Book: The Freebooters of the Wilderness

A >> Agnes C. Laut >> The Freebooters of the Wilderness




When Wayland arrived at the mine with Matthews and MacDonald, he found
the federal investigator on hand with Mr. Bat Brydges, who was out for
news features, and the news editor of the "Smelter City Herald," who
somehow gave the Ranger a look mingled of smothered anger and
friendliness. If Mr. Bat Brydges felt any embarrassment, he did not
show it. Indeed, the handy man would have felt proud of the very
things of which he had accused the Ranger; and it is to be doubted if
the door of decent shame remained open; if, indeed, the harboring of
thoughts like the flocking of the carrion bird to putridity does not
pre-suppose a kind of inner death. And as the party were donning blue
overalls to descend into the mine, who should come on the scene but Mr.
Sheriff Flood, "to see that ev'thing waz al' right," he explained,
exhibiting a protuberant rotundity due reverse of the compass that had
been most prominent when Wayland last saw him; and if the doughty
defender of the law felt any embarrassment, like the handy man, he did
not show it. Indeed, this mighty man of valor could truthfully be
described as fat of brain, fat of chops, fat of neck, and fattest of
all in the rotundity of this strutting stomach. In fact, he seemed
proud of that hummocky part of his anatomy and swung it round at you
and rested his hands clasped across it as he talked.

"Jis' thought I'd happen along! Wife didn't want me to: women are all
skeery that way; but I jis' thought I'd happen along an' nut let her
know!"

"All sorts o' things might chance in a mine, mightn't they?" cut in
Matthews with a twinkle of his eye more merry than good natured.

The Sheriff smiled a sickly smile and ''lowed they could'; and
everybody walked into the lowest tunnel leaving the fire guard lanterns
outside; for this tunnel was lighted by electricity. As they all
walked in, the Sheriff was to the rear.

"Here, you, Mr. Sheriff," Matthews blurted out, going to the rear of
the procession, "seems to me my place is kind o' back o' behind o' you."

The Sheriff smiled a sickly smile and ''lowed it waz.'

Wayland took the record of the mine's output per day. (It averaged a
net return of forty per cent. dividend on a capitalization of ninety
million.) Then, he took the record of what the Smelter could consume
per day. The difference must be used for shipment or storage. Wayland
did the counting and measuring. MacDonald jotted down the notes. The
downy-lipped youth proceeded along the tunnel with an air of supreme
contempt. It was as they were about to enter the second tunnel that
his superiority expressed itself. Matthews afterwards said it was
because the black water drip or coal sweat was seeping through the
overalls.

"I don't see what we're delaying to take all these specific
measurements for anyway," he said.

"Don't you?" asked Wayland. "Then I'll tell you! I have the affidavit
of the most of the 'dummies' that the homestead entries were
fraudulent! You could see that if you knew that men can't farm at an
angle of ninety! In case that fails, I want proof that this coal is so
valuable it is being shipped out. I want exact proofs of the exact
profits being made on the fraudulently acquired mines."

"What's your idea? Shut 'em up from development for ever?" asked
Brydges belligerently.

"Brydges," said Wayland, "when you find you can't throw your pursuer
off the trail by the skunk's peculiar trick of defence, I'd advise you
to try kicking sand in the public's eyes and drawing a rotten herring
across the trail! This time, I think you'll find, the public won't go
off the trail after the rotten herring. They'll keep on after the
thief."

It was at that stage, Bat fell back abreast of the Sheriff, and
Matthews behind heard one of the two say, "Damn him, then, let him go
on and examine his bellyfull! It's his funeral; not ours!"

Wayland not only examined the second tunnel above the first, but he
insisted on descending a shaft that had been sunk almost vertically
from the crest of Coal Hill to get a measurement of the veins, for
stoping, or cross cutting, or drifting or some such technical work, I
forget what; but the vertical shaft afforded estimates of the depth of
the veins. Because it was not a regular avenue of work but only of
examination, it had not been equipped with steam hoist and electric
light, but was furnished only with such old fashioned hand winch as the
stage driver had described to Eleanor. A huge bucket depended by cable
from the hand hoist. It was as they were all lighting lanterns and
stepping in, that MacDonald took a look at the hoist and noticed that
the Sheriff was to give a hand at the winch.

"Not coming Brydges?" asked Matthews, who was already in the bucket.

"Oh, I guess I'm a pretty heavy man to go in that."

