Shadow Mountain Page 20

  “Young man,” observed the Colonel, after looking at him closely, “I am a fugitive in a way, myself, but I cannot believe, from the look on your face, that your are anything else than honest. I shall respect your silence, as you respect mine, for your past is nothing to me; but if at any time I can assist you, just mention the fact and the deed is as good as done. I am a man of my word and, since true friends are rare, I beg of you not to forget me.”

  “I’ll remember that,” said Wiley, and went on with his eating as the Colonel paced up and down. He was a noble-looking man of the Southern type, tall and slender, with flashing blue eyes; and the look that he gave him reminded Wiley of Virginia, only infinitely more kind and friendly. He had been, in his day, a prince of entertainers, of the rich and poor alike; and the kick of the whiskey had roused up those genial qualities which had made him the first citizen of Keno. He laughed and told stories and cracked merry jests, yet never for a moment did he forget his incognito nor attempt to violate Wiley’s. They were gentlemen there together in the heart of the desert, and as such each was safe from intrusion. The rifle and cartridge belt, Wiley’s pistol and the sack of food, were fetched and placed in his hands; and then at the end the Colonel produced the flask of whiskey which had been slightly diluted with water.

  “Now,” he said, “we will drink a toast, my far-faring-knight of the desert. Shall it be that first toast: ‘The Ladies–God bless them!’ or─”

  “No!” answered Wiley, and the Colonel silently laughed.

  “Well said, my young friend,” he replied, nodding wisely. “Even at your age you have learned something of life. No, let it be the toast that Socrates drank, and that rare company who sat at the Banquet. To Love! they drank; but not to love of woman. To love of mankind–of Man! To Friendship! In short, here’s to you, my friend, and may you never regret this night!”

  They drank it in silence, and as Wiley sat thinking, the Colonel became reminiscent.

  “Ah, there was a company,” he said, smiling mellowly, “such as the world will never see again. Agatho and Socrates, Aristophanes and Alcibiades, the picked men of ancient Athens; lying comfortably on their couches with the food before them and inviting their souls with wine. They began in the evening and in the morning it was Socrates who had them all under the table. And yet, of all men, he was the most abstemious–he could drink or let it alone. Alcibiades, the drunkard, gave witness that night to the courage and hardihood of Socrates–how he had carried him and his armor from the battlefield of Potidæa, and outfaced the enemy at Delium; how he marched barefoot through the ice while the others, well shod, froze; and endured famine without complaining; yet again, in the feasts at the military table, he was the only person that appeared to enjoy them. There was a man, my friend, such as the world has never seen, the greatest philosopher of all time; but do you know what philosophy he taught?”

  “No, I don’t,” admitted Wiley, and the Colonel sighed as he poured out a small libation.

  “And yet,” he said, “you are a man of parts, with an education, very likely, of the best. But our schools and Universities now teach a man everything except the meaning and purpose of life. When I was in school we read our Plato and Xenophon as you now read your German and French; but what we learned, above the language itself, was the thought of that ancient time. You learn to earn money and to fight your way through life, but Socrates taught that friendship is above everything and that Truth is the Ultimate Good. But, ah well; I weary you, for each age lives unto itself, and who cares for the thoughts of an old man?”

  “No! Go on!” protested Wiley, but the Colonel sighed wearily and shook his head gloomily in thought.

  “I had a friend once,” he said at last, “who had the same rugged honesty of Socrates. He was a man of few words but I truly believe that he never told a lie. And yet,” went on the Colonel with a rueful smile, “they tell me that my friend recanted and deceived me at the last!”

  “Whotold you?” put in Wiley, suddenly rousing from his silence and the Colonel glanced at him sharply.

  “Ah, yes; well said, my friend! Who told me? Why, all of them–except my friend himself. I could not go to him with so much as a suggestion that he had betrayed the friendship of a lifetime; and he, no doubt, felt equally reluctant to explain what had never been charged. Yet I dared not approach him, for it was better to endure doubt than to suffer the certainty of his guilt. And so we drifted apart, and he moved away; and I have never seen my good friend since.”

