steering sat on his bunk in his shack with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, and his eyes upon an empty bag that hung from the bough of a weeping-willow tree. he had just written carington to explain that it could not be said that he had conquered missouri, and that he was leaving next day for colorado to try his luck at gold on the cripple creek circuit. he had not explained to carington that he would walk the greater part of the way. by some strange perversity of pride a man never does explain a thing of that kind to anybody, least of all to carington, best friend and close sympathiser.
arrangements for his journey were about complete. before he had left new york he had turned everything into ready cash that could be so turned, so that even when he first reached missouri his personal effects had not made travel a burden to him. during the past weeks all the balance of his belongings that possessed any negotiability whatsoever had been turned into meal. and his meal sack was empty! by no sort of foreknowledge can a man accustomed to enough money for current expenses,--a goodly budget as recognised by the class of which steering was an exemplar,--imagine, during his easy circumstances, how he would feel if ever things should so go against him that he would be left staring into an empty meal sack. steering felt an awkward incompetence to realise the case now. he had looked at the sack at close range, patted it, as though to mollify its consequences to him, pooh-poohed it, taken it philosophically, taken it smilingly, but he had been all the time unable to get his eyes off it, even though he had finally carried it down to the river's edge and hung it upon the bough of the weeping willow tree. his eyes were still upon it, he was still regarding it at long range, through the shack door, getting the foreshorten of it, getting the middle distance, getting the perspective, utterly unable to stop his ceaseless staring into the emptiness of it, stop wondering what next and how next.
he got up and went to the door of the shack and looked out. by and by it occurred to him that the case would be much worse if there were anyone besides himself concerned. all the vague fleeting sympathies that had ever been aroused within him by newspaper stories of starving families, the nearest he had ever come to the actuality of starving families, quivered and stirred within him. the first thing he knew, he was feeling infinitely relieved that he had no starving family. he had a sensitive and active imagination, and, as he pictured the hungry little children that he did not have, tears of gratitude came into his eyes, and he blew gay kisses to those airy little folks.
it was glorious weather. wild spring flowers were abundant, and there were cheerful whiskings among the trees where the birds and squirrels were busy again. the young shoots strained with the urge of the sap, making little popping noises. steering started now and again and held his head waitingly. he had been watching and hoping for piney for days, and was on the alert. every noise, however, resolved itself into the noise of bird, squirrel, or sapling. there was never the voice nor the footfall of the human. once that very afternoon, he had been so sure that he had heard piney's pony up on the bluff that he had gone up there searchingly, joyfully. but except for a little scatter, that he took to be the lift of a covey of quail somewhere off in the gulch bushes, not a sound or sign came up to the bluff. steering mourned for piney. if the tramp-boy had not gone away, things might have been more bearable. but the lad's jealousy and his love for steering were in battle royal now, and piney kept far from his hero, on the misty hills. uncle bernique was off on the hills, too, almost all the time; at the moment of this present crisis bernique had been away for days. it was the merciless loneliness of the effort there at redbud that had been most effective in dulling steering's endurance. if he had been less lonely he might have devised ways of standing missouri yet longer. up at dade farm they kept telling him, when he went up there for one of his visits to the little girl with the cherries on her hat, that he had "malary." it did not seem to him a very able diagnosis, but, as he had admitted to miss madeira, something was the matter with him, and it had now become his notion that the quicker he got out of missouri the quicker he would be cured of the something. he was all ready to commence his treatment; he had corn-dodgers for supper that night, and for breakfast next morning, and with the morning sun he meant to travel on. the only reason that he did not start now, this minute, was because--well, she had come up the river road about this hour once, and he was waiting. circumstanced as he was now, with the only three people whom he could count as friends in missouri almost always away from him, life had come to mean little but this feverish, alert waiting. he went out and sat down by the shivering di for his very last wait for any of the three.
it was there that old bernique came upon him. steering was shivering a little, too.
"dieu! you have the malaria!" was the frenchman's greeting.