"Then, A guess you're afraid of what's goin' t' happen! We're not
goin' down, without you, m' boy."

Bat winked at the Sheriff and clambered in. It was then something on
the edge of the _Brule_ arrested MacDonald's glance; Calamity coming
through the cottonwoods mad and dishevelled, O'Finnigan reeling up from
the Smelter City trail mad with whiskey, waving a bottle and
shouting--"What's th' use o' anything? Nothing! I'm Uncle Sam!
Hoorah!"

"Go on," ordered MacDonald curtly. "I'll keep the notes safe up here,
in my pocket, Wayland! I'll stay and give Sheriff Flood a hand at the
hoist!"

The Sheriff looked for directions to Brydges.

"Let her go," ordered Brydges with a glance back over his shoulder
towards the trail from Smelter City; and the winch creaked and groaned;
and the bucket fell with a bump; then a steady drop to the first vein.
When Matthews looked up, the slant of the shaft had cut off the sky.
Brydges didn't bother clambering out of the bucket. He was silent and
kept hold of the dependent cable. Suddenly, there was a rumble as of
the hoist flying backward, then the whip lash of a taut rope snapping,
and the cable whirled down in a coil round Brydges' head.

"Gee whiz! This is a pretty mess! The cable's broke; and we can't get
up!"

"What's that?" called Mathews. Wayland and the others were examining
the black wall of the shaft.

Matthews flashed his hand lantern in Brydges' face. It was ashen
doughy, with sagged lips. "Wayland, have y' on y'r mountaineerin'
boots, the boots pegged wi' handspikes?" cried the old frontiersman.
"The cable's broken; and A like t' see y' shin for th' top soon as
possible!"

Something in the voice must have caught the ear of the news editor; for
he turned back and flooded his lantern, first on Matthews' face, then
on Brydges'.

"You'll climb easier if you pull off y'r overalls and fasten y'r
lantern in y'r hat, Wayland," he said in the same cutting voice he used
in the hurry and rush of the composing room.

If Mr. Bat Brydges had been after a feature story, he had it then and
there; the tenebrous thick coal darkness; the drip-drip-drip of the
water-soak through the rock walls; Matthews' eyes blazing like coals of
fire in the dark, his lantern shining full on Brydges; the news editor
hatchet-faced, white of skin, with pistol point eyes, his lantern full
on Brydges; the downy-lipped youth white, terrified, chattering of
jaws, unable to speak a word, clutching to the edge of the bucket to
hide his trembling, his hat had fallen off, his lantern had fallen out
of his hand, and a great blob of black coal drip trickled from his
yellow hair down his cheek in front of his ear; and the handy man still
standing in the barrel, his face chalky and soggy like dough, with a
show of bluff, but unable to look a man in the face, gazing at his feet
in the bottom of the barrel:

"Gawd, Wayland! Don't risk it! Don't climb! Wait a little! They'll
wind her up and drop another rope down to us and--"


The Ranger had begun climbing. They could see the shine of the lantern
in his hat against the black moist rock wall; up and up, slow, sure and
light of foot, swinging from side to side for hand grip; hands first
finding foot hold; then a leg up; and another foot hold.

"Look out fellows," he warned once. "I might knock some of these small
rocks loose!"

Then, the light of the lantern disappeared at a bend in the shaft.

"It's a darned dangerous thing to do," pronounced the handy man thickly.

Not one of the men answered a word, and the silence grew impressive by
what it didn't say.


Once Wayland had turned the bend of the shaft, the rest of the way up
was easy. Daylight was above, and the climb was a gradual slant over
uneven ridged rock; and with the grip of the pegs in his mountaineering
boots, he ascended almost at a run on all fours.

"Hullo up-there," he called, "what's wrong?"

There was no answer. He ascended the rest of the way winged and came
out hoisting himself from his elbows to his knees with a deep breath of
pure air above the surface. At first, daylight blinded him. He threw
the lantern from his hat and blinked the darkness out of his eyes.

"It's all right fellows," he roared down the shaft, funnelling his
hands.


Then he looked.

Sheriff Flood was not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed
to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The
windlass handle hung prone as a disused well. It had not flown back
broken. The cable had been cut. Then, he heard a groan. It was
Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and
reaving her hair. Stretched on the grass a few paces back from the
windlass with two bloody bullet holes full in the soft of the temple,
lay MacDonald, the sheep rancher, beyond recall.

Wayland stooped and felt for the heart.

