The Cross-Cut by Courtney Ryley Cooper (best short novels .txt) 📗

Squint Rodaine might return, and the consciousness of caution bade that Fairchild not be there when he came back. Hurriedly he descended the rocks once more to turn toward town and toward Mother Howard's boarding house. He wanted to tell her what he had seen and to obtain her help and counsel.

Quickly he made the return trip, crossing the little bridge over the turbulent Clear Creek and heading toward the boarding house. Half a block away he halted, as a woman on the veranda of the big, squarely built "hotel" pointed him out, and the great figure of a man shot through the gate, shouting, and hurried toward him.

A tremendous creature he was, with red face and black hair which seemed to scramble in all directions at once, and with a mustache which appeared to scamper in even more directions than his hair. Fairchild was a large man; suddenly he felt himself puny and inconsequential as the mastodonic thing before him swooped forward, spread wide the big arms and then caught him tight in them, causing the breath to puff over his lips like the exhaust of a bellows.

A release, then Fairchild felt himself lifted and set down again. He pulled hard at his breath.

"What's the matter with you?" he exclaimed testily. "You 've made a mistake!"

"I 'm blimed if I 'ave!" bellowed a tornado-like voice. "Blime! You look just like 'im!"

"But you 're mistaken, old man!"

Fairchild was vaguely aware that the spray-like mustache was working like a dust-broom, that snappy blue eyes were beaming upon him, that the big red nose was growing redder, while a tremendous paw had seized his own hand and was doing its best to crush it.

"Blimed if I 'ave!" came again. "You're your Dad's own boy! You look just like 'im! Don't you know me?"

He stepped back then and stood grinning, his long, heavily muscled arms hanging low at his sides, his mustache trying vainly to stick out in more directions than ever. Fairchild rubbed a hand across his eyes.

"You 've got me!" came at last. "I—"

"You don't know me? 'Onest now, don't you? I 'm Arry! Don't you know now? 'Arry from Cornwall!"

CHAPTER VII

It came to Fairchild then,—the sentence in his father's letter regarding some one who would hurry to his aid when he needed him, the references of Beamish, and the allusion of Mother Howard to a faithful friend. He forgot the pain as the tremendous Cornishman banged him on the back, he forgot the surprise of it all; he only knew that he was laughing and welcoming a big man old enough in age to be his father, yet young enough in spirit to want to come back and finish a fight he had seen begun, and strong enough in physique to stand it. Again the heavy voice boomed:

"You know me now, eh?"

"You bet! You 're Harry Harkins!"

"'Arkins it is! I came just as soon as I got the cablegram!"

"The cablegram?"

"Yeh." Harry pawed at his wonderful mustache. "From Mr. Beamish, you know. 'E sent it. Said you 'd started out 'ere all alone. And I could n't stand by and let you do that. So 'ere I am!"

"But the expense, the long trip across the ocean, the—"

"'Ere I am!" said Harry again. "Ain't that enough?"

They had reached the veranda now, to stand talking for a moment, then to go within, where Mother Howard awaited, eyes glowing, in the parlor. Harry flung out both arms.

"And I still love you!" he boomed, as he caught the gray-haired, laughing woman in his arms. "Even if you did run me off and would n't go back to Cornwall!"

Red-faced, she pushed him away and slapped his cheek playfully; it was like the tap of a light breeze against granite. Then Harry turned.

"'Ave you looked at the mine?"

The question brought back to Fairchild the happenings of the morning and the memory of the man who had trailed him. He told his story, while Mother Howard listened, her arms crossed, her head bobbing, and while Harry, his big grin still on his lips, took in the details with avidity. Then for a moment a monstrous hand scrambled vaguely about in the region of the Cornishman's face, grasping a hair of that radiating mustache now and then and pulling hard at it, at last to drop,—and the grin faded.

"Le 's go up there," he said quietly.

This time the trip to Kentucky gulch was made by skirting town; soon they were on the rough, narrow roadway leading into the mountains. Both were silent for the most part, and the expression on Harry's face told that he was living again the days of the past, days when men were making those pock-marks in the hills, when the prospector and his pack jack could be seen on every trail, and when float ore in a gulley meant riches waiting somewhere above. A long time they walked, at last to stop in the shelter of the rocks where Fairchild had shadowed his pursuer, and to glance carefully ahead. No one was in sight. Harry jabbed out a big finger.

"That's it," he announced, "straight a'ead!"

They went on, Fairchild with a gripping at his throat that would not down. This had been the hope of his father—and here his father had met—what? He swerved quickly and stopped, facing the bigger man.

"Harry," came sharply, "I know that I may be violating an unspoken promise to my father. But I simply can't stand it any longer. What happened here?"

"We were mining—for silver."

"I don't mean that—there was some sort of tragedy."

Harry chuckled,—in concealment, Fairchild thought, of something he did not want to tell him.

"I should think so! The timbers gave way and the mine caved in!"

"Not that! My father ran away from this town. You and Mother Howard helped him. You didn't come back. Neither did my father. Eventually it killed him."

"So?" Harry looked seriously and studiously at the young man. "'E did n't write me of'en."

"He did n't need to write you. You were here with him—when it happened."

