FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
FORTUNE 
 AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 By 
 CAMILLA KENYON 
 
 jJuthar 0} 
 SPANISH DOUBLOONS 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1921 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PBE33 OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & CO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. V. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 M530836 
 
FORTUNE 
 AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 I SUPPOSE the strangest thing about the whole 
 affair is that we should have gone to Bandy s 
 Flat at all, because of course it is the sort of place 
 where no one ever does go. It all grew out of my 
 casual remarks to Miss Spence, that the doctor said 
 Kit must have mountain air. Nothing warned me 
 that all my future life, and several other lives, hung 
 on those seemingly trivial words. Nor did Miss 
 Spence, who came on Tuesdays to do the mending, 
 look like the instrument of fate when she replied, 
 biting off a thread, that there was no mountain air 
 like that at Bandy s Flat where she was born. 
 
 It had never occurred to me before that Miss 
 Spence, with her spectacles and her little knob of 
 faded hair and her teeth that didn t fit, had been 
 
 I 
 
2 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 born anywhere, least of all in the hectic past of a 
 Mother Lode mining town. But as she enlarged 
 with the fondness of early recollections on its pre 
 eminence in the matter of shootings, and lynchings, 
 and general riotousness, my interest grew. It be 
 came personal when she added with a sigh that 
 Bandy s was a dead town now, so that Kit and I 
 could as well as not go there by ourselves, provided 
 Lavinia Luppy would take us in. 
 
 I knew that wherever we went for mountain air 
 we must go by ourselves, for Arabella doesn t like 
 mountains and had her own plans for the summer. 
 Kit and I had only each other in the world, unless 
 you took Arabella seriously as a step-parent. We 
 did not, of course, though liking her very well and 
 perfectly understanding that anybody permanently 
 twenty-eight might dislike to be called mother by 
 a person of eighteen. And of course it was true, as 
 she pointed out, that Kit needn t have waited till 
 eleven to have scarlet fever, but have got it over 
 and done with in his cradle. It was on account of 
 the scarlet fever, which had only recently finished 
 peeling off, that Kit had to have mountain air. 
 And there really seemed no reason, unless it was 
 Lavinia Luppy, why he shouldn t have it at Bandy s 
 Flat. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 3 
 
 I had been skeptical at first about Lavinia Luppy, 
 because parents who would add Lavinia to Luppy 
 seemed incredible. I was convinced of her existence 
 by a letter, answering mine to her, and consenting 
 to receive us as boarders during good behavior. 
 You inferred that she didn t expect to keep us long. 
 
 Arabella lent us the car and Miss Spence, who 
 was to deliver us into Miss Luppy s hands. We left 
 San Francisco in the afternoon, spent the night in 
 a sweltering valley town, and traveled on next day 
 into the mountains. If you had asked me at the 
 time I should have said the trip was uneventful, for 
 I was unwilling to concede any importance to what 
 happened at Golconda. It was an episode which, 
 like the scorpion, carried its sting in its tail, for I 
 could have borne the recollection well enough if 
 it had not been for that last deplorable moment. I 
 might even have admitted to a certain interest in 
 hearing about a train robbery from a person who 
 had been in it. As it was, I preferred to forget. 
 
 Golconda is twenty miles from Bandy s, a size 
 larger and a degree less slumberous. We had 
 reached it about midday, and in view of the hot and 
 bumpy road ahead decided on lunch at the cool old 
 brick hotel. We were lunching, dining rather, on 
 fried steak surrounded by a lot of little dishes like 
 
4 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 bird-bathtubs containing various uneatables, when 
 a young man entered the dining-room and was 
 conducted by the frizzy waitress to the table next our 
 own. He was a tall young man and he wore clothes 
 of an urban cut, though his tan and a breezy outdoor 
 air about him would have gone better, I thought, 
 with corduroy or khaki. The waitress seemed to 
 know him, and buzzed about assiduously, whereas to 
 us she had been haughty, and stood patting her 
 coiffure and staring into vacancy, whence we had 
 with difficulty recalled her. Departing with his 
 order, she returned with it promptly it was more 
 fried steak and bird-bathtubs and set it before him 
 to the accompaniment of exclamation : 
 
 "Well, I never! Wouldn t it jar you? I was jest 
 hearin about it out in the kitchen. Say, did they 
 get so very much off you?" 
 
 "Much? Oh, no, only that million I usually 
 carry about me," retorted the young man cheerfully, 
 but with the evident intention of saying no more. 
 The frizzy waitress, after an interval of vague hov 
 ering, retired. Then the hotel proprietor lounged 
 in, and approaching the young man s table reversed 
 one of the vacant chairs and seated himself astride 
 it, his crossed arms resting on the back. 
 
 "Well, wouldn t it get you?" he remarked, in the 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 5 
 
 drawl which seems part of the general leisureliness 
 of the mountain people. "Jim that s drivin the 
 Lone Pine stage to-day, you know was jest tellin 
 me. Held up the Overland, by gum! You say 
 there was three of em?" 
 
 The young man had not said anything, but he 
 nodded assent to this. 
 
 "And one got plugged and that scared em off, 
 hey? And it happened jest before daylight, down 
 where the pass narrows there between the hills? 
 Held up the Overland, by gum ! Say, that was 
 nervy ! And you was up and dressed on account of 
 havin to git off pretty soon to take the stage ? Say, 
 that was better anyway than waltzin round in 
 your " Here the speaker glanced at us and dis 
 creetly coughed aside behind his hand. The young 
 man also glanced at us. I had been aware, out of 
 the corner of my eye, of his doing it before. Now 
 he met squarely my absorbed and self-forgetful 
 gaze. All three of us, indeed, ignoring manners 
 altogether, sat there frankly staring, frankly drink 
 ing in the tale which the hotel man was less elicit 
 ing than relating, for the young man s part in it had 
 been only a series of confirmatory nods. He seemed 
 rather disappointingly unwilling, in fact, to make 
 the most of his great experience, to live up to its 
 