  Wiley sat in stunned silence, but his heart leapt up at this word of vindication for Honest John. To be sure his father had refused him help, and rebuked him for heckling the Widow, but loyalty ran strong in the Holman blood and he looked up at the Colonel and smiled.

  “Next time you go inside,” he said at last, “take a chance and ask your friend.”

  “I’ll do that,” agreed the Colonel, “but it won’t be for some time because–well, I’m hiding out.”

  “Here, too,” returned Wiley, “and I’m nevergoing back. But say, listen; I’ll tell you one now. You trusted your friend, and the bunch told you that he’d betrayed you; I trusted my girl, and she told me to my face that she’d sold me out for fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand, at the most; and I lost about a million and killed a man over it, to boot. You take a chance with your friends, but when you trust a woman–you don’t take any chance at all.”

  “Ah, in self defense?” inquired the Colonel politely. “I thought I noticed a hole in your shirt. Yes, pretty close work–between your arm and your ribs. I’ve had a few close calls, myself.”

  “Yes, but what do you think,” demanded Wiley impatiently, “of a girl that will throw you down like that? I gave her the stock and to make it worth the money she turned around and ditched me. And then she looked me in the face and laughed!”

  “If you had studied,” observed the Colonel, “the Republic of Plato you would have been saved your initial mistake; for it was an axiom among the Greeks that in all things women are inferior, and never to be trusted in large affairs. The great Plato pointed out, and it has never been controverted, that women are given to concealment and spite; and that in times of danger they are timid and cowardly, and should therefore have no voice in council. In fact, in the ideal State which he conceived, they were to be herded by themselves in a community dwelling and held in common by the state. There were to be no wives and no husbands, with their quarrels and petty bickerings, but the women were to be parceled out by certain controllers of marriage and required to breed men for the state. That is going rather far, and I hardly subscribe to it, but I think they should be kept in their place.”

  “Well, they are cowardly, all right,” agreed Wiley bitterly, “but that’s better than when they fight. Because then, if you oppose them, everybody turns against you; and if you don’t, they’ve got you whipped!”

  “Put it there!” exclaimed the Colonel, striking hands with him dramatically. “I swear, we shall get along famously. There is nothing I admire more than a gentle, modest woman, an ornament to her husband and her home; but when she puts on the trousers and presumes to question and dictate, what is there left for a gentleman to do? He cannot strike her, for she is his wife and he has sworn to cherish and protect her; and yet, by the gods, she can make his life more miserable than a dozen quarrelsome men. What is there to do but what I have done–to close up my affairs and depart? If there is such a thing as love, long absence may renew it, and the sorrow may chasten her heart; but I agree with Solomon that it is better to dwell in a corner of the house-top than with a scolding woman in a wide house.”

  “You bet,” nodded Wiley. “Gimme the desert solitude, every time. Is there any more whiskey in that bottle?”

  “And yet–” mused the Colonel, “–well, here’s to our mothers! And may we ever be dutiful sons! After all, my friend, no man can escape his duty; and if duty should call us to endure a certain martyrdom we have the example of Socrates to sustain us. If report is true he had a
scolding wife–the name of Xanthippe has become a proverb–and yet what more noble than Socrates’ rebuke to his son when he behaved undutifully towards his mother? Where else in all literature will you find a more exalted statement of the duty we all owe our parents than in Socrates’ dialogue with Lamprocles, his son, as recorded in the Memorabilia of Xenophon? And if, living with Xanthippe and listening to her railings, he could yet attain to such heights of philosophy is it not possible that men like you and me might come, through his philosophy, to endure it? It is that which I am pondering while I am alone here in the desert; but my spirit is weak and that accursed camp robber made off with my volume of Plato.”

  “Well, personally,” stated Wiley, his mind on the Widow, “I think I agree more with Plato. Let ’em keep in their place and not crush into business with their talk and their double-barreled shotguns.”