"No—" Harry shook his head. "I was in town."

"But you knew—"

"What's Mother Howard told you?"

"A lot—and nothing."

"I don't know any more than she does."

"But—"

"Friends did n't ask questions in those days," came quietly. "I might 'ave guessed if I 'd wanted to—but I did n't want to."

"But if you had?"

Harry looked at him with quiet, blue eyes.

"What would you guess?"

Slowly Robert Fairchild's gaze went to the ground. There was only one possible conjecture: Sissie Larsen had been impersonated by a woman. Sissie Larsen had never been seen again in Ohadi.

"I—I would hate to put it into words," came finally. Harry slapped him on the shoulder.

"Then don't. It was nearly thirty years ago. Let sleeping dogs lie. Take a look around before we go into the tunnel."

They reconnoitered, first on one side, then on the other. No one was in sight. Harry bent to the ground, and finding a pitchy pine knot, lighted it. They started cautiously within, blinking against the darkness.

A detour and they avoided an ore car, rusty and half filled, standing on the little track, now sagging on moldy ties. A moment more of walking and Harry took the lead.

"It's only a step to the shaft now," he cautioned. "Easy—easy—look out for that 'anging wall—" he held the pitch torch against the roof of the tunnel and displayed a loose, jagged section of rock, dripping with seepage from the hills above. "Just a step now—'ere it is."

The outlines of a rusty "hoist", with its cable leading down into a slanting hole in the rock, showed dimly before them,—a massive, chunky, deserted thing in the shadows. About it were clustered drills that were eaten by age and the dampness of the seepage; farther on a "skip", or shaft-car, lay on its side, half buried in mud and muck from the walls of the tunnel. Here, too, the timbers were rotting; one after another, they had cracked and caved beneath the weight of the earth above, giving the tunnel an eerie aspect, uninviting, dangerous. Harry peered ahead.

"It ain't as bad as it looks," came after a moment's survey. "It's only right 'ere at the beginning that it's caved. But that does n't do us much good."

"Why not?" Fairchild was staring with him, on toward the darkness of the farther recesses. "If it is n't caved in farther back, we ought to be able to repair this spot."

But Harry shook his head.

"We did n't go into the vein 'ere," he explained. "We figured we 'ad to 'ave a shaft anyway, sooner or later. You can't do under'and stoping in a mine—go down on a vein, you know. You 've always got to go up—you can't get the metal out if you don't. That's why we dug this shaft—and now look at it!"

He drew the flickering torch to the edge of the shaft and held it there, staring downward. Fairchild beside him. Twenty feet below there came the glistening reflection of the flaring flame. Water! Fairchild glanced toward his partner.

"I don't know anything about it," he said at last. "But I should think that would mean trouble."

"Plenty!" agreed Harry lugubriously. "That shaft's two 'unnerd feet deep and there 's a drift running off it for a couple o' 'unnerd feet more before it 'its the vein. Four 'unnerd feet of water. 'Ow much money 'ave you got?"

"About twenty-five hundred dollars."

Harry reached for his waving mustache, his haven in time of storm. Thoughtfully he pulled at it, staring meanwhile downward. Then he grunted.

"And I ain't got more 'n five 'unnerd. It ain't enough. We 'll need to repair this 'oist and put the skip in order. We 'll need to build new track and do a lot of things. Three thousand dollars ain't enough."

"But we 'll have to get that water out of there before we can do anything." Fairchild interposed. "If we can't get at the vein up here, we 'll have to get at it from below. And how 're we going to do that without unwatering that shaft?"

Again Harry pulled at his mustache.

"That's just what 'Arry 's thinking about," came his answer finally. "Le 's go back to town. I don't like to stand around this place and just look at water in a 'ole."

They turned for the mouth of the tunnel, sliding along in the greasy muck, the torch extinguished now. A moment of watchfulness from the cover of the darkness, then Harry pointed. On the opposite hill, the figure of a man had been outlined for just a second. Then he had faded. And with the disappearance of the watcher, Harry nudged his partner in the ribs and went forth into the brighter light. An hour more and they were back in town. Harry reached for his mustache again.

"Go on down to Mother 'Oward's," he commanded. "I 've got to wander around and say 'owdy to what's left of the fellows that was 'ere when I was. It's been twenty years since I 've been away, you know," he added, "and the shaft can wait."

Fairchild obeyed the instructions, looking back over his shoulder as he walked along toward the boarding house, to see the big figure of his companion loitering up the street, on the beginning of his home-coming tour. It was evident that Harry was popular. Forms rose from the loitering places on the curbings in front of the stores, voices called to him; even as the distance grew greater, Fairchild could hear the shouts of greeting which were sounding to Harry as he announced his return.

The blocks passed. Fairchild turned through the gate of Mother Howard's boarding house and went to his room to await the call for dinner. The world did not look exceptionally good to him; his brilliant dreams had not counted upon the decay of more than a quarter of a century, the slow, but sure dripping of water which had seeped through the hills and made the mine one vast well, instead of the free open gateway to riches which he had planned upon. True, there had been before him the certainty of a cave-in, but Fairchild was not a miner, and the word to him had been a vague affair. Now,