Zane Grey (22 page)

A couple of miles farther on creek and road entered the mouth of a wide
spruce-timbered gulch. These trees hid any view of the slopes or floor
of the gulch, and it was not till several more miles had been passed
that the bandit rode out into what Joan first thought was a hideous
slash in the forest made by fire. But it was only the devastation
wrought by men. As far as she could see the timber was down, and
everywhere began to be manifested signs that led her to expect
habitations. No cabins showed, however, in the next mile. They passed
out of the timbered part of the gulch into one of rugged, bare, and
stony slopes, with bunches of sparse alder here and there. The gulch
turned at right angles and a great gray slope shut out sight of what
lay beyond. But, once round that obstruction, Kells halted his men with
short, tense exclamation.

Joan saw that she stood high up on the slope, looking down upon the
gold-camp. It was an interesting scene, but not beautiful. To Kells it
must have been so, but to Joan it was even more hideous than the slash
in the forest. Here and there, everywhere, were rude dugouts, little
huts of brush, an occasional tent, and an occasional log cabin; and
as she looked farther and farther these crude habitations of miners
magnified in number and in dimensions till the white and black broken,
mass of the town choked the narrow gulch.

"Wal, boss, what do you say to thet diggin's?" demanded Jesse Smith.

Kells drew a deep breath. "Old forty-niner, this beats all I ever saw!"

"Shore I've seen Sacramento look like thet!" added Bate Wood.

Pearce and Cleve gazed with fixed eyes, and, however different their
emotions, they rivaled each other in attention.

"Jesse, what's the word?" queried Kells, with a sharp return to the
business of the matter.

"I've picked a site on the other side of camp. Best fer us," he replied.

"Shall we keep to the road?"

"Certain-lee," he returned, with his grin.

Kells hesitated, and felt of his beard, probably conjecturing the
possibilities of recognition.

"Whiskers make another man of you. Reckon you needn't expect to be known
over here."

That decided Kells. He pulled his sombrero well down, shadowing his
face. Then he remembered Joan and made a slight significant gesture at
her mask.

"Kells, the people in this here camp wouldn't look at an army ridin'
through," responded Smith. "It's every man fer hisself. An' wimmen, say!
there's all kinds. I seen a dozen with veils, an' them's the same
as masks." Nevertheless, Kells had Joan remove the mask and pull her
sombrero down, and instructed her to ride in the midst of the group.
Then they trotted on, soon catching up with the jogging pack-train.

What a strange ride that was for Joan! The slope resembled a magnified
ant-hill with a horde of frantic ants in action. As she drew closer she
saw these ants were men, digging for gold. Those near at hand could be
plainly seen—rough, ragged, bearded men and smooth-faced boys. Farther
on and up the slope, along the waterways and ravines, were miners so
close they seemed almost to interfere with one another. The creek
bottom was alive with busy, silent, violent men, bending over the water,
washing and shaking and paddling, all desperately intent upon something.
They had not time to look up. They were ragged, unkempt, barearmed and
bare-legged, every last one of them with back bent. For a mile or more
Kells's party trotted through this part of the diggings, and everywhere,
on rocky bench and gravel bar and gray slope, were holes with men
picking and shoveling in them. Some were deep and some were shallow;
some long trenches and others mere pits. If all of these prospectors
were finding gold, then gold was everywhere. And presently Joan did not
need to have Kells tell her that all of these diggers were finding dust.
How silent they were—how tense! They were not mechanical. It was a soul
that drove them. Joan had seen many men dig for gold, and find a little
now and then, but she had never seen men dig when they knew they were
going to strike gold. That made the strange difference.

Joan calculated she must have seen a thousand miners in less than two
miles of the gulch, and then she could not see up the draws and washes
that intersected the slope, and she could not see beyond the camp.