6 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 dramatic possibilities. For myself, I was so keenly, 
 tinglingly, aware of them that I was regarding the 
 young man not only with awe and interest, but an 
 excited kind of envy. All this, I dare say, was in 
 my eyes when the young man looked up and met 
 them. His own were blue, so blue that they made 
 a surprising note of color in his brown face. They 
 looked at me clearly, directly, and oh, bitterness! 
 amusedly. They said as plainly as eyes could say 
 it, "Pretty, but how young! To understand how 
 I felt about this you would have to understand about 
 Arabella, and the struggle I had had to be recog 
 nized as grown-up, and to escape from utterly 
 juvenile modes in clothes and hair. Of course 
 I knew what had brought this look into his 
 eyes; it was the absolutely thrilled wonder in 
 my own. Arabella, for instance, would never have 
 stared at a stranger like that. She could stare, of 
 course, but in a fashion that made you feel yourself 
 merely a queer, rather unpleasant animal in a zoo. 
 I could hear her now remarking, apropos of this 
 naive performance, "My dear Sally, you looked ten, 
 just ten and not a day beyond!" And to the 
 stranger too, of course, I had appeared as a silly, 
 even an ill-mannered child. The color burned in 
 my cheeks, and I saw the effect in the deepening 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 7 
 
 amusement of his gaze. I felt that I hated blue 
 eyes, though hitherto on account of having brown 
 myself the Ideal had always been endowed with 
 them. Recovering, I averted my face coldly and 
 returned to my dining, with the air I hoped of 
 dismissing trifles like train-robberies from my 
 mind. But Kit and Miss Spence continued frankly 
 to display their absurd interest in what was going 
 on at the next table, while my ears, entirely of their 
 own accord, persisted in informing me of the rest of 
 the conversation. 
 
 "Jim tells me gittin it from you, o course that 
 they didn t make no great haul says they hadn t 
 more n gone through the first sleeper when the 
 brakeman, what had managed to drop off the rear 
 end of the train, crep up and plugged the feller 
 what was watchin the crew. And then the others 
 got scared and lit out that s how Jim tells it." 
 
 "Well, that s straight, I guess," conceded the 
 young man detachedly. He had a rather nice voice. 
 
 "But it warn t quite soon enough for you, I 
 understand you was one o them that got stood 
 up, Jim says," pursued the hotel man, evidently 
 gratified that such a distinction had fallen to a 
 guest in his house. 
 
 "Right again," said the stranger, still detachedly. 
 
8 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Hard luck! Did you lose heavy?" No keeper 
 of a country hotel could afford to be less than letter- 
 perfect in such a piece of news. 
 
 There was a pause, so perceptible that I glanced 
 the young man s way before I could remember not 
 to. He was looking not at me but at a radish he 
 was somewhat meticulously paring. 
 
 "Oh, I got off rather easily, I suppose. Hadn t 
 much money about me, and the watch I was wear 
 ing was a cheap thing. About all they got was my 
 wallet " 
 
 "With nothin in it? * inquired the other dis 
 appointedly. 
 
 "Well, not exactly. There was a a paper I was 
 sorry to lose," replied the young man, then abruptly 
 got up from the table. "No more, thanks have to 
 be getting along." He left the dining-room in the 
 midst of the host s assurances that Jim never pulled 
 out till the stroke of one. 
 
 When I went out on the veranda a few moments 
 later after settling our bill with the proprietor s 
 very deaf wife I came on a tableau consisting of the 
 stranger and Kit, who was planted before him with 
 his feet apart, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes 
 fixed absorbedly on the other s face. The stranger 
 was lighting a pipe, which operation accomplished 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 9 
 
 * 
 
 he put it in his mouth and looked down at Kit with 
 gravity. 
 
 "Well?" he inquired. 
 
 "If I d a been you/ 5 replied my brother, "I d a 
 just soaked that fellow one. Right when he reached 
 for my wallet, you know just soaked him one on 
 the jaw like that." Kit illustrated on his own 
 chin. 
 
 "But the fellow had a gun," the stranger objected, 
 "and his partner who was standing guard had an 
 other. I suspect I d have got the worst of it, don t 
 you know ?" 
 
 Kit shook his head. "You d V had to be awful 
 quick," he conceded, "but you could a done it 
 knocked that one out, and then kind of dodged 
 when the other one shot, and run in on him , and 
 knocked him out too. Fellows have in books." 
 
 "In books/ admitted the stranger, "it could be 
 pulled off very easily, I don t doubt. The trouble 
 is, the hold-up men might have played the game dif 
 ferently not according to the books, you know. 
 And then I shouldn t have been here considering 
 the question with you now." 
 
 Here Nishi drove up with the car and Miss Spence 
 came out of the hotel, after her third excursion to 
 the dining-room for a parcel left behind. As Kit 
 
io FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 ignored these preparations for departure I was 
 obliged to call to him by name. He looked up so 
 did the young man. Again his eyes met mine, and 
 I saw again that they were very blue, and very clear 
 and direct, and again they gave me unmistakably 
 the message they had before at least the first part 
 of it. I averted my own at once, and walked with 
 dignity toward the waiting car. It was just my 
 luck, of course, to stub my toe on the uneven floor 
 ing, so that I flew in at the open car door and 
 landed in a heap in the lap of Miss Spence. 
 
 "Goodness alive!" she shrieked. "Right on the 
 pie, too ! I went back and had that fuzzy girl do up 
 an extry slice all round, cause it did seem to me like 
 we hadn t et half what we paid for. And I know 
 you young things can t last long without you fill up 
 on something." 
 
 "Say, you re wise all right," contributed Kit, 
 climbing into the front seat with Nishi. "You 
 know, I think I ll take my piece right now, and 
 Sally s too if she don t want it. You don t, Sis, do 
 you ?" he inquired optimistically. 
 
 As we drove off I hoped the town of Lone Pine, 
 for which I understood the stranger to be bound, 
 was at least a million miles away and that he 
 would never return from it. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AS IN the melancholy phrase of Miss Spence, 
 Bandy s was a dead town. Dead it was, and 
 in a manner preserved, like a fly in amber, in a kind 
 of soft mellow atmosphere of the past that hung 
 about it. A mining town is, literally, built on dust, at 
 least when the mines are of the type that once made 
 Bandy s famous, and almost inevitably its day is a 
 swiftly passing one. 
 
