Books: The Long Chance
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Peter B. Kyne >> The Long Chance
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"Mrs. McGraw" he said finally, "on the word of no less a personage than
your husband, you're some bride."
"Mr. McGraw" she retorted, "on the word of no less a personage than
your wife, you are _some_ bridegroom. Why _did_ you forget
the ring?"
Why did he forget the ring? Really, it did seem likely that he must
quarrel with his wife before they had been married ten minutes. How
strangely obtuse she was to-day!
"Why, Donna" he protested, "how should I know? I never was married
before, and besides I was thinking of something else all day." He
slapped his vest pocket and cupped a hand to an ear, in a listening
attitude.
"Did you hear a faint jingle?" he queried solemnly.
She pinched his arm, interrupting his flow of nonsense. Women who
dearly love their husbands delight in teasing them, and as Donna turned
her radiant face to his Bob fancied he could detect a secret jest
peeping at him from the ceiled shelter of her drowsy-lidded eyes. Yes,
without a doubt she was laughing at him--and he as poor as a church-
mouse. He frowned.
"This is no laughing matter, Mrs. McGraw."
The roguish look deepened.
"Now, what else have I done?" he demanded.
"Nothing--yet. But you're contemplating it."
"Contemplating what?"
"Telegraphing Harley P. Hennage."
"Friend wife" said Bob McGraw, "you should hang out your shingle as a
seeress. You forecast coming events so cleverly that perhaps you can
inform me whether or not we are to walk back to San Pasqual, living
like gypsies en route."
"Why, no, stupid. I have money enough for our honeymoon."
"Donna" he began sternly, "if I had thought--"
"You wouldn't have consented to such a hasty marriage. Of course. I
knew that--so I contrived to have my way about it. And I'm going to
have my way about this honeymoon, too. Five minutes ago I couldn't have
offered you money, but I have the right to do so now. But I would not
hurt your feelings for the world. I'll loan you six hundred dollars on
approved security."
He shook his head. "You can't mix sentiment and business, Donna, and I
have no security. Besides, I'm not quite a cad."
"Oh, very well, dear. I know your code and I wouldn't run counter to it
for a--well for a water right in Owens Valley--notwithstanding the fact
that I took you for richer or for poorer. And I did figure on a
honeymoon, Bob."
He threw up his hands in token of submission. "I'll accept" he said,
although he was painfully embarrassed. She was making the happiest day
of his life a little miserable, and for the first time he experienced a
fleeting regret that Donna's ideals were not formed on a more masculine
basis. By the exercise of her compelling power over him she had him in
her toils and he was helpless. Nothing remained for him to do save make
the best of a situation, the acceptance of which filled him with
chagrin.
"Don't pull such a dolorous countenance, Bob. Why, your face is as long
as Friar Tuck's. I promise I will not harass you with the taunt that
you married me for my money. In fact, my husband, it's the other way
around. I might accord you that privilege."
She drew his arm through hers. "I have a little wedding present for
you, Bobby dear" she began. "I'm going to tell you a little story, and
now please don't interrupt. You know all summer you were up in the
mountains, and after that you were rather in jail at the Hat Ranch,
where I didn't bring you any newspapers. Consequently, from being out
of the world so long, you haven't heard the latest news about Owens
Valley. I heard it before you left San Pasqual, but I wouldn't tell
you. I wanted to keep the news for a wedding present.
"For several months something very mysterious has been going on in our
part of the world. There has been a force of surveyors and engineers in
the valley searching for a permanent water supply for some great
purpose, though nobody can guess what it is. But it's a fact that a
pile of money has been spent in Long Valley, above Owens Valley, and
more is to be spent if it can buy water. The chief engineer of the
outfit read in the paper at Independence the account of your filing at
Cottonwood Lake and he has had men searching for you ever since. One of
them called to interview you at San Pasqual, for, like T. Morgan Carey,
they had traced you that far. He came into the eating-house and asked
me if I knew anybody in town by the name of Robert McGraw. I told him I
did not--which wasn't a fib because you weren't in town at the time.
You were in bed at the Hat Ranch. An engineer was with him and while
they were at luncheon I overheard them discussing your water-right. The
engineer declared that the known feature alone made the location worth
a million dollars. Do you like my wedding present, dear?"
He pressed her arm but did not answer. She continued.
