_ CHAPTER XXXI. NIGHT
Evening, placidly content with the warm silence, departed lingeringly. Belated insects still buzzed in the wayside foliage. A bee, overtaken in his busy pilfering by the obliterating dusk, hung on a nodding mountain flower, unfearful above the canon's emptiness. An occasional bird ventured a boldly questioning note that lingered unfinished in the silence of indecision. Across the road hopped a young rabbit, a little rounded shadow that melted into the blur of the sage. A cold white fire, spreading behind the purple-edged ranges, enriched their somber panoply with illusive enchantments, ever changing as the dim effulgence drifted from peak to peak. Shadows grew luminous and were gone. In their stead wooded valleys and wide canons unfolded to the magic of the moon. There was no world but night and imagination.
With many rustlings the quail huddled in the live-oaks, complaining querulously until the darkness silenced them.
The warm, acrid fragrance of the hills was drawn intermittently across the cooler level of the shadowy road. A little owl, softly reiterating his cadences of rue, made loneliness as a thing tangible, a thing groping in the dusk with velvet hands.
Then came that hush of rest, that pause of preparation, as though night hesitated to awaken her countless myrmidons. With the lisping of invisible leaves the Great Master's music-book unfolded. That low, orchestral "F"--the dominant note of all nature's melodies--sounded in timorous unison--an experimental murmuring. Repeated in higher octaves, it swelled to shrill confidence, then a hundred, then myriad invisibles chanted to their beloved night or gossiped of the mystery of stars.
Then Night crept from the deep, cool canons to the starlit peaks and knelt with her sister hill-folk, Silence and Solitude; knelt, listening with bowed head to that ancient antiphony of thankfulness and praise; then rose and faced the western sea.
Boyar, the black pony, shook his head with a silvery jingling of rein-chains. His sleek flanks glistened in the moonlight. Louise curbed him gently with hand and voice as he stepped through the wide gateway of the ranch.
He paced lightly across the first shallow ford. Then the narrowing walls of the canon echoed his clean-cut steps--a patter of phantom hoof-beats following him, stride for stride. Down the long, ever-winding road they swung.
Louise, impelled to dreams by the languorous warm night and Boyar's easy stride up the steep, touched his neck with the rein and turned him into the Old Meadow Trail.
The tall, slender stems of the yucca and infrequent clumps of dwarfed cacti cast clear-edged shadows on the bare, moonlit ground. Boyar, sniffing, suddenly swung up and pivoted, his fore feet hanging over sheer black emptiness. Louise leaned forward, reining him round. Even before his fore feet touched the trail again, she heard the sibilant
bur-r-ing of the cold, uncoiling thing as it slid down the blind shadows of the hillside.
"I shan't believe in omens," she murmured.
She reassured the trembling Boyar, who fretted sideways and snorted as he passed the spot where the snake had been coiled in the trail.
At the edge of the Old Meadow the girl dismounted, allowing Boyar to graze at will.
She climbed to the low rounded rock, her erstwhile throne of dreams, where she sat with knees gathered to her in her clasped hands. The pony paused in his grazing to lift his head and look at her with gently wondering eyes.
The utter solitude of the place, far above the viewless valley, allowed her thought a horizon impossible at the Moonstone Rancho. Alone she faced the grave question of making an unalterable choice. Collie had asked her to marry him. She had evaded direct reply to his direct question. She knew of no good reason why she should marry him. She knew of no better reason why she should not. She thought she was content with being loved. She was, for the moment.
The Old Meadow, that had once before revealed a sprightly and ragged romance, slumbered in the southern night; slumbered to awaken to the hushed tread of men and strange whisperings.
Down in the valley the coyotes called dismally, with that infinite shrill sadness of wild things that hunger, and in their wailing pulsed the eternal and unanswerable "Why?" challenging the peaceful stars. Something in their questioning cry impelled Louise to lift her hands to the night. "What is it? What is it up there--behind everything--that never, never answers?"