 On two sides of the town, and extending far be- 
 3 ond it, yawned the gray abyss of the old hydraulic 
 mines. With Bandy s it was an article of faith that 
 there was more gold in them still than was ever 
 taken out, and that was many millions. From the 
 time of the first "strike" in the fifties Bandy s had 
 known an abounding prosperity that lasted through 
 several decades, but a time had come at last when 
 the interests of the farmers in the valley outweighed 
 those of the miners in the hills, and a state law was 
 enacted requiring the building of restraining dams 
 to prevent debris from the hydraulic operations from 
 
 II 
 
12 FpRTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 washing down the rivers. To work the mines 
 from which, in spite of Bandy s obstinate belief, the 
 cream was already skimmed in compliance with 
 this law cut too heavily into profits, and they were 
 abandoned. This constituted a grievance which the 
 remaining population of the town, now shrunk like 
 a drying pool to a mere sediment of old-timers for 
 whom all of life was in the past, spoke of with deep 
 and vengeful objurgations. You did well to avoid 
 the topic. 
 
 As the gold-bearing formation extended under 
 the town, a good part of it had been cut away before 
 the mines closed down. What was left consisted of 
 one short shady street between low buildings 
 of dark old brick, and besides this a score or two of 
 dwellings, mostly well-built and substantial, with 
 wide porches and green blinds, and old-fashioned 
 gardens enclosed by white picket fences. The house 
 occupied by Miss Luppy, and which shone inside 
 and out with paint and cleanliness, was the most 
 imposing. It had been built by Bandy, otherwise 
 Heber Bates, the town s godfather and long its 
 leading citizen, who had become elevated in its 
 memories to a sort of patron-saintship. Merely to 
 live in his house cast a reflected glory on Miss 
 Luppy, which she didn t in the least need, or any 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 13 
 
 adventitious aids whatever. Miss Luppy had inher 
 ited from her cousin, the widow of Bandy Bates, 
 with, whom she had lived during the old lady s last 
 years, the house and other property in the town, a 
 quantity of now worthless mining-stock which had 
 once represented a comfortable fortune, and a sum 
 otherwise invested which brought her in a little 
 income. In short, the entire estate of the widow 
 had been left to her companion and nurse. But 
 that Bandy Bates should have died possessed of 
 such, after all, modest wealth was what the town 
 couldn t understand and didn t feel inclined to 
 admit. It was felt to be a flaw in his character, if 
 true, and so not to be believed in by the devout. 
 Facts being well known to present no obstacles to 
 faith, it had come to be rather generally held that a 
 good part of the Bates wealth had been "slipped out 
 o sight," though by whom was not alleged. 
 
 "Why, Miss Sally," said Asa Cobb to me, "take 
 all the ways he d be n ladlin in money for years and 
 years take the profits o that there saloon alone !" 
 
 I looked down the road to the one-story building 
 indicated by Mr. Cobb. It was the last in the row 
 on the east side of the shaded street, or rather stood 
 separated from the rest by an intervening grassy 
 space. A few feet back of the rear wall was the rim 
 
14 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 of the old mine, which had stopped just short of 
 engulfing the "business section" itself. Like half 
 the buildings on the street, this was unused, and 
 its heavy iron doors and shutters gave it a grim and 
 forbidding look. 
 
 "Did Mr. Bates own a saloon?" I asked, some 
 what shocked. 
 
 "He did, you bet, jest like he owned about what 
 ever there was good money in round this here 
 town," said Asa Cobb with emphasis. Asa Cobb, 
 by the way, lived in a cottage next door to us and 
 did odd jobs for Miss Luppy. " Twarn t till in his 
 last years that he commenced to draw out o things 
 and salt his money away at least folks thought so 
 where twould be easy got at. He hung on to 
 the saloon, though didn t rent it out, neither, but 
 hired Brett Morgan to run it for him. Gentleman 
 Brett, folks called him, account of him lettin on 
 about comin o good stock back in the South. Then 
 one night there was a row, and Brett he got filled 
 full o lead laid right down and croaked behind 
 his own bar." 
 
 "You mean Mrs. Morgan s Husband?" I inter 
 rupted. Mrs. Morgan was a woman who lived 
 alone in a shabby house on the same side of the road 
 as ours, about opposite the old saloon. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 15 
 
 "That s the party," Mr. Cobb confirmed. "Well, 
 after Brett croaked there was a plenty others would 
 V be n glad to a took the job, but Bandy he up and 
 says he s quit the saloon game for good and the 
 place is goin to be closed, he says. It did most 
 seem! like the old gentleman had kind of got religion 
 or somethin in his declinin days. Or mebbe he 
 foreseen what was comin more n twenty-five years 
 later in the way of a dry spell and wanted to be a 
 leetle ahead o the style he allus did like to take 
 the lead in things. Anyway, he closed up the saloon 
 all right, not sellin off the fixtures nor nothin but 
 leavin em jest like they was. Said he didn t cal- 
 c ate on makin money out o nothin connected with 
 the liquor traffic no more. All the same he used 
 to put in a good sight o time tinkerin round and 
 gittin the place in repair, like he might a counted 
 on openin up again some day, after all. He hated 
 to see good money git away from him, did Bandy. 
 He was workin round there a good while I expect 
 he thought cuttin away the cliff so clost to the back 
 had weakened the foundations or somethin , and 
 Bandy, he could carpenter or lay a brick in mortar 
 as handy as the next seemed like he was the kind 
 things just natcherally come easy to. Anyway, he 
 was in there all alone when he took the fit he died of. 
 