"go 'long, i have no such thing; i'm only as lonely as the devil." steering got up and shook hands with the old man with so much energy that bernique made a grimace of pain. "come up here and talk," cried steering, his eagerness to hear the sound of a human and friendly voice making him overlook the excitement under which bernique laboured. he tied bernique's horse to a bush and drew the old man up the bluff. "where have you been this time? where is piney? hello! what's the matter with you anyhow? struck another lode?"
old bernique spread out his palms avertingly. "you go fas'," he protested. "wait, i beg. i have again had those exper-r-ience that so much disturb me. but no, i have not found anothaire lode, though i have been on the hills vair' long time. thees day i come a-r-round by the way of canaan. at the pos'-office i am stop'." the old man was talking now with his eyes burning into steering's eyes, an expression of horror flattening his face; he held the four fingers of one lean hand pressed to his mouth, so that his words came out inarticulate and broken, though they seemed to scorch his throat like balls of fire. "at the pos'-office one say to me, 'here is lettaire for you!' i take the lettaire and read.... now, i ask you, mistaire steering, to take it and read." bernique drew forth a letter from his pocket and thrust it into steering's hand with a finely dramatic gesture. he had the appreciation of his race for climax.
the letter, steering saw at once, was in the same gnarled handwriting as that letter which crittenton madeira had given him to read on the first day of his arrival in canaan, and its contents made evident the same gnarled personality that had been made evident by that first letter.
"read it aloud," said bernique, and steering read:
"'deep canyon, colorado, september 23rd, 1899,' hey! what's the matter with the date, where's the slow-boy been?"
"read on, mistaire steering," said bernique grimly. but steering looked at the post-mark on the envelope in his hand before he read on.
"post-mark's dated april 23rd, 1900--why----"
"read on!" cried old bernique. "it is explain'," and steering read on.
"'my dear placide:--you and i were good friends in the days that we spent in prospecting over the canaan hills, and, even though i incurred your displeasure when i abandoned the hills, i am depending upon the old friendship to influence you to do a last friendly act for me. it is not necessary for me to acquaint you with the detail of humiliations and persecutions to which i have been subjected by the man of whom i was once so foolish as to borrow money, any more than it is necessary for me to condone to you the desire that has developed within me to make him bite the dust, even as he has made me bite it. i am not remorseless in this. i gave him his chance to escape me, but, quite as i anticipated, he has fallen into the trap that i set for him; else would you not be reading this letter to-day, nearly a year after it was written.
"'look close now, friend placide. nearly a year prior to the date that you will get this, that is to say on the 23rd of last september, the same day that i write this letter to you, i wrote crittenton madeira that i should be dead when my letter reached him, dead under an assumed name, in a strange land. it was the god's truth. i was dead when the letter reached him. you are reading a letter from the dead now, friend placide.'" steering stopped for a moment with a little shiver, but bernique urged him on, and he read again--"'placide, in that letter to madeira were my instructions to turn over the canaan tigmores to bruce steering, because, i being dead, the hills were due to pass on to my heir. well, placide, has madeira done that? has he carried out my instructions? has he fulfilled his trust? has steering possession of the canaan tigmores?
"'like the thief that he is, madeira has not done his part. had he done it, you would not be reading this letter to-day. i wrote it and placed it with the clerk of snow mountain county, the county in which i died, to be mailed to you on the 23rd of april, 1900, only in case no inquiry had ever come from madeira to verify my death. no inquiry has ever come! so the clerk of the county, who is my executor, mails this letter to you. this letter, placide, is to attest that for seven months crittenton madeira has been in unlawful possession of the canaan tigmores, defrauding my heir and holding land under my name after being advised of my death and of the means of verifying the advice. there are now, in the keeping of the clerk of snow mountain county, two sealed envelopes, to be delivered by him, the one to you, the one to crittenton madeira. madeira's has never been called for. see that yours is. in it you will find the credentials of my identity, my sworn statements, and the documents that prove my late encumbency of the entail. i am buried in the pauper's field in the cemetery of deep canyon. the stone slab that i have directed to be put over me bears the inscription, "james gray, died september 23, 1899."
"'get your proofs together, placide, and carry them to the defrauded heir. i have not forgotten the letters that i received from him, nor his young eagerness to get at the land that is now his and that should have been his nearly a year ago. put the proofs before him. and i pray that he may be quick and sure to deal out judgment and retribution. he is my kinsman. let him for me, as well as for himself, wield the lash that i put in his hands.