It was motionless. The body was chilling and stiffening. He looked
back at the face. There was almost a smile on the lips; and one hand
hung as if fallen from the windlass handle. A suspicion flashed
through Wayland's mind. He could hardly give it credence. It was
preposterous, unbelievable, like a page from the lawlessness of the
frontier a hundred years ago! Yet hadn't this thing happened in
California, and happened in Alaska? They would never dare to murder a
man conducting an investigation ordered by the great Government of the
greatest Nation on earth! Yet had they not tried to assassinate
representatives of the great Federal Government down in San Francisco,
and shot to death in Colorado a federal officer sent straight from
Washington? And these murders had not been committed by the rabble, by
the demagogues, by the anarchists. They had been pre-planned and
carried out by the vested-righter, in defiance of law, in defiance of
the strongest Government on earth and up to the present, in defiance of
retribution.

Wayland tore open the coat and felt for the notes. They were gone. He
looked at Calamity. A darker suspicion came. Then, he caught the Cree
woman by the shoulder and threw her to her feet.

"Calamity who did this?"

"Th' trunk man, O'Finnigan! Flood, he lead heem up; an' t' trunk man
shoot, shoot quick close--lak dat," she said snapping her fingers round
behind Wayland's ear against the soft of his temple.

Wayland's suspicions became a certainty.

"They will blame you," he said, "do you understand me? They will prove
_you did_ it; and hang you! Ride for your life! Ride for Canada; and
hide!"

Was he thinking of Calamity or Eleanor? But where was Flood; and where
was the drunken man?

He fastened a stone to the end of the cut cable, and with a shout began
dropping it down and down from the windlass.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE AWAKENING

By all the tricks of stage-craft and book-craft, of the copybook
headlines and platitudinous lies which we have had rammed down our
throats since childhood, virtue should have triumphed in the person of
the Ranger, because he fought regardless of consequences for right.
MacDonald, the sheep rancher, who went out of his way to enforce the
fair deal and the square deal, when he could very much more easily have
remained safely at home, a fire-insurance, bread-and-butter,
safety-guarantee Christian of the quiescent kind, MacDonald by all the
tricks of the-be-good-and-you-will-prosper doctrines, ought not to have
been shot down as he stood guard at the head of the mine shaft.

A very great many years ago, a very great Man, in fact, the very
greatest moral teacher the world has ever known, declared that the
milk-and-water, neither-hot-nor-cold, quiescent, safety-guarantee type
of Christianity was a thing to be spewed out of the mouth; but that was
a very great many years ago. Time has softened the edge of that
passion for right. Perhaps, He didn't mean it! Perhaps, we have
permitted sentimentality to sand-paper down the fighting edge of
militant righteousness that goes out beyond the Safety Line! To be
sure, bread-and-butter goodness is an easier matter than risking hot
shot beyond the Safety Line; and perhaps, a sentimental Deity may be
persuaded to allow us a little jam on our bread and butter if we sit
tight on the safe side with a fire-insurance policy in the shape of a
creed! Personally, I wonder when we all take to joining the sit-tight,
safety-guarantee brigade, who is to stand on the outside guard? Or is
there any modern Fighting Line? Or does the Fighting Line belong to
the old Shibboleth legends of Canaanite and Jebusite and Perizzite and
God knows what other "ite"? I hear these ancient gentry preached about
and the heroes who smote them hip and thigh extolled. Personally, I am
a great deal more interested in the modern tussle for a promised land
than in those old time frays for a fertile patch in a sterile
wilderness; and I see the same call for the hero's fighting edge; and I
like the MacDonalds, who jump out from behind the Safety Line to fight
for right, though it bring but the bloody bullet holes in the soft of
the temple; and I like the Waylands, who take up the game trail to run
down crime though it bring the sword of dismissal dangling over their
own heads; and I like best of all the Matthews, who throw aside their
"skin-dicate contracts" to take up the game of playing as joyfully for
right as they have for wrong, "rich" (I wish you could have heard the
full way in which he said that word) "rich" on "thirty dollars a year
for clothes," spending self without stint, joyfully, unknowing of
self-pity, for the making of right into might, for the making of a
patch of human weeds into a garden of goodness. Only, I would put on
record the fact that each man's reward was not the hero's crown of
laurel leaves, but the crown that their great prototype wore upon the
Cross.