16 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Mis Bates she had went over to look on account o 
 his not showin up at supper, and there he was, 
 layin by the door, like he d tried to git to the air 
 and couldn t. He warn t dead but might as well a* 
 be n, for he never rightly come to and died next 
 day. Mis Cobb, she was livin then and went in 
 neighbor-like to help. She said it was a real awful 
 sight to see him try like he did to speak and not be 
 able. Said it seemed like he d most bu st with 
 tryin . But all they was ever able to make out was 
 once when she and Mis Bates was leanin over him 
 he sez, in a kind o thick, mumblin way, Is it shut? 
 he sez? Do you mean the winder, Heber? sez 
 Mis Bates. Mis Cobb said twar an awful thing 
 to see him roll his eyes and struggle, tryin to 
 answer. Twar so plain it warn t the winder that 
 she put in on her own hook. Do you mean the 
 door, Mr. Bates? she sez. She told afterwards 
 that the look he give her was enough to make her 
 teeth chatter only to remember it. Seemed like he 
 would a gave his immortal soul to be able to set up 
 and damn-fool em both jest once. He was a pretty 
 short-tempered man, old Bandy. And o course it 
 must a be n tryin to a party with somethin on his 
 mind, allowin he had, to have them couple o 
 women no better able to help him git it off than 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 17 
 
 that. Anyway, whether gittin mad hastened the 
 end, or what, he died pretty soon after. And Mis 
 Cobb, havin the natural female vice o curiosity 
 about as strong as ever I see, never to the last 
 stopped guessin what it was that Bandy Bates had 
 wanted to be shut. She s woke me up in the night 
 more n once to ask did I think it could a be n this, 
 or that, or t other thing. Woman, I sez at last, 
 if he d a be n in my socks the thing he d a wanted 
 shut would a be n your mouth! But she sez " 
 
 The arrival of Kit cut short this flow of 
 reminiscence. We were going to ride that morn 
 ing, and the ponies were standing hitched to the 
 fence in the road outside. They had been hired for 
 our use from a ranch down toward Golconda, and 
 were housed in the stable which had stood empty 
 since the day of Bandy Bates and his high steppers, 
 still proudly remembered by the town. Asa Cobb 
 had been engaged to care for them, and by a dis 
 play of equine wisdom unaccountable to those who 
 had known him in a long life-time to possess only 
 a single rickety old mare, he had completely fasci 
 nated Kit, who had formed with him an alliance 
 offensive and defensive, especially against the 
 female sex, of which Mr. Cobb was a professed 
 contemner. Kit s devotion went to such lengths 
 
i8 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 that almost any morning you might have found the 
 elderly misogynist seated at ease in the shade, smok 
 ing a blackened pipe and drawling out his endless 
 anecdotes, while Kit vigorously curried the ponies or 
 performed the other chores for which Mr. Cobb 
 drew a rather liberal monthly stipend. 
 
 We had now been a week at Bandy s. Miss 
 Spence, Nishi and the car, had of course departed, 
 and except for the tri-weekly arrival of the Gol- 
 conda stage we seemed detached from the world as 
 if on a separate star. That Mis Pettis s cow had 
 strayed, or Jem Hicks, the cobbler, had suffered 
 from lumbago in the night, or the kitchen boiler 
 burst at the Bonanza House, was of moment to us 
 as well as to the town, so had our interests shrunk 
 to suit its narrow limits. Was it only nine days 
 since we had left San Francisco, and was life going 
 on there in its usual head-long fashion, and in many 
 and many another bustling town besides ? Up here 
 in the hot still sunshine, among the unchanging 
 mountains, with Bandy s steeped in dreams of its 
 golden past, it seemed impossible. Life was no 
 more a race to a goal, but a drowsing in the sun 
 until the day was over. 
 
 I pursued the above reflections as we rode that 
 bright hot morning down the trail which descended 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 19 
 
 into the mine to the east of the town on its way to 
 the river in the canon beyond. Across the river rose 
 the steep height known as Gantry s Hill, though why 
 Gantry s I don t know, or why hill, for it was really 
 a respectable mountain. Its western front, which 
 we saw from the town, was rather sparsely and 
 irregularly wooded, scattering timber alternating 
 with wide patches of manzanita scrub. Here and 
 there a landslide had left a great white scar, still 
 tinhealed and raw, slashed in the face of the hill. 
 
 Above such a scar, high up on the ascent, was a 
 shelf, where stood a cluster of deserted cabins 
 known as Little York. Long ago Little York had 
 had its day of fame, but the strike turning out to be 
 merely a pocket the place was soon abandoned. 
 Late in the afternoon, when the sun shone full upon 
 them, the cabins could be indistinctly seen from 
 Bandy s Flat, rising above the chaparral which grew 
 about them thickly. They looked picturesque, and 
 romantic, and lonely, and I had been wanting to see 
 them at close range. And as riding was part of 
 the regimen at Bandy s, we might as well ride to 
 Little York as elsewhere. 
 
 We followed the path across the mine, where the 
 bare scorched soil lay white as dead bones in the 
 glare of the hot mountain sunshine, dropped steeply 
 
20 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 into the river canon, passed the clear stream at the 
 ford, and took the trail up Gantry s Hill. It was a 
 long winding way, looping confusedly back and 
 forth across the mountain s face, but we knew when 
 we had got to Little York by a certain tall dead 
 pine, whose bleached nakedness made it a landmark 
 from the Flat. The cabins themselves were hidden 
 by brush and timber. The manzanita scrub had 
 grown across the path which turned in to the cabins 
 from the main trail, so that Kit and I, leaving the 
 ponies, had to force our way through and under the 
 low tough branches with their strange, smooth red 
 bark and pale green leaves. But at the first of the 
 group of cabins the path became open. It was a 
 low, weather-stained little shack, but so sheltered 
 by the great arms of the oak that grew above it that 
 even the glass in the window was unbroken. The 
 door was closed, and it looked so secret and melan 
 choly and forsaken that I picked it out at once as 
 the abode of that last discouraged miner who, tradi 
 tion said, having consumed his final bean and pos 
 sessing not a grain of golden dust to buy another, 
 had whetted his razor, sat down on his door-step 
 with a mirror propped before him, and scientifically 
 cut his throat. 
 
