The Girl of the Golden West, David Belasco [read with me txt] 📗

struck off through the forest to the right and, within a few minutes, reached a place where the trees had thinned out and were replaced by the few scrubs that grew in a spot almost barren. A minute or so more and the two men, their horses tied, were able to get an uninterrupted view of Cloudy Mountain.

The scene before them was one of grandeur. Day was giving place to night, fall to winter, and yet at this hour all the winds were stilled. In the distance gleamed the snow-capped Sierras, range after range as far as the eye could see to the northwest; in the opposite direction there stood out against the steel-blue of the sky a succession of wooded peaks ever rising higher and higher until culminating in the faraway white mountains of the south; and below, they looked upon a ravine that was brownish-green until the rays of the departing orb touched the leaves with opal tints.

Now the fast-falling sun flung its banner of gorgeous colours across the western sky. Immediately a wonderful light played upon the fleecy cumuli gathered in the upper heavens of the east and changed them from pearl to brilliant scarlet. For a moment, also, the purple hills became wonderful piles of dull gold and copper; a moment more and the magic hand of the King of Day was withdrawn.

In front of them now, dark, gloomy and threatening rose Cloudy Mountain, from which the Mining Camp took its name; and on a plateau near its base the camp itself could plainly be seen. It consisted of a group of miners' cabins set among pines, firs and manzaneta bushes with two larger pine-slab buildings, and scattered around in various places were shafts, whose crude timber-hoists appeared merely as vague outlines in the fast-fading light. The distance to the camp from where they stood was not over three miles as the crow flies, but it appeared much less in the rarefied atmosphere.

As the two bandits stood on the edge of the precipice looking across and beyond the intervening gulch or ravine, here and there a light twinkled out from the cabins and, presently, a much stronger illumination shot forth from one of the larger and more pretentious buildings. Castro was quick to call his master's attention to it.

"There--that place with the light is The Palmetto Hotel!" he exclaimed. "And over there--the one with the larger light is The Polka Saloon!" For even as he spoke the powerful kerosene lamp of The Polka Saloon, flanked by a composition metal reflector, flashed out its light into the gloom enveloping the desolate, ominous-looking mountains.

Johnson regarded this building long and thoughtfully. Then his eyes made out a steep trail which zigzagged from The Polka Saloon up the barren slopes of the mountain until it reached a cabin perched on the very top, the steps and porch of which were held up by poles made of trees. There, also, a light could be seen, but dimly. It was a strange place for anyone to erect a dwelling-place, and he found himself wondering what manner of person dwelt there. Of one thing he was certain: whoever it was the mountains were loved for themselves, for no mere digger of gold would think of erecting a habitation in view of those strange, vast, and silent heights!

And as he meditated thus, he perceived that the far off Sierras were forming a background for a sinuous coil of smoke from the cabin. For some time he watched it curling up into the great arch of sky. It was as if he were hypnotised by it and, in a vague, shadowy way, he had a sense of being connected, somehow, with the little cabin and its recluse. Was this feeling that he had a premonition of danger? Was this a moment of foreboding and distrust of the situation yet to be revealed? For like most venturesome men he always had a moment before every one of his undertakings in which his instinct either urged him forward or held him back.

Suddenly he became conscious that his eyes no longer saw the smoke. He stared hard to glimpse it, but it was gone. And with a supreme effort he wrenched himself free from a sort of paralysis which was stealing away his senses.

Now the light in the cabin disappeared, and since the shades of night, for which he had been waiting, had fallen, he called to the impatient and wondering Castro, and together they went back to the trail.

But even as they crossed the gulch and reached the outskirts of the camp a great white moon rose from behind the Sierras. To Castro, hidden now in the pines, it meant nothing so long as it did not interfere with his purpose. As a matter of fact he was already listening intently to the bursts of song and shouts of revelry that came every now and then from the nearby saloon. But his master, unaccountably under the spell of the moon's mystery and romance, watched it until it shed its silvery and magic light upon the lone cabin on the top of Cloudy Mountain, which Fate had chosen for the decisive scene of his dramatic life.


V.


Inside The Polka, not a bit more, and not a bit less sardonic--it was this imperturbability which made him so resistless to most people--than he was prior to the banishment of The Sidney Duck, the Sheriff of Manzaneta County waited patiently until the returning puppets of his will had had time to compose themselves. It took them merely the briefest of periods, but it served to increase visibly the long ash at the end of Rance's cigar. At length he shot a hawk-like glance at Sonora and proposed a little game of poker.

"This time, gentlemen--" he said, with a significant pause and accent-- "just for social recreation. What do you say?"

"I'm your Injun!" acquiesced Sonora, rubbing his hands together gleefully at the prospect of winning from the Sheriff, whom he liked none too well.

"That's me, too!" concurred Trinidad.