"'do these things for me, friend placide, and believe that even in the grave, i remain,
"'very gratefully yours,
"'bruce grierson.'"
the letter fell from steering's hand and fluttered to the ground, while he sat with his hands hanging limply from his knees for a moment. "grierson is dead! grierson is dead!" he repeated. the funereal words rang through his ears like a grand praise-god. he knew that he ought to be sorry and that he was inexpressibly glad, not because the grim old man was dead--dead, with his malevolence reaching out toward madeira, spinning and twisting like a great cobweb snare from the grave--but because of what must now happen, because vistas of wonderful beauty were opening up through the long shadows of the tigmores, because if the end had come to the house of grierson, beginning had come to the house of steering. life, big, splendid, stretched out before him. old bernique had risen and was pacing the banks of the di nervously. steering, too, got to his feet. going down to bernique, he took the old man's hands in his. neither heard a little rustle up the bluff in the leafy bushes.
"oh, uncle bernique!" said steering, and stopped because of the wild sound of his own voice. he saw that it would be dangerous for him to try to talk with his mind in that high tremulous whirl. the old man clung to him, silent, too, for a teeming moment.
"now god above, why not crit madeira tell you that tr-r-ue way of things?" shouted bernique at last fiercely. "why not?"
the two men looked into each other's eyes, steering bearing up the old man, who clutched him feverishly. when the frenchman began to talk again his teeth were chattering. "why not? hein? because he t'ief. but god above! we got those proof! dead for mont's. and madeira know it! the teegmores are yours for mont's, mistaire steering! and madeira know it! we put that fine man where he belong. we jail him! he t'ief! we r-r-uin him, as he would r-r-uin you!"
"ruin him!" bruce said the words over measuredly. "we can do it easily. everything he has has gone into the company that is getting its chief encouragement out of the tigmores. it will be easy to ruin him."
"yes, god above, it will be easy! we r-r-ruin him. we do that thing quick and glad." bernique slid his lean hands up steering's arms and held to him.
"wait! wait!" the frenchman's convulsive anger received a sudden check by the sound of steering's voice. he clung more tightly to steering's arms as he looked into steering's face, then shrank back helplessly.
"my god!" said the old man, "i forgot!"
"yes," answered steering, no hesitation in his voice. "yes, you forgot her. we must not do that, you know."
after a while they sat down and talked it over at length from beginning to end, and then back again, from end to beginning. up in the tigmores crit madeira's drills beat and bore at the heart of the earth, deeper, deeper; by the redbud shack, the two men, on the ground, bore into madeira's trickery, deeper, deeper. by the light of that torch from the rockies, they followed the twisting trail all the way from inception to finish. the tortuous, underhand curve of it now and then looked like the self-deceptive work of lunatic cunning. as they talked about it, they talked too earnestly for the little whisking movements in the growth up the bluff to reach their ears.
"at least," cried old bernique at last, "at least the teegmores are yours! at last! at last!"
at last! at last! steering's eyes were travelling the long tumbling tigmore line. "if they are," he said in that musing way he had developed within the last quarter of an hour, "if i take the tigmores now, uncle bernique, i'll pull madeira's house about him. that company of his is not so secure that it could stand a blow at its head. if i take the tigmores,--uncle bernique, listen a minute," he was pleading, "she has been used to much all her life. i can't take her father's fortune away from him. don't you see that? i can't do anything. you understand?" he was commanding. bernique jumped to his feet.
"god above, you mean----" the thought snapped in the old man's brain, the words stuck in his throat.
"i mean that we must leave things as they are. i can't ruin her father. that's all i mean!"
bernique doubled up both fists. "i'll see him damn' before he shall keep those teegmores! i can r-ruin him!" but bruce caught the old man's arm in a grip that hurt. when bernique spoke again it was to say breathlessly, "you take the teegmores, mistaire steering, and protect madeira's fortune. you can do that easy."
