"You see," she said, addressing him, "I can"t help being angry with Mr. Townsend. I think I"m a little afraid of him. I"m a coward in some ways. You"re different. You just smile kindly at me, as if you were older than Methuselah, and had all the wisdom of Solomon or Socrates, and were inclined to be tolerant when you couldn"t agree."
"Go on," Bill said. "You"re doin" all the talkin"."
"I have a right to exercise at least one womanly prerogative, once in a while," she laughed. And then: "But I am talking more than usual.
Tell me about the mine and the men? How goes it?"
They had but little to tell her, yet she seemed to find it interesting, and her eyes had the absent look of one who listens and sees distant scenes under discussion to the exclusion of all immediate surroundings.
"Have you met Bully Presby yet?" she asked.
They smiled, and told her they had.
"He is a wonderful man," she said admiringly. "He makes his way over everything and everybody. He is ruthless in going after what he wants.
He fears nothing above or below. I honestly believe that if the arch demon were to block him on the trail, Bully Presby would take a chance and try to throw him over a cliff. I don"t suppose he ever had a vice or a human emotion. I believe I"d like him better if he had a little of both."
d.i.c.k laughed outright, and stared at her with renewed interest. He admitted to himself that she was one of the most fascinating women he had ever met, and wondered what vicissitude could have brought such a woman, who used cla.s.sical ill.u.s.trations, fluent, cultivated speech, and who was strong grace exemplified, to such a position. She seemed master of her surroundings, and yet not of them, looking down with a hard and lofty scorn on the very men from whom she made her living. He began to believe what was commonly said of her, that her virtue, physical and ethical, was una.s.sailable.
There was a crash and a loud guffaw of laughter. They pulled the curtains farther apart, and looked across at the man who was celebrating. He had dropped a bottle of wine to the floor below, and was beseeching some one to bring it up to him.
Bill leaned farther out of the box to look, and suddenly the drummer saw him, pointed in his direction with a drumstick, and spoke to a girl leaning near by. She, too, looked up, and then clapped her hands.
"There he is!" she called in her high treble voice. "Up there in number five! The man that carried Pearl out and got burned himself."
Some man near her climbed to the little stage and pointed, took off his hat, and shouted: "A tiger for that man! Now! All together!
Whooee! Whooee! Whooee! Ow!"
In the wild yell that every one joined, Bill was abashed. He shrank back into the box, flushed and embarra.s.sed, while d.i.c.k laughed outright, with boyish enjoyment at his confusion, and The Lily watched him with a soft look in her eyes, and then stared down at the floor below.
Suddenly her figure seemed to stiffen, and the look on her face altered to one of cold anger. She peered farther over as if to a.s.sure herself of something, and d.i.c.k, following her eyes, saw they were fixed on a man who stood leaning against one of the pillars near the entrance to the dance floor. He alone, apparently, was taking no part in the demonstration in Bill"s honor, but glowered sullenly toward the box. It took no long reasoning for d.i.c.k to know why. The man was the one who had been the watchman at the mine when they arrived.
The band struck up again, and another dance began, the enthusiasts forgetting Bill as quickly as they had saluted him; but the ex-watchman continued to lean against the post, a picture of sullenness, and in the box The Lily stood with knitted brows, as if trying to recollect him.
"Well," she said at last, "I must go now. Come and see me whenever you can, both of you. I like you."
They arose and followed her out of the box, and down the flimsy stairs that led to the floor below. She paused on the bottom step, and clutched the casing with both hands, then tried to get a closer look at the ex-watchman, who had turned away until but a small part of his face was exposed. She walked onward, still looking angrily preoccupied, to the end of the bar, and the partners were on the point of bidding her good-night, when she abruptly started, seemed to tense herself, and exclaimed: "Now I know him!"
The partners wondered when she made a swift clutch under the end of the bar and slipped something into the bosom of her jacket. She took five or six determined steps toward the ex-watchman and tapped him on the shoulder.
He whirled sharply as if his mind had guilty fears, and faced her defiantly.
Those immediately around, suspecting something unusual, stopped to watch them, and listened.
"So you are here in Goldpan, are you, Wolff?" she demanded, with a cold sneer in her voice.
He gave her a fierce, defiant stare, and brazenly growled: "You"re off. My name"s not Wolff. My name"s Brown."
