“And then?”
Jim sat down. He was smiling, but the smile was unreal.
“Then? Why, I’ll go right down and out, and they can kick my carcase out to the town ‘dumps.’”
Peter nodded again.
“Let’s begin now,” he said, with staggering abruptness. And he pointed at the bottle in Jim’s pocket.
“Eh?” the other was startled.
“Let’s begin now,” Peter said, with his calm smile. “You’re good company, Jim. Where you go, I’ll travel, too–if it’s to hell.”
The smile had vanished from Jim’s eyes. For a moment he wondered stupidly, and during that moment, as Peter’s hand was outstretched for the bottle, he passed it across to him.
The other took it, and looked at the label. It was a well-known brand of rye whiskey. And as he looked he seemed to gather warmth and enthusiasm. It was as though the sight of the whiskey were irresistible to him.
“Rye,” he cried. “The juice for oiling the devil’s joints.” And his lips seemed to smack over the words.
Jim was watching. He didn’t understand. Peter’s offer to go with him to hell was staggering, and– But the other went on in his own mildly enthusiastic way.
“We’ll start right here. I’ll get two glasses. We’ll drink this up, and then we’ll get some more at the saloon, and–we’ll paint the town red.” He rose and fetched two glasses from a cupboard and set them on the table. Then he took his sheath knife from his belt, and, with a skilful tap, knocked the neck off the bottle.
“No water,” he said. “The stuff’ll act quicker. We want it to get right up into our heads quick. We want the mad whirl of the devil’s dance; we–”
“But why should you–!”
“Tut, man! Your gait’s good enough for me. There’s room for more fools than one in hell. Here! Here’s your medicine.”
He rose and passed a glass across to Jim, while the other he held aloft.
“Here, boy,” he cried, smiling down into Jim’s face “Here, I’ll give you a toast.” The stormy light in the ranchman’s eyes had died out, and in them there lurked a question that had something like fear in it. But his glass was not raised, and Peter urged him. “A toast, lad huyk your glass right up, and we’ll drink it standing.”
Jim rose obediently but slowly to his feet, and his glass was lifted half-heartedly. There was no responsive enthusiasm in him now; it had gone utterly. Peter’s voice suddenly filled the room with a mocking laugh, and his toast rang out in tones of sarcasm the more biting for their very mildness.
“The devil’s abroad. Here’s to the devil, because there’s no God and the devil reigns. Nothing we see in the world is the work of anybody but the devil. The soil that yields us the good grain, the grass that feeds our stock, the warm, beneficent sun that ripens all the world, the beautiful flowers, the magnificent forests, the great hills, the seas, the rivers, the rain; everything in life. All the beautiful world, that thrills with a perfect life, that rolls its way through æons of time held in space by a power that nothing can shake. All the myriads of worlds and universes we see shining in the limitless billions of miles of space at night, everything, everything. It is the arch-fiend’s work, for there is no God. Here’s to the mad, red, dancing devil, to whom we go!”
Jim’s glass crashed to the floor. He seized the bottle of whiskey and served that in the same way.
“Stop it, you mad fool!” he cried in horror. And Peter slowly put his whiskey down untasted.
Then the dark, horror-stricken eyes looked into the smiling blue ones, and in a flash to Jim’s troubled mind came inspiration. There was a long, long pause, during which eye met eye unflinchingly. Then Jim reached out a hand.
“Thanks, Peter,” he said.
Peter shook his grizzled head as he gripped the outstretched hand.
“I’m glad,” he said with a quaint smile, “real glad you came along–and stopped me drinking that toast. Going?”
Jim nodded. He, too, was smiling now, as he moved to the door.
“Well, I suppose you must,” Peter went on. “I’ve got work, too.” He pointed at his pile of dirt on the table. “You see, there’s gold in all that muck, and–I’ve got to find it.”
CHAPTER VI
EVE AND WILL
Elia was staring at his sister with wide, expectant eyes. Suspense was evidently his dominant feeling at the moment. A suspense which gave him a sickly feeling in the pit of the stomach. It was the apprehension of a prisoner awaiting a verdict; the nauseating sensation of one who sees death facing him, with the chances a thousand to one against him. A half-plaited rawhide rope was lying in his lap; the hobby of making these his sister had persuaded him to turn to profitable account. He was expert in their manufacture, and found a ready market for his wares on the neighboring ranches.
Eve was staring out of the window considering, her pretty face seriously cast, her eyes far away. Will Henderson, his boyishly handsome face moodily set, was standing beside the work-table that occupied the centre of the living-room, the fingers of one hand restlessly groping among the litter of dress stuffs lying upon it. He was awaiting her answer to a question of his, awaiting it in suspense, like Elia, but with different feelings.
Nor did the girl seem inclined to hurry. To her mind a lot depended on her answer. Her acquiescence meant the giving up of all the little features that had crept into her struggling years of independence. There was her brother. She must think for his welfare. There was her business, worked up so laboriously. There was the possible removal from Barnriff to the world of hills and valleys, which was Will’s world. There were so many things to think of,–yet–yet she knew her answer beforehand. She loved, and she was a woman, worldly-wise, but unworldly.
The evening was drawing in, and the soft shadows were creeping out of the corners of the little room. There was a gentle mellowness in the twilight which softened the darns in the patchwork picture the place presented. This room was before all things her shop; and, in consequence, comfort and the picturesque were sacrificed to utility. Yet there was a pleasant femininity about it. A femininity which never fails to act upon the opposite sex. It carries with it an influence that can best be likened, in a metaphoric sense, to a mental aroma which soothes the jagged edges of the rougher senses. It lulls them to a gentle feeling of seductive delight, a condition which lays men so often open to a bad woman’s unscrupulousness, but also to a good woman’s influence for bringing out all that is greatest and best in their nature.
The waiting was too long for Will. He was a lover of no great restraint.
“Well, Eve?” he demanded, almost sharply. “Two months to-day. Will you? We can get the parson feller that comes here from Rocky Springs to–marry us.”
The dwarf brushed his rope out of his lap, and, rising, hobbled to Eve’s side, and stood peering up into her face in his bird-like way. But he offered no word.
Eve’s hand caressed his silky head. She nodded, nodded at the distant hills through the window.
“Yes, Will, dear.”
The man was at her side in an instant, while Elia slunk away. The youth drew back and turned tail, slinking off as though driven by a cruel lash in the hand of one from whom kindness is expected. He did not return to his seat, but passed out of the house. And the girl and man, in their moment of rapture, forgot him. At that moment their lives, their happiness, their love, were the bounds of their whole thought.
For