"I talked over the matter of water and power rights with Harley P. and
he says they will pay a big price for anything like you have. I didn't
tell him you owned a power and water-right--just mentioned that I knew
a man who owned one. Since then I've been reading up on the subject and
I discovered that you have enough water to develop three times the
acreage you plan to acquire. One miner's inch to the acre will be
sufficient in that country. So you see, Bob, you're a rich man. That
explains why Carey was so anxious to find you. He wanted to buy from
you cheap and sell to those people dear. Why, you're the queerest kind
of a rich man. Bob. You're water poor. Don't you see, now, why you can
take my money? You have three times more water than you need; you can
sell some of it--"
Bob paused, facing his bride. "And you knew all this a month ago and
didn't write me!"
"I was saving it for to-day. I wanted this to be the happiest day of
our lives,"
"Ah, how happy you've made me!" he said. His voice trembled just a
little and Donna, glancing quickly up at him, detected a suspicious
moisture in his eyes.
Until that moment she had never fully realized the intensity of the
man's nature--the extent of worry and suffering that could lie behind
those smiling eyes and never show! She saw that a great burden had
suddenly been lifted from him, and with the necessity for further
dissembling removed, his strong face was for the moment glorified. She
realized now the torture to which she had subjected him by her own
tenderness and repression; while their marriage had been a marvelous--a
wonderful--event to her, to him it had been fraught with terror,
despite his great love, and her thoughts harked back to the night she
and Harley P. Hennage had carried him home to the Hat Ranch. Harley P.
had told her that night that Bob would "stand the acid." How well he
could stand it, only she, who had applied it, would ever know.
"Forgive me, dear" she faltered. "If I had only realized--"
"Isn't it great to be married?" he queried. "And to think I was afraid
to face it without the price of a honeymoon!"
"You won't have to worry any more. You're rich. You can sell half the
water and we will never go back to San Pasqual any more."
His face clouded. "I can't do that" he said doggedly.
"Why not?" she asked, frightened.
"Because I'll need every drop of it. I've started a fight and I'm going
to finish it. You told me once that if I sold out my Pagans for money
to marry you, you'd be disappointed in me--that if I should start
something that was big and noble and worthy of me, I'd have to go
through to the finish. Donna, I'm going through. I may lose on a foul,
but I'm not fighting for a draw decision. I schemed for thirty-two
thousand acres, and if I get that I have the land ring blocked. But
there are hundreds--thousands--of acres further south that I can reach
with my canals, and I cannot rest content with a half-way job. The land
ring cannot grab the desert south of Donnaville, because they haven't
sufficient water, and if they had I wouldn't give them a right of way
through my land for their canals, and I wouldn't sell water to their
dummy entrymen. I want that valley for the men who have never had a
chance. I've got the water and it's mine in trust for posterity. It
belongs to Inyo and I'm going to keep it there."
She did not reply. When they reached the hotel, instead of registering,
as Donna expected he would, Bob went to the baggage-room and secured
her suit-case which he had checked there two hours before. She watched
him with brimming eyes, but with never a word of complaint. He was
right, and if the two weeks' honeymoon that she had planned was not to
be, it was she who had prevented it. She had set her husband a mighty
task and bade him finish it, and despite the pain and disappointment of
a return to San Pasqual the same day she had left it, a secret joy
mingled with her bitterness.
Poor Donna! She was proud and happy in the knowledge that her husband
had proved himself equal to the task, but she found it hard, very hard,
to be a Pagan on her wedding day.
Bob brought their baggage and set it by her side. "Watch it for a few
minutes, Donna, please" he said. "I forgot something."
He found a seat for her and she waited until his return.
"Have you got that six hundred with you, Donna?" he asked gravely.
She opened her hand-bag and showed him a roll of twenty dollar pieces.
"Good," he replied, in the same grave, even tones. "Here is my
promissory note, at seven per cent, for the amount, payable one day
after date, and this other document is an assignment of a one-half
interest in my water-right, to secure the payment of my note."
He handed them to her. In silence she gave him the money.
"Are you quite ready, Donna? I think we had better start now" he said.
She nodded. She could not trust herself to speak for the sobs that
crowded in her throat. He observed the tears and stooped over her
tenderly.
"Why, what's the matter, little wife?"
"It's--it's--a little hard--to have to give up--our honeymoon" she
quavered.
"Why, Mrs. Donna Corblay Robert McGraw! Is that the trouble? Well,
you're a model Pagan and I'm proud of you, but you don't know the Big
Chief Pagan after all! Why, we're not going back to San Pasqual for a
week or ten days. I was so busy thinking of all I have to do that I
must have forgotten to tell you that we're going up to the Yosemite
Valley on our honeymoon. I want to show my wife some mountains with
grass and trees on them--the meadows and the Merced river and the
wonderful waterfalls, the birds and the bees and all the other
wonderful sights she's been dreaming of all her life."