Eleanor could not understand why she had been formally notified to
attend the coroner's inquest till the drift of the questions began to
indicate that this investigation like many another was not an
investigation to _find out_ but an investigation to _hush up_, not a
following of the clues of evidence but a deliberate attempt to throw
pursuit off on false clues. In fact, there were many things about that
inquest which Eleanor could not fathom. Why, for instance was the
local district attorney not present? Why had the Smelter Coking
Company a special pleader present? Why was the great Federal
Government not represented by an attorney of equal ability, instead of
this downy-lipped silent and incredibly ignorant youth? Why was the
first session of the inquest adjourned till the burial of her father?
Why did the sheriff act as a mentor at the ear of the chief coroner?
Why did the justice of the peace acting as coroner listen to all
suggestions from the Smelter Company's attorney and the Sheriff, and
reject all suggestions from her father's friends? Why was the
stenographer instructed to erase some evidence and preserve other?
What was the ground of discrimination? If you doubt whether these
things are ever done, dear reader; then, peruse with close scrutiny the
first criminal trial that comes under your notice; and see if you think
that the term of the Old Dispensation 'wresting the judgment' has
become obsolete? You don't suppose those long-whiskered old patriarchs
openly took the bribe in hand and right before the claimants, tucked
the loose shekels into the wide phalacteries of holy skirts--do you?


Yet, there were certain features of that inquest which awakened strange
hope in her breast. It was held in the county court room; and the
crowd gathering to listen and hear somehow gave her a different
impression from the unwashed rabble that usually infests public courts
to feast on the carrion of criminal proceedings. Men predominated, of
course; but they were decent men, men of standing, not idlers and
blacklegs. As she passed up the aisle with Matthews and Mrs. Williams
to the front row of chairs where the news editor and Wayland and
Brydges and the youth from Washington were already seated, she heard a
man's voice say, "They've gone too far this time, by Jingo! It will
take more than wind-jamming to win next fall's elections with this
against them."

"You bet there's an awakening," returned another voice.
"The-dyed-in-the-woollies don't realize yet; but they will waken up
after election day!"

The news editor had only finished giving evidence; on the whole
immaterial testimony; for suspicions do not pass with juries and
coroners.

"How was it you attended the examination of this mine?" was the last
question asked him.

Considering the Smelter City lots, for which the news editor had yet to
pay and the "kiddies" which he had to support, it would have been an
easy matter for him 'to slink' that question. "A newspaper man's
pursuit of a good story" would have been answer enough to satisfy any
coroner; but the news editor did not give that answer. He took off his
glasses and polished the lenses with his handkerchief. Then, he put
them back on his nose and looked straight at the gentleman presiding.

"May I answer that question in my own way, taking plenty of time?" he
asked. "I take it this inquest is being held to get at the real truth."

The coroner said, "Go ahead!"

The attorney for the Smelter City Coking Company sat up and whispered
something to Brydges. The handy man turned lazily round. "Yes," he
said, "one of our staff."

The news editor cleared his throat, and a little sharp intersection of
lines bridged above his nose.

"For some little time, it has been known in the Valley that a quiet
contest has been going on."

The attorney for the Smelter City Coking Company jumped to his feet.

"The witness should keep to a strict recital of fact, not rumors," he
interjected; and the downy-lipped representative of the Federal
Government said nothing about the privileges of a witness, or the
impropriety of a special pleader opening his mouth at an inquest.

"Confine yourself to facts," ordered the coroner heavily.

Wayland and Eleanor suddenly leaned forward. The news editor rubbed
his glasses and resumed in a low clear tense voice. How many of the
listeners had the faintest idea of what the recital cost him?

"I take it the object of this inquest is to ascertain facts. If I am
to relate facts, I must repeat that for some little time it has been
known in the Valley that a quiet contest has been going on between the
people and certain interests which I do not need to name. It was well
known in our office that the miners on Coal Hill had openly boasted no
Washington man was going to get away with any facts about mining
operations. O'Finnigan of Shanty Town had boasted he had been brought
down from the Ridge for 'a surprise party' as he called it. For some
little time, as news editor I had been dissatisfied with the reports of
this whole struggle: they struck me as exceedingly biased and
untruthful; in fact what the reporters call 'doped news'; 'news doped
by outsiders for special reasons of their own.'"

Bat's boot came down with a clump on the floor. The attorney was up
again, glaring at the coroner. The news editor cleared his throat.

"So I determined to go and see this thing for myself--"

"With the result," roared the attorney, "that you saw every facility
afforded for the most thorough examination of the mine."

