Read Ebook: Kadjaman by Stacpoole H De Vere Henry De Vere

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Ebook has 956 lines and 41602 words, and 20 pages

"Tuan wasn't a popsy-wopsy father by no means, but I've often thought it's chaps like Tuan, stuck by nature in the door in old days, that's stopped humans from backsliding into beasts--but maybe I'm wrong."

Two men standing on the porch nodded a good-evening to him. Gordon, about to pass, glanced at them again. They were Northrup and Trelawney, two of the miners who had had trouble with Macdonald on the boat.

On impulse he stopped. "Found work yet?" he asked.

"Found a job and lost it again," Northrup answered sullenly.

"Too bad."

"Macdonald passed the word along that we weren't to get work. So our boss fired us. The whole district is closed to us. We been blacklisted," explained Trelawney.

"And we're busted," added his mate.

Elliot was always free-handed. Perhaps he felt just now unusually sympathetic towards these victims of the high-handed methods of Macdonald. From his pocket he took a small leather purse and gave a piece of gold to each of them.

"Just as a loan to carry you for a couple of days till you get something to do," he suggested.

Northrup demurred, but after a little pressure accepted the accommodation.

"I pay you soon back," he promised.

Trelawney laughed recklessly. He had been drinking.

"You bet. Me too."

His companion flashed a look of warning at him and explained that they were going down the river to look for work outside of the district.

Suddenly Trelawney broke loose and began to curse Macdonald with a bitterness that surprised the Government agent. What struck him most, though, was the obvious anxiety of Northrup to quiet his partner and to gloss over what he had said. Thinking of it later, Gordon wondered why the Dane, who had as much cause to hate Macdonald as the other, should be at such pains to smooth down the man and explain away his threats.

Elliot bought an automatic revolver next morning and a box of cartridges. He was not looking for trouble, but he intended to be prepared for it when trouble came looking for him. With a rifle he was a fair shot, but he lacked experience with the revolver. In the afternoon he walked out of town and practiced shooting at tin cans for a half an hour. On his way back he met Peter Paget.

The engineer came straight to the subject in his mind.

"Selfridge came to see me last night. He told me about the trouble between you and Macdonald, Gordon. You must leave town till he cools down. Macdonald is a bad man with a gat."

"Is he?"

"You can drop down the river on business for a few weeks. After a while--"

His friend looked at him coolly. "I can, but I'm not going to. Where do you get this stuff about me being a quitter, Pete?"

Peter laid a hand on his shoulder. "Now, look here, Gordon. Don't be a kid and foolhardy. Duck. I'm your friend--"

"You're his, too, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course, but--"

"All right. Tell him to duck. There'll be no trouble of my making. But if he starts any I'll be there. Macdonald doesn't own the earth, you know. I've been sent up here by Uncle Sam on business, and you can bet your last dollar I'll stay on the job till I'm through."

"Of course you've got to finish your job. But it doesn't all have to be done right here. Just for a week or two--"

"Tell your friend something else while you're on the subject. If I drop him, I go scot free because he is interfering with me in my duty. I'll put Selfridge on the stand to prove it. But if he should kill me, his last chance for getting the Macdonald claims patented would be gone. The public would raise such a howl that the Administration would have to throw your friend and the Guttenchilds overboard to save itself. I know that--and Macdonald knows it. So he stands to lose either way."

Paget knew this was true. He knew, too, there was no use in arguing with this young athlete. That close-gripped jaw and salient chin did not belong to a slacker. Gordon would stick and see the thing out. But Peter could not drop the subject without one more appeal.

"He's not sore at you about the claims. You know that. It's because you brought the squaw up the river to see Sheba."

"I didn't bring her--hadn't a thing to do with that. I don't know who brought her, though I could give a good guess."

A gleam of hope showed in the eye of the engineer. "You didn't bring her? Diane said you threatened--"

"Maybe I did say I would. Anyhow, I thought better of it. But I'm glad some one had the sense to tell Miss O'Neill the truth."

"Who do you think brought her?"

"I'm not thinking on that subject out loud."

"But if we could show Mac--"

"That's up to you. I'll not lift a finger. Your king of Kusiak has to learn some time that everybody isn't going to sidestep him and pussyfoot when he's around. I didn't start this war and I'm not making any peace overtures."

"You're as obstinate as the devil," smiled Peter, but in his heart he admired the dourness of his friend.

The engineer went to Macdonald and gave a deleted version of his talk with Elliot. The Scotchman listened, a bitter, incredulous smile on his face.

"Says he didn't bring her, does he? Tell him from me that he lies. Your wife let out to me by accident that he threatened to bring her. Meteetse and he came up on the boat together. He was with her at your house when she told her story. He's trying to save his hide. No chance."

"Elliot isn't a liar. When he says he didn't bring the woman, that satisfies me. I know he didn't do it," insisted Paget stiffly.

"Different here. Who else had any interest in bringing her except him? Nobody. Use your brains, Peter. He takes the first boat down the river. He comes back on the next one. She comes back, too. They couldn't figure I'd be at your house when they showed up there to tell the story. That's where Mr. Elliot slipped up."

Peter was of different stuff from Selfridge. He had something to say. So he said it.

"Times have changed, Mac. You can't shoot down this young fellow without making all kinds of trouble. First thing we'd lose the claims. The Administration would drop you like a hot potato if you did a thing like that. Sheba would never speak to you again. Your friends would know in their hearts it was murder. You can't do it."

Macdonald's jaw clamped. "Then let him get out. That's my last word to him."

AMBUSHED

Colby Macdonald, in miner's boots and corduroy working suit, stood beside his horse with one arm thrown carelessly across its rump. He was about to start for Seven-Mile Creek Camp with twenty-seven hundred dollars in the saddlebags to pay the men there.

Diane was talking with him. "She's young and fine and spirited. Of course it was a great shock to her. She had been idealizing you. But I think she is beginning to understand things better. At any rate, she does not hate you any more. Give the girl time."

"You think she will--be reasonable?"

Mrs. Paget finished the pattern she was punching in the soft ground beside the board walk with the ferrule of her umbrella. Her eyes met his frankly.

"I don't know. But I'm sure of one thing. She'll not be reasonable, as you call it, unless you are reasonable."

"You mean--Elliot?"

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