 I imparted this conviction to Kit, who looked 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 21 
 
 exceedingly uncomfortable. Somehow I was not 
 exactly comfortable myself. Even in broad day 
 light and with company it seemed a splendid place 
 for seeing ghosts. You had a queer sense of a lis 
 tening, watching something that had just withdrawn 
 and would return when you had taken your 
 departure. Perhaps this was the reason, though at 
 the time I called it snakes, why I hung back, instead 
 of going on to explore the three or four cabins 
 beyond. And Kit with unusual brotherly devotion 
 kept close at my side. Except for that undefinable 
 sense of a watching presence, the place seemed 
 unspeakably remote and lonely so much more 
 lonely than if the deserted cabins had not been 
 there. Probably no one had visited the place in 
 years 
 
 "Gee, look here!" exclaimed Kit, pouncing sud 
 denly on something in the path. 
 > "What?" I cried in a small breathy voice, start 
 ing violently. 
 
 It was a half-smoked cigarette. "Made by a fel 
 low that rolls his own," announced Kit judicially, 
 offering it for my inspection. It might have lain 
 there hours, it might have lain there days, but it 
 certainly had not lain there years. Little York had 
 had a visitor besides ourselves, very recently. 
 
22 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Say, do you imagine the guy that left it is 
 around here now?" demanded Kit with an uneasy 
 air, as though connecting the find in some way with 
 the miner of the melancholy legend. 
 
 "I don t know but if he is why should he hide?" 
 I replied in a low voice, looking about distrustfully. 
 "Of course, though, he isn t," I added with more 
 confidence. When you thought of it, there was 
 nothing particularly portentous in some one s hav 
 ing dropped in here lately, perhaps from a curiosity 
 like our own. To be sure it would be no one from 
 the Flat; nobody there was curious about Little 
 York. And there were likely to be few strangers 
 in the neighborhood, which was quite out of the 
 tourist beat. Nevertheless, here was the cigarette 
 to prove that somebody had been here, and common 
 sense to suggest that it was without doubt for some 
 very ordinary reason. And at the same time there 
 was that queer uneasiness which I had had from the 
 beginning. 
 
 "There s no one here, of course not that it 
 would matter if there were," I went on bravely. 
 "But we ve seen the place, haven t we, so what s the 
 good in hanging round?" 
 
 Kit, with alacrity, agreed that there was no good 
 in hanging round, and turned to depart before an 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 23 
 
 apparition with a bloody throat and threatening 
 razor should materialize. I followed, but on the 
 edge of plunging into the brush I paused and looked 
 back. The path, the cabins, and the surrounding 
 thicket lay silent in the sun. Nothing stirred but a 
 tiny darting lizard, nothing made sound but a bird 
 that softly twittered from the oak. And yet as I 
 stood there listening and looking, there came to me 
 again, more sharply and distinctly, the sense that 
 I was watched. 
 
 I turned and hurried after Kit with a precipita 
 tion that brought me breathless and panting to the 
 trail. 
 
 It was early twilight, and I was strolling in the 
 garden in a tranquil after-supper mood, enjoying 
 the cool fragrance of the air after the burning day, 
 when the voice of Miss Luppy sounded from the 
 house. "Sally, Sally!" it called. Note the infor 
 mality. I had arrived at Bandy s with the firm deter 
 mination to be Miss Armsby to Lavinia Luppy and 
 to be treated generally as a grown-up person. And 
 here I was plain Sally and with my expected inde 
 pendence crushed under the benevolent despotism 
 of Miss Luppy. Benevolent, that is, if you delved 
 beneath the surface and considered essentials 
 
24 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 rather than grim appearances. Kit, for instance, 
 though addressed disparagingly as Boy, and having 
 the sinfulness of boys in general frequently 
 brought to his attention, was not otherwise mal 
 treated. Certain immutable laws there were, such 
 as entering at the side door instead of the sacred 
 and taboo front, giving his shoes three wipes apiece 
 on the mat, and refraining from harsh and sudden 
 words and gestures in the immediate neighborhood 
 of the cat. These edicts, greatly to his own aston 
 ishment you saw it in his round green eyes Kit 
 obeyed, and obeying flourished. As approval of his 
 conduct resulted generally in an extra thick 
 chocolate cake or pie with more cream heaped over 
 it than usual, Kit was exhibiting staying powers in 
 the way of virtue which would have alarmed me if 
 bulging cheeks and expanding calves had not been 
 an accompaniment. And then in respect to myself 
 his behavior remained distinctly and comfortingly 
 natural. 
 
 Obeying Miss Luppy s summons, I found myself 
 the appointed bearer of certain cup-cakes uncon- 
 sumed at supper to the Mrs. Morgan in the shabby 
 house opposite the old saloon. Carrying a plate 
 covered with a napkin I crossed the lane at the cor 
 ner of our house and an intervening stretch of grass 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 25 
 
 to the side gate of Mrs. Morgan s place. As I 
 entered the yard I glanced across the road to the old 
 brick building, and wondered how the widow 
 enjoyed having perpetually before her eyes this 
 reminder of her husband s tragic end. As much, 
 though, very likely, as she enjoyed any other fea 
 ture of her bleak life or bleak at least it seemed 
 to me. Mrs. Morgan was comparatively of the 
 younger generation at the Flat, being somewhere in 
 the fifties. I had met her the other day in Miss 
 Luppy s kitchen, where she had come with a present 
 of honey, for which the cup-cakes were a return. 
 
 The lamp was already lighted in the kitchen, and 
 when I looked in at the open door I saw her at 
 work over some mending. She was thin and dark, 
 with black somber eyes and heavy iron-gray hair. 
 The black eyes and olive skin she had inherited 
 from a Spanish-Californian mother, as well as, per 
 haps, a certain dignity, even stateliness of manner 
 which went quaintly with her shabby dress and 
 worn hard hands. It is strange how that subtle fine 
 aroma of old Spanish pride and courtesy will hang 
 about the descendants of the race, though they go 
 beggared in the land that the stranger possesses. 
 
 She received me with apparent pleasure and 
 exactly the right amount of thanks for Miss Luppy s 
 
26 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 gift. A ten-minute call served to exhaust all pos 
 sible topics of conversation, and I had risen to take 
 leave when a step sounded on the porch outside. I 
 turned quickly, to find a man standing in the dusky 
 oblong of the open door. 
 