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the Colonel, drawing himself up gravely, “but did you happen to come through Keno?”

  “Never mind;” grumbled Wiley, “you might be the Sheriff. Tell me more about this married man, Socrates.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXI

  The Broken Trust

  To seek always for Truth and Justice and the common good of mankind has seldom had its earthly reward but, twenty-three hundred and fifteen years after he drank the cup of hemlock, the soul of Socrates received its oration. Not that the Colonel was hipped upon the subject of the ancients, for he talked mining and showed some copper claims as well; but a similar tragedy in his own domestic life had evoked a profound admiration for Socrates. And if Wiley understood what lay behind his words he gave no hint to the Colonel. Always, morning, noon and night, he listened respectfully, his lips curling briefly at some thought; and at the end of a week the Colonel was as devoted to him as he had been formerly to his father.

  Yet when, as sometimes happened, the Colonel tried to draw him out, he shook his head stubbornly and was dumb. The problem that he had could not be solved by talk; it called for years to recover and forget; and if the Colonel once knew that his own daughter was involved he might rise up and demand a retraction. In his first rush of bitterness Wiley had stated without reservation that Virginia had sold him out for money, and the pride of the Huffs would scarcely allow this to pass unnoticed–and yet he would not retract it if he died for it. He knew from her own lips that Virginia had betrayed him, and it could never be explained away.

  If she argued that she was misled by Blount and his associates, he had warned her before she left; and if she had thought that he was doing her an injustice, that was not the way to correct it. She had accepted a trust and she had broken that trust to gain a personal profit–and that was the unpardonable sin. He could have excused her if she had weakened or made some mistake, but she had betrayed him deliberately and willfully; and as he sat off by himself, mulling it over in his mind, his eyes became stern and hard. For the killing of Stiff Neck George he had no regrets, and the treachery of Blount did not surprise him; but he had given this woman his heart to keep and she had sold him for fifty thousand dollars. All the rest became as nothing but this wound refused to heal, for he had lost his faith in womankind. Had he loved her less, or trusted her less, it would not have rankled so deep; but she had been his one woman, whose goings and comings he watched for, and all the time she was playing him false.

  He sat silent one morning in the cool shade of a wild grapevine, jerking the meat of a mountain sheep that he had killed; and as he worked mechanically, shredding the flesh into long strips, he watched the lower trail. Ten days had gone by since he had fled across the Valley, but the danger of pursuit had not passed and, as he saw a great owl that was nesting down below rise up blindly and flop away he paused and reached for his gun.

  “Never mind,” said the Colonel who had noticed the movement. “I expect an old Indian in with grub. But step into the cave and if it’s who you think it is you can count on me till the hair slips.”

  Wiley stepped in quietly, strapping on his belt and pistol, and then the Colonel burst into a roar.

  “It’s Charley,” he cried, leaping nimbly to his feet and putting up his gun. “Come on, boy–here’s where we get that drink!”

  Wiley looked out doubtfully as Heine rushed up and sniffed at the pans of meat, and then he ducked back and hid. Around the shoulder of the cliff came Death Valley Charley; but behind him, on a burro, was Virginia. He looked out again as the Colonel swore an oath and then she leapt off and ran towards them.

  “Oh–Father!” she cried and hung about his neck while the astonished Colonel kissed her doubtfully.

  “Well, well!” he protested as she fell to weeping, “what’s the cause of all this distress? Is your mother not well, or─”

  “We–we thought you were dead!” she burst out indignantly, “and Charley there knew–all the time!”

  She let go of her father and turned upon Death Valley Charley, who was solicitously attending to Heine, and the Colonel spoke up peremptorily.

  “Here, Charley!” he commanded, “let that gluttonous cur wait. What’s this I hear from Virginia? Didn’t you tell her I was perfectly well?”