But it was not a camp which she was entering; it was a tent-walled
town, a city of squat log cabins, a long, motley, checkered jumble of
structures thrown up and together in mad haste. The wide road split it
in the middle and seemed a stream of color and life. Joan rode
between two lines of horses, burros, oxen, mules, packs and loads and
canvas-domed wagons and gaudy vehicles resembling gipsy caravans. The
street was as busy as a beehive and as noisy as a bedlam. The sidewalks
were rough-hewn planks and they rattled under the tread of booted men.
There were tents on the ground and tents on floors and tents on log
walls. And farther on began the lines of cabins-stores and shops and
saloons—and then a great, square, flat structure with a flaring sign in
crude gold letters, "Last Nugget," from which came the creak of iddles
and scrape of boots, and hoarse mirth. Joan saw strange, wild-looking
creatures—women that made her shrink; and several others of her sex,
hurrying along, carrying sacks or buckets, worn and bewildered-looking
women, the sight of whom gave her a pang. She saw lounging Indians and
groups of lazy, bearded men, just like Kells's band, and gamblers in
long, black coats, and frontiersmen in fringed buckskin, and Mexicans
with swarthy faces under wide, peaked sombreros; and then in great
majority, dominating that stream of life, the lean and stalwart miners,
of all ages, in their check shirts and high boots, all packing guns,
jostling along, dark-browed, somber, and intent. These last were the
workers of this vast beehive; the others were the drones, the parasites.

Kell's party rode on through the town, and Smith halted them beyond the
outskirts, near a grove of spruce-trees, where camp was to be made.

Joan pondered over her impression of Alder Creek. It was confused; she
had seen too much. But out of what she had seen and heard loomed two
contrasting features: a throng of toiling miners, slaves to their lust
for gold and actuated by ambitions, hopes, and aims, honest, rugged,
tireless workers, but frenzied in that strange pursuit; and a lesser
crowd, like leeches, living for and off the gold they did not dig with
blood of hand and sweat of brow.

Manifestly Jesse Smith had selected the spot for Kells's permanent
location at Alder Creek with an eye for the bandit's peculiar needs. It
was out of sight of town, yet within a hundred rods of the nearest huts,
and closer than that to a sawmill. It could be approached by a shallow
ravine that wound away toward the creek. It was backed up against a
rugged bluff in which there was a narrow gorge, choked with pieces of
weathered cliff; and no doubt the bandits could go and come in that
direction. There was a spring near at hand and a grove of spruce-trees.
The ground was rocky, and apparently unfit for the digging of gold.

While Bate Wood began preparations for supper, and Cleve built the fire,
and Smith looked after the horses, Kells and Pearce stepped off the
ground where the cabin was to be erected. They selected a level bench
down upon which a huge cracked rock, as large as a house, had rolled.
The cabin was to be backed up against this stone, and in the rear, under
cover of it, a secret exit could be made and hidden. The bandit wanted
two holes to his burrow.

When the group sat down to the meal the gulch was full of sunset colors.
And, strangely, they were all some shade of gold. Beautiful golden
veils, misty, ethereal, shone in rays across the gulch from the broken
ramparts; and they seemed so brilliant, so rich, prophetic of the
treasures of the hills. But that golden sunset changed. The sun went
down red, leaving a sinister shadow over the gulch, growing darker and
darker. Joan saw Cleve thoughtfully watching this transformation, and
she wondered if he had caught the subtle mood of nature. For whatever
had been the hope and brightness, the golden glory of this new Eldorado,
this sudden uprising Alder Creek with its horde of brave and toiling
miners, the truth was that Jack Kells and Gulden had ridden into the
camp and the sun had gone down red. Joan knew that great mining-camps
were always happy, rich, free, lucky, honest places till the fame of
gold brought evil men. And she had not the slightest doubt that the sun
of Alder Creek's brief and glad day had set forever.

Twilight was stealing down from the hills when Kells announced to his
party: "Bate, you and Jesse keep camp. Pearce, you look out for any of
the gang. But meet in the dark!... Cleve, you can go with me." Then he
turned to Joan. "Do you want to go with us to see the sights or would
you rather stay here?"

"I'd like to go, if only I didn't look so—so dreadful in this suit,"
she replied.

Kells laughed, and the camp-fire glare lighted the smiling faces of
Pearce and Smith.

"Why, you'll not be seen. And you look far from dreadful."

"Can't you give me a—a longer coat?" faltered Joan.