 He was a young man, dark and strongly built. 
 And he was staring, not merely into the room, but 
 with concentration and intensity at me. Even in 
 the dim light the eagerness in his dark eyes, 
 shadowed as they were by the soft hat pulled 
 low over level black brows, showed like a somber 
 flame. A quick instinctive fear stirred in me fear 
 of what I didn t know, but none the less fear. It 
 brought a startled exclamation from my lips. 
 
 Mrs. Morgan glanced up surprisedly, then rose 
 with a sudden flush in her pale cheeks as the man 
 stepped into the room. 
 
 "Brett, my boy! Where have you come from 
 why are you here?" There were love and welcome 
 in the cry, but there was something else as well 
 a sharp note of apprehension. She went toward him 
 quickly and he put his arm about her and kissed her 
 perhaps, more truly, allowed her to kiss him. For 
 all the difference in their years he was so like her 
 that as they stood side by side I wondered that I 
 had not guessed their relationship at once. After a 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT, 27 
 
 moment s clinging to him she stood with her hand 
 upon his arm, looking him over anxiously. His 
 clothes and boots were dusty, his face unshaven, and 
 he carried a bundle on his back. Plainly this was a 
 journey s end. 
 
 Having accepted his mother s embrace he turned 
 to me, as I stood waiting my chance unobtrusively 
 to depart. 
 
 "Will you make me acquainted with the young 
 lady, madref" He took off his dusty hat with the 
 sweep of a cavalier. His intense dark gaze dwelt 
 on me avidly, while a new and profoundly uncom 
 fortable kind of self-consciousness reddened my 
 cheeks. 
 
 It seemed to me afterward that I recalled a barely 
 perceptible movement of hesitation before Mrs. 
 Morgan complied. 
 
 "Miss Armsby, I ll make you acquainted with my 
 son." Her son again bowed sweepingly. "Miss 
 Armsby is stayin a while at Miss Luppy s," she 
 continued, looking at me with a faint shade as of 
 uneasiness in her face. I had a sudden conviction 
 that Mrs. Morgan would willingly have foregone 
 the cup-cakes to have had me elsewhere at that 
 moment. 
 
 "Then the Flat s havin some good luck at last," 
 
28 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 he declared gallantly. A warmer flame leaped into 
 his predatory gaze, and I felt again the power he 
 had of sending forth his emotions to play upon you 
 in a vivid and disturbing glow. "Stayin long?" 
 he inquired meaningly. 
 
 "I don t know perhaps/ I replied, with a con 
 fusion for which I scorned myself, yet couldn t 
 help. I wished intensely that I had understudied 
 Arabella a little more. No young man with the 
 clothes and the accent and the origin of this one 
 could have confused her for a moment. She would 
 have been able to command exactly the right glance 
 and gesture to indicate to him his utter insignifi 
 cance in the scheme of things. And yet in that 
 virile disturbing presence I doubted the success 
 of even Arabella s methods. 
 
 "I must go now, Mrs. Morgan," I added hastily. 
 "Oh, indeed I must!" for Brett Morgan had begun 
 gallantly to demur. He was between me and the 
 door, but I was edging toward it so determinedly 
 that he couldn t, without actually laying hands on 
 me, prevent my reaching it. I did reach it, and with 
 a "Good night!" called over my shoulder slipped 
 through in one swift dart. 
 
 When I reached home I found Miss Luppy, with 
 her usual forehandedness, setting the table for to- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 29 
 
 morrow s breakfast. She was a tall woman, with 
 the style of figure usually called comfortable, but 
 prevented from being so in her case by the uncom 
 promising rigidity of her spine. I used to wonder 
 whether it remained just as rigid and unbending 
 even when she was in bed. Her face was not 
 unhandsome in a grim fashion. She wore her hair 
 combed plain and smooth above the ears and done 
 into a tight little bun at the back. She had large 
 shapely hands and a firm tread. Such was Lavinia 
 Luppy. 
 
 She turned on me the bleak gray eye which 
 seemed to impale you and hold you up for inspec 
 tion like an insect on a pin. 
 
 "Well?" she demanded, with her usual air of 
 implying, What have you been up to now? 
 
 "I took the cakes to Mrs. Morgan," I reported, 
 "and while I was there her son came home." It 
 sounded simple enough in narration, and my per 
 turbation seemed the more absurd in consequence. 
 Already I was wondering, with some self-contempt, 
 why I hadn t been able to face this of course impos 
 sible and insignificant person with the proper con 
 fidence in my own superiority. 
 
 Miss Luppy paused in the act of setting a salt- 
 
30 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 shaker with mathematical exactness in the center of 
 a crocheted mat. 
 
 "What say?" she asked sharply. 
 
 I repeated my statement. Miss Luppy set down 
 the shaker and turned round. There was a frown 
 between her brows. 
 
 "How d he git here?" she demanded. "This 
 ain t stage-day and there don t even wagons come 
 in late as this/ 
 
 "I suppose he walked from somewhere. He was 
 dusty, and he had a bundle." 
 
 "Has he come to stay a while ?" 
 
 "I don t know." And then, remembering the in 
 ference that might be drawn from his having asked 
 very nearly the same question of me, "I rather think 
 so," I amended. 
 
 She meditated, automatically straightening a fork 
 that diverged slightly from a right-angle with the 
 table-edge. "Wonder what s brought him back?" 
 she inquired, apparently of the universe in general. 
 "Of course," she added, "it s likely he ll go off 
 again pretty quick he most generally does. If he 
 shouldn t, though there, I might as well say it 
 first as last I don t know as I d let him git extra 
 friendly. There ain t much in special I can say 
 against him, only that Brett was always what you d 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 31 
 
 call a wild boy. If he d been trained different but 
 then he warn t, nor couldn t be, I guess, with no 
 father. Anyway, wild Brett always was, and well, 
 I jest wouldn t let him make up to me too much, 
 that s all." 
 