She carefully tore the promissory note and the assignment of interest
into little bits and let them flutter to the floor. The tears were
still quivering on her beautiful lashes, but they were tears of joy,
now, and her sense of humor had come to her rescue.
"Foolish man" she retorted, "don't you realize that one cannot mix
sentiment and business? Be sensible, my tall husband. You're so
impulsive. Please register and have that baggage sent up to our room,
and then let me have a hundred dollars. I want to spend it on a dandy
tailored suit and some other things that I shall require on our
honeymoon. In all my life I have never been shopping, and I want to be
happy to-day--all day."
"Tell you what we'll do" he suggested. "Let's not think of the future
at all. I'm tired of this to-morrow bugaboo."
"I'm not. We're going honeymooning to-morrow."
Harley P. Hennage had at length fallen a victim to the most virulent
disease in San Pasqual. For two days he had been consumed with
curiosity; on the third day he realized that unless the mystery of
Donna Corblay's absence from her job could be satisfactorily explained
by the end of the week, he would furnish a description of Donna to a
host of private detectives, with instructions to spare no expense in
locating her, dead or alive.
Donna's absence from the eating-house the first day had aroused no
suspicion in Mr. Hennage's mind. It was her day off, and he knew this.
But when Mr. Hennage appeared in the eating-house for his meals the day
following, Donna's absence from the cashier's desk impelled him to mild
speculation, and when on the third morning he came in to breakfast
purposely late only to find Donna's substitute still on duty, he
realized that the time for action had arrived.
"That settles it" he murmured into his second cup of coffee. "That poor
girl is sick and nobody in town gives three whoops in a holler. I'll
just run down to the Hat Ranch to-night an' see if I can't do somethin'
for her."
Which, safe under cover of darkness, he accordingly did. At the Hat
Ranch Mr. Hennage was informed by Sam Singer that his young mistress
had boarded the train for Bakersfield three days previous, after
informing Sam and his squaw that she would not return for two weeks.
Under Mr. Hennage's critical cross-examination Soft Wind furnished the
information that Donna had taken her white suit and all of her best
clothes.
"Ah," murmured Mr. Hennage, "as the feller says, I apprehend."
He did, indeed. A great light had suddenly burst upon Mr. Hennage. Both
by nature and training he was possessed of the ability to assimilate a
hint without the accompaniment of a kick, and in the twinkling of an
eye the situation was as plain to him as four aces and a king, with the
entire company standing pat.
He smote his thigh, "Well I'll be ding-swizzled and everlastingly
flabbergasted. Lit out to get married an' never said a word to nobody.
Pulls out o' town, dressed in her best suit o' clothes, like old man
McGinty, an' heads north. Uh-huh! Bob McGraw's at the bottom o' this.
He started south the day before, an' he ain't arrived in San Pasqual
yet."
He sat down at Donna's kitchen table and drew a letter and a telegram
from his pocket.
"Huh! Huh--hum--m--m! Writes me on Monday from Sacramento that he's
busted, an' to send him a money order to San Francisco, General
Delivery. Letter postmarked ten thirty A. M. Then he wires me from
Stockton, the same day, to disregard letter an' telegraph him fifty at
Stockton. Telegram received about one P. M. Well, sir, that tells the
story. The young feller flopped by the wayside an' spent his last blue
chip on this telegram. I wire him the fifty, he wires her to meet him
in Bakersfield, most likely, an' they're goin' to get married on my
fifty dollars. _On my fifty dollars!_"
Mr. Hennage looked up from the telegram and fastened upon Sam Singer an
inquiring look, as if he expected the Indian to inform him what good
reason, if any, existed, why Bob McGraw should not immediately be
apprehended by the proper authorities and confined forthwith in a
padded cell.
"I do wish that dog-gone boy'd took me into his confidence," mourned
the gambler, "but that's always the way. Nobody ever trusts me with
nuthin'. Damn it! _Fifty dollars!_ I'll give that Bob hell for
this--a-marryin' that fine girl on a shoestring an' me a-hangin' around
town with upward o' six thousand iron men in the kitty. It ain't fair.
If they was married in San Pasqual I wouldn't butt in nohow, but bein'
married some place else, where none of us is known, I'd a took a chance
an' butted in. I ain't one o' the presumin' kind, but if I'd a-been
asked I'd a-butted in! You can bet your scalp, Sam, if I'd a-had the
givin' away o' that blushin' bride, I'd 'a shoved across a stack o'
blue chips with her that'd 'a set them young folks on their feet. Oh,
hell's bells! If that ain't plumb removin' the limit! Sam, you'd orter
be right thankful you're only an Injun. If you was a human bein' you'd
know what it is to have your feelin's hurt."