There was a shuffling of feet among the men at the back of the room.
More men seemed to be crowding in.

"That," said the news editor aloud, sitting back beside Wayland, "That
effectually cooks my dough! See that you fellows do as well!"

Eleanor was next questioned, most considerately and courteously. Twice
she was interrupted. The first time was when she repeated that her
father had said he expected no trouble whatsoever.

"I would call your attention to the fact, Mr. Coroner, that the
deceased gentleman assured his daughter he expected no trouble
whatsoever," called out the attorney.

The Sheriff leaned over and whispered to the coroner.

"Did the half-breed woman known as Calamity leave the Ranch House the
night before the examination of the mine?" asked the coroner.

It was when Eleanor was describing the mad look of Calamity that the
attorney again interrupted:

"Mr. Coroner, out of respect to the memory of the deceased gentleman
and to the member of his family present, I ask that the stenographer
strike out the record of the insane woman's babblings! The fact is
established on the word of Miss MacDonald that the Indian woman set out
with the express intention of seeking her employer. What she intended
to do when she found him, we cannot know; for the woman was plainly
insane and her word is worthless."

Bat wore a tallow smile. The attorney's expression became inscrutable.
Sheriff Flood's face shone as a new moon. The other faces were a
puzzled blank.

"You want to check that," whispered the news editor to Wayland.
Matthews was being questioned.

"Before A proceed t' answer y'r verra civil inquiries, Mr. Coroner, A
wud ask the privilege o' puttin' three questions!"

"Go ahead, Sir!"

"Why is the man O'Finnigan not here?"

"Still drunk," answered the Sheriff.

"Then, if A commit a crime, if A cut y'r throat, Mr. Coroner, all A
have t' do t' avoid awkward questions, is t' fill up? Verra well! Why
is the woman Calamity, herself, not here?"

"Can't be found," called Wayland.

"So that if A'm accused of a crime A know no more about than th' babe
unborn, all A've t' do t' rivet that crime on myself for life is not to
be found? Verra well--"

"Sir," interrupted the coroner.

"A wud ask why is that little Irish lassie not here?"

Mrs. Williams explained that Lizzie, having exhausted the Indian
children with her boastings in two days, had lost interest in life and
run back to the slums.

"A always did say if y' took a pig out o' a pen an' putt it in a
parlor, 'twould feel lonesome for its hogwash," exclaimed the old
frontiersman running a puzzled hand through his mop of white hair.
Matthews also was twice interrupted in his testimony. He was
explaining that he anticipated trouble about the mine from what had
already happened on the Rim Rocks when Wayland trod forcibly and
sharply on his foot; and all reference to the pursuit across the Desert
was omitted. The coroner, it seemed, did not want any details about
the Rim Rocks. The second interruption came when he began to quote
Mistress Lizzie O'Finnigan's words those afternoons on the Ridge. The
attorney sprang up:

"As the child is an incorrigible liar and her father an incorrigible
drunkard, Mr. Coroner, I think it only fair to the Company that their
aspersions and reference to us be stricken off the records;" and the
coroner instructed the stenographer to erase all reference to Lizzie's
babbling.

The old frontiersman sat back with a dazed feeling that while he had
expressed anticipation of trouble at the mine, he had failed to give
proof or reason for that anticipation.

Brydges' evidence was innocuous to the very end. The Sheriff had
whispered something to the coroner.

"Is there any reason why anyone in the Valley might harbor a grudge
against the sheep rancher?" asked the coroner.

Brydges hesitated as one who could say much if he would. "Yes, there
is," he answered lowering his eyes and flushing dully.

It was the attorney again who was on his feet.

"Mr. Coroner, the dead cannot defend themselves. Out of respect to the
deceased gentleman and the member of his family present, I think that
line of enquiry ought not to be recorded or pursued."

"The second time they have said that; what do they mean?" Eleanor asked
Mrs. Williams in a whisper.

Matthews was hanging on to his chair to hold himself down and the news
editor had leaned across Eleanor to speak to Wayland: "Good God,
Wayland! Don't you see the drift? Can't you head that off?"

"Leave 't' me," muttered the old frontiersman gripping his chair.

"But you have given your evidence: Wayland is our only chance left.
Don't you see how they'll clinch it?"

"Hold y'r head shut," ordered Matthews.

Wayland was giving his evidence, as little as he could possibly give,
it seemed to Eleanor, from the time he had telephoned down to her
father to come and take corroborative proof of the value of the coal
mines.

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.