 What I would have valued even more than this 
 advice was a hint as to how I was successfully to 
 follow it. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 FROM the high wooded ridge to the south of 
 Bandy s a long spur slopes down behind the 
 town, crowding it into the little irregular patch of 
 level land which remains of the flat. The back gate 
 of Miss Luppy s premises opened on a path which 
 climbed this hill, first through pasture where her 
 cow grew sleek, then in the shade of heavy woods. 
 As you ascended you became aware of a low con 
 tinuous sound which deepened into a gurgling rush 
 and roar, and presently you came on the flume 
 which brought the water of streams far back among 
 the mountains to fulfill a utilitarian destiny in 
 turning the wheels of distant power-plants and 
 irrigating the sun-burned fields of the lowlands. 
 Once it had turned aside to enter the great pipe 
 from which it had issued in a glittering rigid shaft, 
 mighty to cut away mountains and leave in their 
 stead the vast excavation which surrounded Bandy s. 
 Now, except for the small dole which met the 
 town s diminished needs, the torrent roared past 
 
 32 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 33 
 
 without pause. The system of flumes was compli 
 cated; you were always coming on them in the 
 woods, v or viewing from afar their course along 
 some distant mountainside, where they seemed 
 to hang in the airiest fashion high up among 
 the tree-tops. They offered immense possibilities 
 if you were of an exploring turn, for planks loosely 
 laid on the cross-pieces above the water provided a 
 convenient footway, at least for persons indifferent 
 to its wabbliness and the ever-present chance of a 
 plunge into the smooth, dark, arrow-swift stream 
 beneath. 
 
 Though not at all indifferent, I could still snatch 
 a fearful joy from such precarious ambulations, 
 and this morning the next but one after the return 
 of Brett Morgan to his home Kit and I were taking 
 our rather cautious way along the flume, as it 
 climbed through the woods toward the summit of 
 the ridge. On the other side of the ridge lay the 
 canon of the Grizzly River, deeper, wilder and more 
 remote than that of the Stony which flowed past 
 Bandy s below the mine. The six-foot depth of 
 water rushing through the flume came from some 
 miles farther up the Grizzly, where a dam had been 
 thrown across the stream. The level of this dam, 
 we had heard at Bandy s was being raised, and 
 
34 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 there was grumbling in the town that the necessary 
 hauling was done by way of Lone Pine the name 
 recalled to me suddenly the hotel dining-room at 
 Golconda, and blue eyes that had laughed at me 
 though Bandy s had the advantage as regarded 
 distance. The difficulty was that there was only a 
 horse trail from Bandy s to the dam. Twenty 
 years ago, though, there had been talk of a road, 
 for what purpose I forget, that would have con 
 nected the two. The general conviction seemed to 
 be that Lone Pine had cast a paralyzing spell over 
 the faculties of the Flatters at that time, thereby 
 defeating the project, for the remote end of monopo 
 lizing the present traffic. 
 
 The flume we had never followed it so far be 
 fore presently crossed through a depression or 
 "saddle" in the ridge and swung over into the canon 
 of the Grizzly, connecting with another aqueduct 
 which ran along the north wall of the gorge. But 
 for having to sustain the credit of my sex before 
 the disciple of Asa Cobb, I don t know that even the 
 great sweep of beauty that unrolled before us as 
 we emerged suddenly from the dimness of the 
 woods could have lured me forward. Though the 
 summit of the talus slope was not more than a pine- 
 tree s height below, the floor of the canon lay 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 35 
 
 deeper, and the general effect of our position was 
 airy in the extreme. Like green plumes ruffled by 
 the breeze the pine-tops waved beside us, and the 
 deep burning blue of the sky seemed very near. 
 Across the canon rose a line of cliffs, with beyond 
 a confusion of remoter summits, fading from dark 
 green to misty blue, and beyond these still, far, 
 lonely, beautiful, floating bubble-like upon the sky, 
 a single snowy peak. 
 
 We had pursued our airy way some distance and 
 I had paused to wait for Kit, who was lingering in 
 the rear, riveted by the charms of a coy though 
 flirtatious squirrel. A little way ahead the flume 
 curved round a bold projection in the mountain s 
 front. As I sat on a ledge which jutted from the 
 cliff, idly wondering what was beyond, a man came 
 round the bend. 
 
 Now this, being quite unlocked for, was startling 
 in itself, but still more startling was the discovery 
 which came to me with a second glance. Never 
 theless in the space of a quick breath I had pulled 
 myself together and assumed a nonchalant and easy 
 pose calculated to impress a passer-by with my com 
 plete abstraction from the outward scene. But I 
 was quite aware of the surprise in the pedestrian s 
 face as he advanced, and of its deepening swiftly 
 
36 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 into something much more complex and more per 
 sonal. His pace even slackened, uncertainly, as 
 though in the friendly mountain fashion he meant 
 to pause and speak. But I remained the frozen 
 embodiment of the convention which pronounces 
 people invisible unless introduced, and the stranger, 
 merely raising his hat, passed on, leaving me to sur 
 vey his departing back with an immensely satisfied 
 feeling of having scored. Perhaps it would occur 
 to him now, I exulted, that I was not so young as 
 my momentary lapse there in the dining-room at 
 Golconda would indicate, not so young, at any rate, 
 as to tolerate reminders of my youth from the 
 amused eyes of strangers. I only hoped he wasn t 
 one of those frightfully tough persons whom there 
 is no satisfaction in snubbing because they never 
 really mind it. I thought, somehow, he had minded 
 it, his back had looked so very stiff and straight 
 as he went on. And I owned, reluctantly, that it 
 was a very athletic back, and that corduroy and an 
 open-throated flannel shirt could be very becoming 
 to the wearer thereof, when he happened to be the 
 right one. 
 
 Absorbed in the squirrel, Kit had remained 
 unaware of the newcomer s approach. They were 
 almost abreast when he discovered it and turned 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 37 
 
 round suddenly, eyes and mouth wide open. As he 
 passed my brother by the young man turned his 
 head, flinging back some remark from the distance 
 of a yard or so. Kit gave an astonished whoop and 
 stepped back exactly into the space where, between 
 one cross-piece and the next, a plank was missing 
 from the footway. He had vanished while yet his 
 scream was shrill upon the air. 
 