He smote the table with his fist. "Serves me right," he growled. "There
ain't no fun in life for a man that lives off the weaknesses of other
people," and with this self-accusing remark Mr. Hennage, feeling
slighted and neglected, returned to his game in the Silver Dollar
saloon. He was preoccupied and unhappy, and that night he lost five
hundred dollars.
Bright and early next morning, however, the gambler went to the public
telephone station and called up the principal hotel in Bakersfield. He
requested speech with either Mr. or Mrs. Robert McGraw. After some
delay he was informed that Mr. and Mrs. McGraw had left the day before,
without leaving a forwarding address.
"Well, I won't say nothin' about it until they do" was the conclusion
at which Mr. Hennage finally arrived. "Of course it's just possible I
happened across the trail of another family o' McGraws, but I'm layin'
two to one I didn't."
And having thus ferreted out Donna's secret, Harley P., like a true
sport, proceeded to forget it. He moused around the post-office a
little and put forth a few discreet feelers here and there, in order to
discover whether San Pasqual, generally speaking, was at all
interested. He discovered that it was not. In fact, in all San Pasqual
the only interested person was Mrs. Pennycook, who heaved a sigh of
relief at the thought that her Dan was, for the nonce, outside the
sphere of Donna's influence.
In the meantime Donna and Bob, in the beautiful Yosemite, rode and
tramped through ten glorious, blissful days. It would be impossible to
attempt to describe in adequate fashion the delights of that honeymoon.
To Donna, so suddenly transported from the glaring drab lifeless desert
to this great natural park, the first sight of the valley had been a
glimpse into Paradise. She was awed by the sublimity of nature, and all
that first day she hardly spoke, even to Bob. Such happiness was
unbelievable. She was almost afraid to speak, lest she awaken and find
herself back in San Pasqual. As for Bob, he had resolutely set himself
to the task of forgetting the future--at least during their honeymoon.
He forgot about the thirty-nine thousand dollars he required, he forgot
about Donnaville; and had even the most lowly of his Pagans interfered
with his happiness for one single fleeting second, Mr. McGraw would
assuredly have slain him instanter and then laughed at the tragedy.
It was very late in the season and the vivid green which, comes with
spring had departed from the valley. But if it had, so also had the
majority of tourists, and Bob and Donna had the hotel largely to
themselves. Each day they journeyed to some distant portion of the
valley, carrying their luncheon, and returning at nightfall to the
hotel. After dinner they would sit together on the veranda, watching
the moon rise over the rim of that wonderful valley, listening to the
tree-toads in noisy convention or hearkening to the "plunk" of a trout
leaping in the river below. Hardly a breath of air stirred in the
valley. All was peace. It was an Eden.
On the last night of their stay, Bob broached for the first time the
subject of their future.
"We must start for--for home to-morrow, Donna" he said. "At least you
must. You have a home to go to. As for me, I've got to go into the
desert and strike one final blow for Donnaville. I've got to take one
more long chance for a quick little fortune before I give up and sell
my Pagans into bondage."
"Yes" she replied heedlessly. She had him with her now; the shadow of
impending separation had not yet fallen upon her.
"What are your plans, Donna?" he asked.
"My plans?"
"Yes. Is it still your intention to keep on working?"
"Why not? I must do something. I must await you somewhere, so why not
at San Pasqual? It is cheaper there and it will help if I can be self-
supporting until you come back. Besides, I'd rather work than sit idle
around the Hat Ranch."
He made no reply to this. He had already threshed the matter over in
his mind and there was no answer.
"I'll accompany you as far as San Pasqual, Donna. We'll go south to-
morrow and arrive at San Pasqual, shortly after dark. I'll escort you
to the Hat Ranch, change into my desert togs, saddle Friar Tuck and
light out. I'll ride to Keeler and sell horse and saddle and spurs
there. At Keeler I'll buy two burros and outfit for my trip; then
strike east, via Darwin or Coso Springs."
"How long will you be in the desert?"
"About six months, I think. I'll come out late in the spring when it
begins to get real hot. Do you think you can wait that long?"
"I think so. Will it be possible for me to write to you in the
meantime?"
"Perhaps. I'll leave word in the miners' outfitting store at Danby and
you can address me there. Then, if some prospector should be heading
out my way they'll send out my letters. My claims are forty miles from
Danby, over near Old Woman mountain. If I meet any prospectors going
out toward the railroad, I'll write you."
"The days will be very long until you come back, dear, but I'll be
patient. I realize what it means to you, and Donnaville is worth the
sacrifice. You know I told you I wanted to help."