"i know. it looks easy. but think back a little. madeira is sure to fight. grierson's death occurred months ago under an assumed name. to prove that he died we must prove when he died, where he died and who he was. to prove all that is to let the light in upon dark places. i hardly see how the light can be let in, uncle bernique, without cutting madeira out sharp and keen as a rascal. madeira would never allow,--at this juncture, he couldn't allow us to establish my claim to the tigmores on my word and yours. he has done unwise, crazy things already. he would fight us. i know it, you know it. we could win. but where would our victory leave him, uncle bernique? ah, you see?"
the old man was shaking from head to foot. he clung close to steering. "oh, my god!" he moaned, "i will not let this thing be."
"yes, you will let it be! it is my affair even more than it is yours. you will do as i say about it, uncle bernique. here and now, you shall swear this oath with me: i by my love for sally madeira, you by your love for piney's young mother, that never, so help us god, shall one or the other of us carry word of these matters to anyone, least of all to crittenton madeira or his daughter salome!"
the old man's breath came gustily, his cheeks flamed, the hectic burned like fire in his shrivelled cheeks. he loosed his clinging hold and tried to shake bruce off.
"swear," bruce decreed again, his powerful grip on the old man, his eyes half shut, "i by my love for sally madeira, you by your love for piney's young mother! swear!" he held up his own right hand, and bernique said brokenly:
"god above, i swear!" the old man was crying. neither heard the swish in the bluff growth, neither saw the brave light in the two eyes that peered through the bushes.
"why now, everything is all right," cried bruce. "are you going on into canaan to-night, or shall you sleep here with me? i think that i shall take the skiff now and go up toward madeira place, then drift back down-stream, a sort of good-bye journey. what will you do meantime?"
old bernique hardly knew. he was sore, bewildered. he thought he might spend the night on the hills, then again he might come back to the shack for the night. he wanted to go into choke gulch first thing.
bruce pushed away in the skiff through the swollen di. bernique got his horse and started off, climbing the yellow road up the bluff slowly, heading toward choke gulch. as he neared the top, he lifted his head and saw piney and the pony outlined on the bald summit of the bluff. the boy made a trumpet of his hands and shouted to bernique.
"hurry! for god's sake! so i cand talk to you!" piney's was a reckless and impassioned young figure, cut out against the sky sharply, on a pony that danced like a dervish.
the old man nodded, with a flash of pleasure at the sight of the boy, then let his head fall wearily upon his breast. he felt very powerless. when he reached piney's side he put out his hand and held to the boy's hand as though he found its warmth and firmness sustaining.
"let's git into the timber," said piney, and they rode forward a little way quite silent. "i don' want mist' steerin' to look back an' see me here," the boy explained. in the growth where the hills began to roll down toward choke gulch, piney stopped short, with a detaining hand upon bernique's bridle.
"i hearn," he said. his young face was so grey and solemn that bernique regarded him questioningly. "i was simlike half asleep up there in the bushes. whend you begand to tell your story, i waked up an' i listened. i hearn all you said an' all he said. ev'thing. unc' bernique, you cayn't tell nobody! mist' steerin', he cayn't tell nobody!--but me!" the boy was breathing harder, his face was growing greyer, "unc' bernique, i'm f'm the hills, an' not like them," the blood began suddenly to come back to his lips; he raised in his stirrups and slashed at the branches of a black-jack tree with his riding switch, as though he cut a vow across the air, high up. "but what i can, i will!" he cried, and clenched his hands proudly. "fer her an'--an' fer him!" he choked. whatever he meant to do, his young passion for salome madeira and his young affection for steering, his hero, leaped out on his face whitely. "she loves him, too, unc' bernique!" he cried in a final, broken crescendo.
old bernique stared at the boy in exaltation. "god above!" he shouted, "if that is it, it begins to be hope in my old breast! all may come right yet, and no oaths broken!"
"none broke!" cried piney. "one more took! i'm a-ridin' saouth, to madeira place, unc' bernique;" he gathered up the reins from his pony's neck,--"i'm a-goin' to miss sally madeira to tell her abaout mist' steerin';" he was blind with hot, young tears. "she'll do the rat thing whend she knows, unc' bernique;" he had put the pony about,--"i'll see you on the hills in the mornin'!" he was gone down the yellow road like a winged mercury.
on the hills behind him, old bernique, comprehending and envying, locked his hands on his saddle-horn in a vehement tension. his lips moved, and what he said seemed to float out after the flying figure of the boy like a benediction.
