Selected Stories of Bret Harte, Bret Harte [read aloud books .TXT] 📗

had never seen before. “This is a feeble trick,” she said bitterly; “it is unlike you—it is unworthy of you!”

“Good God! You must believe me. Listen! it was all a mistake—a printer's error. I read in the paper that the stock for the First Extension mine had gone up, when it should have been the Second. I had some old stock of the First, which I had kept for years, and only thought of when I read the announcement in the paper this morning. I swear to you—”

But it was unnecessary. There was no doubting the truth of that voice—that manner. The scorn fled from Miss Kitty's eyes to give place to a stare, and then suddenly changed to two bubbling blue wells of laughter. She went to the window and laughed. She sat down to the piano and laughed. She caught up the handkerchief, and hiding half her rosy face in it, laughed. She finally collapsed into an easy chair, and, burying her brown head in its cushions, laughed long and confidentially until she brought up suddenly against a sob. And then was still.

Barker was dreadfully alarmed. He had heard of hysterics before. He felt he ought to do something. He moved toward her timidly, and gently drew away her handkerchief. Alas! the blue wells were running over now. He took her cold hands in his; he knelt beside her and passed his arm around her waist. He drew her head upon his shoulder. He was not sure that any of these things were effective until she suddenly lifted her eyes to his with the last ray of mirth in them vanishing in a big teardrop, put her arms round his neck, and sobbed:

“Oh, George! You blessed innocent!”

An eloquent silence was broken by a remorseful start from Barker.

“But I must go and warn my poor partners, dearest; there yet may be time; perhaps they have not yet taken possession of your father's claim.”

“Yes, George dear,” said the young girl, with sparkling eyes; “and tell them to do so AT ONCE!”

“What?” gasped Barker.

“At once—do you hear?—or it may be too late! Go quick.”

“But your father—Oh, I see, dearest, you will tell him all yourself, and spare me.”

“I shall do nothing so foolish, Georgey. Nor shall you! Don't you see the note isn't due for a month? Stop! Have you told anybody but Paw and me?”

“Only the bank manager.”

She ran out of the room and returned in a minute tying the most enchanting of hats by a ribbon under her oval chin. “I'll run over and fix him,” she said.

“Fix him?” returned Barker, aghast.

“Yes, I'll say your wicked partners have been playing a practical joke on you, and he mustn't give you away. He'll do anything for me.”

“But my partners didn't! On the contrary—”

“Don't tell me, George,” said Miss Kitty severely. “THEY ought never to have let you come here with that stuff. But come! You must go at once. You must not meet Paw; you'll blurt out everything to him; I know you! I'll tell him you could not stay to luncheon. Quick, now; go. What? Well—there!”

Whatever it represented, the exclamation was apparently so protracted that Miss Kitty was obliged to push her lover to the front landing before she could disappear by the back stairs. But once in the street, Barker no longer lingered. It was a good three miles back to the Gulch; he might still reach it by the time his partners were taking their noonday rest, and he resolved that although the messenger had preceded him, they would not enter upon the new claim until the afternoon. For Barker, in spite of his mistress's injunction, had no idea of taking what he couldn't pay for; he would keep the claim intact until something could be settled. For the rest, he walked on air! Kitty loved him! The accursed wealth no longer stood between them. They were both poor now—everything was possible.

The sun was beginning to send dwarf shadows toward the east when he reached the Gulch. Here a new trepidation seized him. How would his partners receive the news of his utter failure? HE was happy, for he had gained Kitty through it. But they? For a moment it seemed to him that he had purchased his happiness through their loss. He stopped, took off his hat, and ran his fingers remorsefully through his damp curls.

Another thing troubled him. He had reached the crest of the Gulch, where their old working ground was spread before him like a map. They were not there; neither were they lying under the four pines on the ridge where they were wont to rest at midday. He turned with some alarm to the new claim adjoining theirs, but there was no sign of them there either. A sudden fear that they had, after parting from him, given up the claim in a fit of disgust and depression, and departed, now overcame him. He clapped his hand on his head and ran in the direction of the cabin.

He had nearly reached it when the rough challenge of “Who's there?” from the bushes halted him, and Demorest suddenly swung into the trail. But the singular look of sternness and impatience which he was wearing vanished as he saw Barker, and with a loud shout of “All right, it's only Barker! Hooray!” he ran toward him. In an instant he was joined by Stacy from the cabin, and the two men, catching hold of their returning partner, waltzed him joyfully and breathlessly into the cabin. But the quick-eyed Demorest suddenly let go his hold and stared at Barker's face. “Why, Barker, old boy, what's up?”

“Everything's up,” gasped the breathless Barker. “It's all up about these stocks. It's all a mistake; all an infernal lie of that newspaper. I never had the right kind of shares. The ones I have are worthless rags”; and the next instant he had blurted out his whole interview with the bank manager.

The two partners looked at each other, and then, to Barker's infinite perplexity, the same extraordinary convulsion that had seized Miss Kitty fell upon them. They laughed, holding on each other's shoulders; they laughed, clinging to Barker's struggling figure; they went out and laughed with their backs against a tree. They laughed separately and in different corners. And then they came up to Barker with tears in their eyes, dropped their heads on his shoulder, and murmured exhaustedly:

“You blessed ass!”

“But,” said Stacy suddenly, “how did you manage to buy the claim?”

“Ah! that's the most awful thing, boys. I've NEVER PAID FOR IT,” groaned Barker.

“But Carter sent us the bill of sale,” persisted Demorest, “or we shouldn't have taken it.”

“I gave my promissory note at thirty days,” said Barker desperately, “and where's the money to come from now? But,” he added wildly, as the men glanced at each other—“you said 'taken it.' Good heavens! you don't mean to say that I'm TOO late—that you've—you've touched it?”

“I reckon that's pretty much what we HAVE been doing,” drawled Demorest.

“It looks uncommonly like it,” drawled Stacy.

Barker glanced blankly from the one to the other. “Shall