"You are helping--more than you realize. You'll be safe until I get
back?"
"I've always been safe at the Hat Ranch, but if I should need a friend
I can call on Harley P. He isn't one of the presuming kind"--Donna
smiled--"but he will stand the acid."
"And you will not worry if you do not receive any letters from me all
the time I am away?"
"I shall know what to expect, Bob, so I shall not worry--very much."
They left the Yosemite early next morning, staging down to El Portal,
and shortly after dusk the same evening they arrived at San Pasqual.
There were few people at the station when the train pulled in, and none
that Donna knew, except the station agent and his assistants; and as
these worthies were busy up at the baggage car, Bob and Donna alighted
at the rear end and under the friendly cover of darkness made their way
down to the Hat Ranch.
Sam Singer and Soft Wind had not yet retired, and after seeing his
bride safe in her home once more, Bob McGraw prepared to leave her.
She was sorely tempted, at that final test of separation, to plead with
him to abandon his journey, to stay with her and their new-found
happiness and leave to another the gigantic task of reclaiming the
valley. It was such a forlorn hope, after all; she began to question
his right to stake their future against that of persons to whom he owed
no allegiance, until she remembered that a great work must ever require
great sacrifice; that her share in this sacrifice was little, indeed,
compared with his. Moreover, he had set his face to this task before he
had met her--she would not be worthy of him if she asked him to abandon
it now.
"I must go" he said huskily. "The moon will be up by ten o'clock and I
can make better time traveling by moonlight than I can after sun-up."
She clung to him for one breathless second; then, with a final caress
she sent him forth to battle for his Pagans.
She was back at the cashier's counter in the eating-house the next
morning when Harley P. Hennage came in for his breakfast.
"Hello, Miss Donna" the unassuming one greeted her cordially. "Where've
you been an' when did you get back to San Pasqual? Why, I like to 'a
died o' grief. Thought you'd run away an' got married an' left us for
good."
He watched her narrowly and noted the little blush that marked the
landing of his apparently random shot.
"I've been away on my first vacation, went up to Yosemite Valley. I got
back last night."
"Glad of it" replied Mr. Hennage heartily. "Enjoy yourself?"
"It was glorious."
He talked with her for a few minutes, then waddled to his favorite seat
and ordered his ham and eggs.
"Well, she didn't fib to me, at any rate, even if she didn't tell the
whole truth" he soliloquized. "But what's chewin' the soul out o' me is
this: 'How in Sam Hill did they make fifty dollars go that far?' If I
was gettin' married, fifty dollars wouldn't begin to pay for the first
round o' drinks."
It had not escaped the gambler's observing eye that Donna had been
crying, so immediately after breakfast Mr. Hennage strolled over to the
feed corral, leaned his arms on the top rail and carefully scanned the
herd of horses within.
Bob McGraw's little roan cayuse was gone!
"Well, if that don't beat the Dutch!" exclaimed Mr. Hennage
disgustedly. "If that young feller ain't one fool of a bridegroom, a-
runnin' away from his bride like this! For quick moves that feller's
got the California flea faded to a whisper. Two weeks ago he was a-
practicin' law in Sacramento, a-puttin' through a deal in lieu lands;
then he jumps to Stockton an' wires me for fifty dollars; then he hops
to Bakersfield an' gits married, after which he lands in the Yosemite
Valley on his honeymoon. From there he jumps to San Pasqual, an' from
San Pasqual he fades away into the desert an' leaves his bride at home
a-weepin' an' a-cryin'. I don't understand this business nohow, an'
I'll be dog-goned if I'm a-goin' to try. It's too big an order."
Three days later Harley P. Hennage wished that he had not been so
inquisitive. That glance into the feed corral was to cost him many a
pang and many a dollar; for, with rare exceptions, there is no saying
so true as this: that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
CHAPTER XV
The once prosperous mining camp of Garlock is a name and a memory now.
Were it not that the railroad has been built in from San Pasqual a
hundred and fifty miles up country through the Mojave, Garlock would be
a memory only. But some official of the road, imbued, perhaps, with a
remnant of sentimental regret for the fast-vanishing glories of the
past, has caused to be erected beside the track a white sign carrying
the word Garlock in black letters; otherwise one would scarcely realize
that once a thriving camp stood in the sands back of this sign-board of
the past. Even in the days when the stage line operated between San
Pasqual and Keeler, Garlock had run its race and the Argonauts had
moved on, leaving the rusty wreck of an old stamp-mill, the decayed
fragments of half a dozen pine shanties and a few adobe _casas_
with the sod roofs fallen in.
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