred miles by stage over three summits, and a better understanding of conditions. Between the stage-driver"s sweeping denunciations of road-supervisors in general and long and picturesque castigations of the local road supervisor in particular, Mr. Dill had adroitly extracted the information that the twenty-mile trail to the river was the worst known, and snow-line blazes left by "Porcupine Jim"
were, in summer, thirty feet in the air.
Mr. Dill learned enough en route to satisfy himself that he was going to earn every dollar of his money, and when he reached Ore City he was sure of it. The problem before him was one to sleep on, or rather, thinking with forebodings of the clammy sheets upstairs, to lie awake on.
However, something would perhaps suggest itself and Mr. Dill was resourceful as well as unhampered by any restrictions regarding the truth.
The Snow family were at their best that evening, and Ma Snow"s rendition of "The Gypsy"s Warning" was received with such favor that she was forced to sing the six verses twice and for a third encore the entire family responded with "The Washington Post March" which enabled Mr.
Snow, who had tottered down from his aerie, to again demonstrate his versatility by playing the concertina with long, yellow fingers, beating the cymbals and working the snare-drum with his feet.
Ma Snow wore her coral-rose breast-pin, and a tortoise-sh.e.l.l comb thrust through her k.n.o.b of ginger-colored hair added to her dignity and height; while Miss Vi and Miss Rosie Snow were b.u.t.toned into their stylish princess gowns, with large red bows sprouting back of each ear. In truth, the dress of each member of the family bore some little touch which hinted delicately at the fact that with them it had not been always thus.
All Ore City was present. Those who "bached" had stacked their dishes and hurried from the supper-table to the Hinds House, where the regular boarders were already tilted on the rear legs of their chairs with their heads resting comfortably on the particular oily spot on the unbleached muslin sheeting, which each recognized as having been made by weeks of contact with his own back hair.
A little apart and preoccupied sat Uncle Bill with the clipping in his wallet burning like a red-hot coal. He could have swallowed being "carried down the mountain side," but the paragraph wherein "tears of grat.i.tude rained down his withered cheeks" stuck, as he phrased it, in his craw. It set him thinking hard of Bruce Burt and the young fellow"s deliberate sacrifice of his life for one old "c.h.i.n.k." Somehow he could not rid himself of blame that he had let him go alone. As soon as he could get back to Ore City he had headed a search party that had failed to locate even the tent under the unusual fall of snow. Well, if Burt had taken a life, even accidentally, he had in expiation given his own.
As he brooded, occasionally the old man glanced at Wilbur Dill. He had seen him before--but where? The sharp-faced, sharp-eyed Yellow-Leg was a.s.sociated in the older man"s mind with something shady, but what it was he could not for the time recall.
"Rosie, perhaps Mr. Dill would like to hear "When the Robins Nest Again,"" Ma Snow suggested in the sweet, ingratiating tones of a mother with two unattached daughters.
Mr. Dill declared that it was one of his favorite compositions, so Miss Rosie obligingly stood forth with the dog-eared music.
"When the Robins Nest Again, and the flower-r-rs--" she was warbling, but they never bloomed, for Mrs. Snow started for the door, explaining: "I"m sure I heard a scrunching." She threw it open and the yellow light fell upon a gaunt figure leaning against the entrance of the snow tunnel. The man was covered with frost and icicles where his breath had frozen on his cap and upturned collar, while it was obvious from his snow-caked knees and elbows that he had fallen often. He stood staring dumbly at the light and warmth and at Ma Snow, then he stooped and began fumbling clumsily at the strappings of his snow-shoes.
"Won"t you-all come in?" Ma Snow, recovering a little from her surprise, asked hospitably.
He pitched forward and would again have gone down but that he threw out his hand and caught the door-jamb.
"Bruce Burt! h.e.l.l"s catoots! Bruce Burt!" Uncle Bill was on his knees outside in an instant, jerking and tugging at the snow-clogged buckles.
Chairs came down on their forelegs with a thump and Ore City shambled forward in curiosity and awkward congratulation. Mr. Dill did not move.
He was gazing at the scene in mingled resentment and consternation. Was this the Bruce Burt whose claims he was sent to survey? It was plain enough that Bruce Burt "now deceased" was very much alive, and he, Dill, had crossed three summits on a wild goose chase, since it was obvious he could not relocate a man"s ground while he was actually living upon it.
Why didn"t Sprudell find out that he was deceased before he sent a busy engineer on such a trip in winter? Mr. Dill sat frowning at Bruce, while willing hands helped him out of the coat his fingers were too stiff to unb.u.t.ton.
"I"ve been coming since daylight." He spoke thickly, as though even his tongue were cold. "I played out on the last big hill and sat so long I chilled."
"And I guess you"re hungry," Uncle Bill suggested.
Hungry! The word stabbed Ma Snow to the heart and her heels went clickity-click as she flew for the kitchen.
Divested of his coat Bruce looked a big, starved skeleton. The cords of his neck were visible when he turned his head, his cheeks were hollow, his wrist-bones were prominent like those of a fever convalescent.
"You"re some ga"nted up," Uncle Bill commented as he eyed him critically. "Don"t hardly look as though you"d winter."
The shadow of a smile crossed Bruce"s dark face.
"Toy and I proved just about the length of time a man can go without eating, and live."
"You made it then? You got to Toy--he"s all right?"
"Yes," briefly, "but none too soon. The snow had broken the tent down, so we made it over the ridge to an old tunnel . . . I killed a porcupine but we ran out of matches and there was no dry wood or sticks to make a fire."
"I et raw wolf onct in Alasky," Yankee Sam interjected reminiscently.