The moon was lost somewhere behind the ragged peaks. The night grew deeper. The Old Meadow, shadowed by the range above it, grew dark, impenetrable, a place without boundary or breadth or depth.
"Got a match, kid?"
Louise raised her head. Some one was afoot on the Old Meadow Trail. She could hear the whisper of dried grasses against the boots of the men as another voice replied, "Sure! Here you are." And Louise knew that Collie was one of the men.
About to call, she hesitated, strangely curious as to who the other man might be, and why Collie and he should foregather in the Old Meadow, at night.
"Never mind," mumbled the first speaker; "I thought I wanted to smoke, but I don't. I want to talk first--about the Rose Girl."
Louise tried to call out, but she was interrupted by Overland's voice. The two men had stopped at the lower side of the great rock. She could hear them plainly, although she could not see them.
"Collie--we're busted. We're done, Chico. I ain't said nothin' to Billy yet. He's got money, anyway. This here only hits you and me."
"What do you mean, Red?"
"I mean that the Rose Girl Mining Company, Incorporated, Jack Summers, President and General Manager, don't belong to us and never did. We been sellin' stock that ain't ours and never was."
"How's that?"
"I was goin' to write. But I ain't no hand to write about business. Writin' po'try is bad enough. You recollec' them papers and that dust Billy tried to find, out there by the track?"
"Yes."
"Well, I found it all. Since the company is workin' the claim now and I didn't have so much to do, I got to thinkin' of them papers. I went out there, paced her off down the track, guessed at about where it was, and found 'em."
"Found them?"
"Yes, sir. There was that little bag almost atop of the sand, account of wind and rain. Then there was a record of the claim, our claim. It's been filed on before. We made a mistake and filed on the wrong section. When me and Billy went to file, I noticed the clerk said something about havin' neighbors on the claim next, but I was scared of answerin' too many questions, so I give him some cigars and beat it."
"Who owns our claim, then?"
"That's the queer part of it. You know the guy we give the water to--the one that died out there.
He owns the claim, or he did. It belongs by rights to his girl now. His name was Andre Lacharme."
"Lacharme!"
"Yes, Louise's pa. Recollect your boss tellin' us as how the Rose Girl's daddy was missin' out in the Mojave? Then they was a letter--old and 'most wore out--from Walter Stone himself. It was to him--her pa--tellin' him about the little Louise baby and askin' him to come to the Moonstone and take a job and quit prospectin'. That's where we stand."
Louise, breathless, listened and could not believe that she was real, that this was not a dream. Andre Lacharme! Her father!
"I seen a lawyer about it," resumed Overland. "He said it was plain enough that the claim belonged to the dead prospector or his girl, now. You see, we worked the claim and kep' up the work accordin' to law. What we made ain't ours, but I'm mighty glad it's hers. 'Course, we earned what dust we dug, all right. Now I'm leavin' it up to you. Do we tell her or do we say nothin', and go on gettin' rich?"
"Why do you put it up to me?" asked Collie.
"Because, kid, you got the most to lose. Your chance is about gone with the Rose Girl if you let go the gold. Sabe? The little Rose Girl is wise. She don't give two cents for money--but she ain't foolish enough to marry a puncher that's workin' for wages on her uncle's ranch. And when she gets all me and Billy made and your share, she'll be rich. That won't be no time for you to go courtin'
her. It ain't that you ain't good enough for any girl. But now'days things is different. You got to have money."
"Do you think Louise would take the money?" asked Collie.
"I don't know. But that ain't it. We either give it up--or we don't. What do you say?"
"Why--to tell Louise, of course. I meant that right along. You ought to know that."
"You givin' it up because you had some fuss with her, or anything like that?"
"No, Red. I say tell her, because it's square. Did she stop to ask questions when I was in trouble? No. She went to work to help me, quick. I guess we care more for her than a whole carload of gold."
"Well, I guess. Once I wouldn't 'a' stopped to worry about whose gold it was. But knowin' the Rose Girl,--knowin' what she
is,--why, it's makin' me soft in me morals."
"What do we do now, Red?"