"Chips, then, Nick!" called out the Sheriff, quietly taking a seat at the table; while Sonora, bubbling over with spirits, hitched up his trousers in sailor fashion and executed an impromptu hornpipe, bellowing in his deep, base voice:


"I shipped aboard of a liner, boys--"


"Renzo, boys, renzo," finished Trinidad, falling in place at the table.

At this point the outside door was unexpectedly pushed open, inward, and the Deputy-Sheriff came into their midst.

"Ashby just rode in with his posse," he announced huskily to his superior.

The Sheriff flashed a look of annoyance and inquired of the gaunt, hollow-cheeked, muscular Deputy whose beaver overcoat was thrown open so that his gun and powder-flask showed plainly in his belt:

"Why, what's he doing here?"

"He's after Ramerrez," answered the Deputy, eyeing him intently.

Rance received this information in silence and went on with his shuffling of the cards; presently, unconcernedly, he remarked:

"Ramerrez--Oh, that's the polite road agent who has been visiting the other camps?"

"Yes; he's just turned into your county," declared the Deputy, meaningly.

"What?" Sonora looked dumbfounded.

The Deputy nodded and proceeded to the bar. And while he drained the contents of his glass, the Minstrel played on his banjo, much to the amusement of the men, who showed their appreciation by laughing heartily, the last bars of, "Pop Goes the Weasel."

"Hello, Sheriff!" greeted Ashby, coming in just as the merriment over the Minstrel's little joke had died away. Ashby's voice--quick, sharp and decisive was that of a man accustomed to ordering men, but his manner was suave, if a trifle gruff. Moreover, he was a man of whom it could be said, paradoxical as it may seem, that he was never known to be drunk nor ever known to be sober. It was plain from his appearance that he had been some time on the road.

Rance rose and politely extended his hand. And, although the greeting between the two men was none too cordial, yet in their look, as they eyed each other, was the respect which men have for others engaged more or less in the same business and in whom they recognise certain qualities which they have in common. In point of age Ashby was, perhaps, the senior. As far as reputation was concerned, both men were accounted nervy and square. Rance introduced him to Sonora and the others, saying:

"Boys, Mr. Ashby of Wells Fargo."

The latter had a pleasant word or two for the men; then, turning to the Deputy, he said:

"And how are you these days?"

"Fit. And yourself?"

"Same here." Turning now to the barkeeper, Ashby, with easy familiarity, added: "Say, Nick, give us a drink."

"Sure!" came promptly from the little barkeeper.

"Everybody'll have the same?" inquired Ashby, turning once more to the men.

"The same!" returned the men in chorus.

Thereupon, Nick briskly slapped down a bottle and four glasses before the Sheriff, and leaving him to do the honours, disappeared into the dance-hall.

"'Well, I trust the Girl who runs The Polka is well?" inquired Ashby, pushing his glass near the bottle.

"Fine as silk," vouched Sonora, adding in the next breath: "But, say, Mr. Ashby, how long you been chasm' up this road agent?"

"Oh, he only took to the road a few months ago," was Ashby's answer. "Wells Fargo have had me and a posse busy ever since. He's a wonder!"

"Must be to evade you," complimented Sonora, much to the discomfort of the Sheriff.

"Yes, I can smell a road agent in the wind," declared Ashby somewhat boastfully. "But, Rance, I expect to get that fellow right here in your county."

The Sheriff looked as if he scouted the idea, and was about to speak, but checked the word on his tongue. Then followed a short silence in which the Deputy, smiling a trifle derisively, went out of the saloon.

"Is this fellow a Spaniard?" questioned the Sheriff, drawling as usual, but at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards a placard on the wall, which read:


"FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
FOR THE ROAD AGENT RAMERREZ,
OR INFORMATION LEADING TO HIS
CAPTURE.
(SIGNED) WELLS FARGO."


"No--can't prove it. The fact of his leading a crew of greasers and Spaniards signifies nothing. His name is assumed, I suppose."

"They say he robs you like a gentleman," remarked Rance with some show of interest.

"Well, look out for the greasers up the road!" was Ashby's warning as he emptied his glass and put it down before him.

"We don't let them pass through here," shrugged Rance, likewise putting down his glass on the table.

Ashby now picked up the whisky bottle and carried it over to the deserted faro table before which he settled himself comfortably in a chair.

"Well, boys, I've had a long ride--wake me up when The Pony Express goes through!" he called over his shoulder as he put his coat over him.

But no sooner was he comfortably ensconced for a snooze than Nick came bustling in with a kettle of boiling water and several glasses half-filled with whisky and lemon. Stopping before Ashby he said in his best professional manner:

"Re-gards of the Girl--hot whisky straight with lemming extract."

Ashby took up his glass, as did, in turn, the men at the other table. But it was Rance who, with arm uplifted, toasted:

"The