Cleve heard, and without speaking he went to his saddle and unrolled his
pack. Inside a slicker he had a gray coat. Joan had seen it many a time,
and it brought a pang with memories of Hoadley. Had that been years ago?
Cleve handed this coat to Joan.

"Thank you," she said.

Kells held the coat for her and she slipped into it. She seemed lost. It
was long, coming way below her hips, and for the first time in days she
felt she was Joan Randle again.

"Modesty is all very well in a woman, but it's not always
becoming," remarked Kells. "Turn up your collar.... Pull down your
hat—farther—There! If you won't go as a youngster now I'll eat Dandy
Dale's outfit and get you silk dresses. Ha-ha!"

Joan was not deceived by his humor. He might like to look at her in
that outrageous bandit costume; it might have pleased certain vain
and notoriety-seeking proclivities of his, habits of his California
road-agent days; but she felt that notwithstanding this, once she had
donned the long coat he was relieved and glad in spite of himself. Joan
had a little rush of feeling. Sometimes she almost liked this bandit.
Once he must have been something very different.

They set out, Joan between Kells and Cleve. How strange for her! She
had daring enough to feel for Jim's hand in the dark and to give it a
squeeze. Then he nearly broke her fingers. She felt the fire in him. It
was indeed a hard situation for him. The walking was rough, owing to the
uneven road and the stones. Several times Joan stumbled and her spurs
jangled. They passed ruddy camp-fires, where steam and smoke arose with
savory odors, where red-faced men were eating; and they passed other
camp-fires, burned out and smoldering. Some tents had dim lights,
throwing shadows on the canvas, and others were dark. There were men on
the road, all headed for town, gay, noisy and profane.

Then Joan saw uneven rows of lights, some dim and some bright, and
crossing before them were moving dark figures. Again Kells bethought
himself of his own disguise, and buried his chin in his scarf and pulled
his wide-brimmed hat down so that hardly a glimpse of his face could be
seen. Joan could not have recognized him at the distance of a yard.

They walked down the middle of the road, past the noisy saloons,
past the big, flat structure with its sign "Last Nugget" and its open
windows, where shafts of light shone forth, and all the way down to the
end of town. Then Kells turned back. He scrutinized each group of men he
met. He was looking for members of his Border Legion. Several times he
left Cleve and Joan standing in the road while he peered into saloons.
At these brief intervals Joan looked at Cleve with all her heart in her
eyes. He never spoke. He seemed under a strain. Upon the return, when
they reached the Last Nugget, Kells said:

"Jim, hang on to her like grim death! She's worth more than all the gold
in Alder Creek!"

Then they started for the door.

Joan clung to Cleve on one side, and on the other, instinctively with a
frightened girl's action, she let go Kells's arm and slipped her hand in
his. He seemed startled. He bent to her ear, for the din made ordinary
talk indistinguishable. That involuntary hand in his evidently had
pleased and touched him, even hurt him, for his whisper was husky.

"It's all right—you're perfectly safe."

First Joan made out a glare of smoky lamps, a huge place full of smoke
and men and sounds. Kells led the way slowly. He had his own reason for
observance. There was a stench that sickened Joan—a blended odor of
tobacco and rum and wet sawdust and smoking oil. There was a noise that
appeared almost deafening—the loud talk and vacant laughter of drinking
men, and a din of creaky fiddles and scraping boots and boisterous
mirth. This last and dominating sound came from an adjoining room, which
Joan could see through a wide opening. There was dancing, but Joan could
not see the dancers because of the intervening crowd. Then her gaze came
back to the features nearer at hand. Men and youths were lined up to a
long bar nearly as high as her head. Then there were excited shouting
groups round gambling games. There were men in clusters, sitting on
upturned kegs, round a box for a table, and dirty bags of gold-dust were
in evidence. The gamblers at the cards were silent, in strange contrast
with the others; and in each group was at least one dark-garbed,
hard-eyed gambler who was not a miner. Joan saw boys not yet of age,
flushed and haggard, wild with the frenzy of winning and cast down in
defeat. There were jovial, grizzled, old prospectors to whom this
scene and company were pleasant reminders of bygone days. There were
desperados whose glittering eyes showed they had no gold with which to
gamble.