"I'm goin' to beat it. Back to the dusty for mine."
"You don't have to do that, Red."
"That's just why I'm a-doin' it. I like to do what I like."
"Quitting now seems like saying, 'I'm whipped,'" said Collie. "Quitting after giving up our money to her looks like we were sore--even if we do it and smile. She would feel bad, Red. She'd think she drove us off."
"No, I reckon not. She'll see that I always been a good daddy to you and put you right in this case. It was all right when you had a chance. It ain't now. It ain't fair to her, neither, because she's like to stick to any promises she might 'a' made you."
"Why don't you ask Stone for a job?" said Collie.
"What? Me? After bein' President of the Rose Girl Mining Company, in--Say! They's no halfway house for me. It's all or nothin'. Why, I don't even own the Guzzuh. Could you stand it to see her every day, and you just a puncher workin' for the Moonstone. She would smile and treat you
fine, and you'd be eatin' your own heart out for her."
"No, I couldn't," said Collie slowly. "Red, I guess you're right."
Collie's perspective was distorted through sudden disappointment. The old life of the road ... the vague to-morrows of indolence ... the sprightly companionship of Overland Red, inventive, eloquent....
"Red, if I come with you, it's because I can't stand seeing her--after everything that has happened. It is square to her, too, I guess."
"I ain't askin' you, Collie, but there's nothin' like ramblin' to make you forget. It's got hard work beat to a mush, because when you're ramblin' you're 'most always hungry. Listen! Love is when you ain't satisfied. So is a empty stomach. A fella's got to eat. Do you get that?"
"Yes. But, Red, you said you loved a woman once. You didn't forget."
"No, kid. I didn't. Once I didn't do nothin' else but remember. I got over that. It's only accidental to circumstances pertainin' to the fact that I remember now. You never seen
me cry in my soup, did you?"
"But you're different."
"That's the blat every yearlin' makes till he grows up and finds out he's a cow jest like his ma. I ain't different inside. And bleedin' inside is dangerouser than bleedin' outside. Listen! Remember the little fire beside the track, when we was 'way up in the big hills? Remember the curve, like a snake unwindin' where she run round the hill, and nothin' beyond but space and the sun drippin' red in the ocean? Remember the chicken we swiped and et that night? And then the smokes and lookin' up at the stars? Remember that? Listen!
"It's beat it, bo, while your feet are mates,
And we'll see the whole United States.
With a smoke and a pal and a fire at night,
And up again in the mornin' bright,
With nothin' but road and sky in sight
And nothin' to do but go.
"Then, beat it, bo, while the walkin' 's good;
And the birds on the wires is sawin' wood.
If to-day ain't the finest for you and me,
There's always to-morrow, that's goin' to be.
And the day after that is a-comin'. See!
And nothin' to do but go.
"I'm the ramblin' son with the nervous feet,
That never was made for a steady beat.
I had many a job for a little spell;
I been on the bum, and I've hit it swell.
But there's only one road to Fare-ye-well,
And nothin' to do but go."
"With nothing to do but go," whispered Collie. "Red, we've always been friends?"
"You bet your return ticket!"
"And we are always going to be," said Collie. "I guess that settles it. I--I wish Saunders--had--finished me."
Louise, numb from sitting still so long, moved slightly.
"What's that?" exclaimed Collie.
"Jest some of your little old ideas changin' cars," replied Overland. "You'll get used to it."
"No; I heard something."
"You'll be seein' things next. Got a match? I'm jest dyin' for a smoke. Remember when she give us the makin's and you got hot at me?"
Overland cupped the flame in his hands and lighted his cigarette. The soft glow of the match spread in the windless air, penetrating the darkness. For an instant, a breath, Overland saw a startled face gazing down at him; the white face of the Rose Girl!
"Great Snakes!" he cried, stepping back as the flame expired.
"What's the matter, Red?"
"Nothin'. I was just thinkin'. I burned my mitt. Come on, Collie. Brand'll find a bunk for me to-night, I reckon. We'll tell the boss and the Rose Girl all about it to-morrow." _