"You lie!" she flared back, with a hard anger in her voice. "Your name is Gus Wolff! You get out of this place, and don"t you ever come in again! If you do, I"ll have you thrown out like a dog."
He glowered at the crowd that was forming around him, as crowds invariably form in any controversy, and then started toward the door, but he made a grave mistake. He called back a vile epithet as he went.
"Stop!" she commanded him, with an imperious, compelling tone.
He half-turned, and then shrugged his shoulders, and made as if to move on.
"Stop, I said!"
He turned again to face a pistol which she had s.n.a.t.c.hed from her jacket, and now the partners, amazed, understood what that swift motion had meant. He halted irresolutely.
"You used a name toward me that I permit no man to use," she said fiercely. "So I shall explain to these men of Goldpan who you are, Gus Wolff! You were in b.u.t.te five years ago. You induced a poor, silly little fool named Rose Trevor to leave the dance hall where she worked, and go with you. You were one of those who believe that women are made to be brutalized. But good as most of them are, and bad as some of them are, there is none, living or dead, that you are or were fit to consort with. You murdered her. Don"t you dare to deny it! They found her dead outside of your cabin. They arrested you, and tried you, and should have hanged you, but they couldn"t get the proof of what everybody believed, that you--you brute--had killed, then thrown her over the rocks to claim that she had fallen there in the darkness."
She paused as if the tempest of her words had left her breathless, and men glared at him savagely. It seemed as if every one had crowded forward to hear her denunciation.
"Bah!" she added scornfully. "The jury was made up of fools, and men knew it. The sheriff himself told you so when he slipped you out of the jail where he had protected you, and let you loose across the border in the night. Didn"t he? And he told you that if ever you came back to b.u.t.te, he would not turn a hand to keep you from the clutches of the mob; didn"t he? And now you are plain "Mister Brown," working somewhere back up in the hills, are you? Well, Mr. Brown, you keep away from the High Light. Get out!"
Some one made a restless motion, and declared the man should be hanged, even now, but The Lily turned her angry eyes on the speaker, and silenced him.
"Not if I can help it, or any of my friends can," she said coolly.
"There"ll be no mobbing anybody around here. I"ve said enough. Let him alone, but remember what kind of a blackguard he is. That"s all!"
She turned back and tossed the pistol behind the bar, and the crowd, as if her words and the advice of the more contained element prevailed, resumed its play. She looked up, and saw the partners waiting to bid her good-night, and suddenly bit her lip, as if ashamed that they had seen her fury unmasked.
"We"re going now," Bill said, reaching out his hand. She did not take it, but looked around the room with unreadable eyes.
"I"ll walk with you to the beginning of your trail," she said. "I"m sick of this," and led the way out into the night.
For half the length of the long street, she strode between them, wordless, and then suddenly halted and held her arms apart appealingly.
"What must you think of me?" she said, with a note of grief in her voice. "Oh, you two don"t know it all! You don"t know what it takes to make a woman, who tries to be decent, rebellious at everything under the skies. What brutes there are walking the earth! Sometimes, lately, I begin to doubt if there is a G.o.d!"
"And that," exclaimed the quiet, steadfast young voice at her side, "is unworthy of you and your intelligence."
She halted again, as if thinking.
"And I," said the giant, in his deep, musical tones, "know there"s one. It takes more than men to make me believe there ain"t. I know it when I look at them!" He waved his hands at the starlit mountains surrounding them, and towering in serenity high up to the cloudless s.p.a.ces.
"I"d be mighty ashamed to doubt when I can see them," he said, "and if they went away, I"d still believe it; because if I didn"t, I couldn"t see no use in livin" any more. It"s havin" Him lean down and whisper to you once in a while, in the night, when everything seems to be goin" wrong, "Old boy, you did well," that keeps it all worth while and makes a feller stiffen his back and go ahead, with his conscience clean and not carin" a cuss what anybody says or thinks, so longs as he knows that the Lord knows he did the right thing."
She faltered for a moment, and d.i.c.k, staring through the darkness at her, could not decide whether it was because the woman in her was melting after the storm of anger, or whether she was merely weighing his partner"s words. As abruptly as had been any of her actions in all the time they had known her, she turned and walked away from them, her soft "Good-night" wafting itself back with a note of profound sadness and misery.
"I"ve decided what she is," Bill said, as they paused for a last look at the lights of the camp. "She"s all woman, and a mighty good one, at that!"
CHAPTER VIII
THE INCONSISTENT BULLY