  “Why–why yes, sir; I did, sir,” replied Charley, apologetically, “but–she only thought I was crazy. I told her, all the time─”

  “Oh, Charley!” reproached Virginia, “didn’t you know better than that? You only said it when you had those spells. Why didn’t you tell me when you were feeling all right–and you denied it, I know, repeatedly!”

  “The Colonel would kill me,” mumbled Charley sullenly. “He told me not to tell. But I brought you the whiskey, sir; a whole big─”

  “Never mind the whiskey,” said the Colonel sharply. “Now, let’s get to the bottom of this matter. Why should you think I was dead when I had merely absented myself─”

  “But the body!” clamored Virginia. “We got word you were lost when your burro came in at the Borax works. And when we hired trackers, the Indians said you were lost–and your body was out in the sand-hills!”

  “It was that cursed camp-robber!” declared the Colonel with conviction. “Well, I’m glad he’s gone to his reward. It was only some rascal that came through here and stole my riding burro–did they care for old Jack at the Works? Well, I shall thank them for it kindly; and anything I can do–but what’s the matter, Virginia?”

  She had drawn away from him and was gazing about anxiously and Charley had slunk guiltily away.

  “Why–where’s Wiley?” she cried, clutching her father by the arm. “Oh, isn’t he here, after all?”

  “Wiley?” repeated the Colonel. “Why, who are you talking about? I never even heard of such a man.”

  “Oh, he’s dead then; he’s lost!” she sobbed, sinking down on the ground in despair. “Oh, I knew it, all the time! But that old Charley─” She cast a hateful glance at him and the Colonel beckoned sternly.

  “What now?” he demanded as Charley sidled near. “Who is this Mr. Wiley?”

  “Why–er–Wiley; Wiley Holman, you know. I followed his tracks to the Gateway. Ain’t he around here somewhere? I found this bottle─” He held up the flask that he had given to Wiley, and the Colonel started back with a cry.

  “What, a tall young fellow with leather puttees?”

  “Oh, yes, yes!” answered Virginia, suddenly springing to her feet again. “We followed him–isn’t he here?”

  The Colonel turned slowly and glanced at the cave, where Wiley was still hiding close, and then he cleared his throat.

  “Well, kindly explain first why you should be following this gentleman, and─”

  “Oh, he’s here, then!” sighed Virginia and fell into her father’s arms, at which Charley scuttled rapidly away.

  “Mr. Holman,” spoke up the Colonel, as Wiley did not stir, “may I ask you to come out here and explain?”

  There was a rustle inside the cave and at last Wiley came out, stuffing a strip of dried meat into his hip pocket.

  “I’l
l come out, yes,” he said, “but, as I’m about to go, I’ll leave it to your daughter to explain.”

  He picked up his canteen and started down to the water-hole, but the Colonel called him sternly back.

  “My friend,” he said, “it is the custom among gentlemen to answer a courteous question. I must ask you then what there is between you and my daughter, and why she should follow you across Death Valley?”

  “There is nothing between us,” answered Wiley categorically, “and I don’t know why she followed me–that is, if she really did.”

  “Well, I did!” sobbed Virginia, burying her face on her father’s breast, “but I wish I hadn’t now!”

  “Huh!” grunted Wiley and stumped off down the trail where he filled his canteen at the pool. He was mad, mad all over, and yet he experienced a strange thrill at the thought of Virginia following him. He had left her smiling and shaking hands with Blount, but a curse had been on the money, and her conscience had forced her to follow him. It had been easy, for her, with a burro to ride on and Death Valley Charley to guide her; but with him it had been different. He had fled from arrest and it was only by accident that he had won to the water-hole in time. But yet, she had followed him; and now she would apologize and explain, as she had explained it all once before. Well, since she had come–and since the Colonel was watching him–he shouldered his canteen and came back.

  “My daughter tells me,” began the Colonel formally, “that you are the son of my old friend, John Holman; and I trust that you will take my hand.”

  He held out his hand and Wiley blinked as he returned the warm clasp of his friend. Ten days of companionship in the midst of that solitude had knitted their souls together and he loved the old Colonel like a father.