 It happened with the swiftness of light and the 
 ghastly unreality of a nightmare. Surely it was in 
 a nightmare that I was running and shrieking so, 
 that I was flying over the rattling, springing planks 
 crying, "Save him, save him!" There seemed a 
 dreadful gap of ages between the horror itself and 
 the leap of the man for the place where Kit had 
 disappeared. When I reached it he was lying 
 prone, clutching with a mighty strain of shoulders 
 at something below. 
 
 He lifted a flushed face to shout at me, "Keep 
 back you ll be in yourself ! It s all right I ve got 
 him. Lord, how the water pulls!" 
 
 But I had dropped to my knees and was desper 
 ately tugging at what came handiest Kit s mop of 
 crinkly auburn hair. 
 
 "Hold on, then," panted the man, "hold on for all 
 
38 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 you re worth while I shift my grip. All right got 
 him by the trousers. Pull, now, pull!" 
 
 Painfully, against the terrible sucking of the swift 
 dark stream, we heaved, till with disconcerting sud 
 denness he came floundering out and lay limp and 
 dripping on the footway. And the first words he 
 uttered, in blessed proof that still he lived, were a 
 feebly savage, "Leggo leggo my hair!" At which 
 I let go, and sinking in a heap wept with abandon. 
 
 At last I pulled myself together and sat up, dab 
 bing at my wet cheeks. There sat Kit, dripping, 
 and greenish-white beneath his freckles, but indis 
 putably alive. And the blue eyes that had laughed 
 at me were very sober now and a little scared, as if 
 a girl on a flume who couldn t stop crying presented 
 a perplexing problem. 
 
 I achieved a reassuring if watery smile, lifting my 
 face to Kit s rescuer without the least attempt to 
 disguise existing facts, however pink and swollen. 
 
 "How can I thank you?" I choked. "I have no 
 words " Here I had to stop and swallow hard. 
 
 "Please don t!" he begged uncomfortably. 
 "There was nothing to it, nothing at all, really. 
 Are you all right now? It must have been rather 
 a bad minute or two for you, of course." 
 
 "Minute or two? Why, it went on for ages, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 39 
 
 didn t it?" The smile this time was less moist, and 
 the stranger looked encouraged. "Kit, darling, 
 aren t you going to say a single word of thanks?" 
 
 "I guess I don t mind saying thanks," he replied 
 weakly but aggrievedly. "But all the same it would 
 have been pretty mean not to pull me out when he 
 made me fall in!" 
 
 "Kit!" 
 
 "Yes, he did by hollering back at me, Tried out 
 that stunt on any bandits yet? And then of course 
 I knew right off he must be that fellow." 
 
 "Ktif* 
 
 "Never mind," interposed the rescuer, "I m 
 afraid he owes me his ducking right enough. All 
 the same, old man, now the little interruption s 
 over, I d like first-rate to know if you have tried it 
 out ?" He grinned good-naturedly at Kit, who with 
 a glare expressive of the scorn with which he at all 
 times regards an essay at the humorous, particularly 
 at his own expense, turned his back and began to 
 unlace his boots. 
 
 "He isn t behaving very nicely," I apologized. 
 
 "Please forgive him, Mr. " Here I was 
 
 brought up short by the realization that I didn t 
 know his name. 
 
 "My name is Joseph Lambert." 
 
40 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Mine is Sally Armsby. I am sure Kit really 
 feels as he ought, Mr. Lambert, only being a boy " 
 
 "Of course. I ve been one myself, you know. 
 And besides it all amounts to nothing I didn t save 
 him couldn t. He d have been under the planks 
 and yards down the flume before I could have 
 stirred. What did the trick was a nail in the cross- 
 piece here caught his blouse and held him just the 
 necessary ten seconds. And you helped a lot your 
 self in pulling him out, Miss Armsby, though I 
 dare say you ve loosened up his hair some about the 
 roots." 
 
 "You bet!" Kit confirmed. 
 
 "I decline to transfer my gratitude to nails, or 
 credit myself with pulling out anything but his 
 hair," I declared, shaking my head. "You ll just 
 have to let me go on being grateful to you, Mr. 
 Lambert." 
 
 "All right," he cheerfully agreed, his blue eyes 
 smiling I saw on reconsidering it that I had done 
 quite right to provide the Ideal with blue ones "I 
 don t really mind, you know. But the important 
 thing just now, it seems to me, is to get the young 
 ster dry. Let s see, that rock where you were 
 sitting" I blushed unhappily "part of it is in the 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 41 
 
 sun, I think. Suppose we take him there? He ll 
 be steaming like a teakettle in no time." 
 
 On the way Kit turned out so wabbly that he 
 meekly let Mr. Lambert sustain him with a strong 
 brown hand. Once spread out in the hot sunshine 
 he dropped promptly off to sleep, while we sat in 
 the shade beside him talking in low tones. 
 
 He : "Of course it was the most immense surprise 
 to find you sitting here beside the flume for all 
 the world like a water-nymph or some such aqueous 
 party." 
 
 I : "And of course it confirmed your belief that I 
 was an aqueous party when I began to weep so." 
 
 He: "But how did you happen to be here? Do 
 you mind explaining? Because, of course, when I 
 saw you at Golconda I had no idea that I that you 
 would be turning up again anywhere around this 
 remote region." 
 
 I : "We are staying at Bandy s Flat. It s the most 
 delicious old place. Do you know it?" 
 
 "I ought to," he said laughing, "seeing it was 
 named for my great-uncle s legs." 
 
 "For your great-uncle s legs !" I echoed. 
 
 He nodded. "My father was his sister s son. 
 There were just the two of them, my grandmother 
 and her brother Heber. He got turned down by a 
 
42 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 girl, on account of his bandiness, I believe, and 
 went off to California, where he struck it rich, and 
 settled, and later on married tastes in legs differ, 
 of course." 
 
 "Why, it must give you quite a lord of the manor 
 feeling!" I said, greatly impressed. 
 
 "I hadn t thought of it in precisely that light," 
 he admitted. "It s an odd thing, though, that I am 
 out in this part of the world mainly on account of 
 old Uncle Bates having preceded me here. I had 
 known next to nothing about him he had gone to 
 California long before even my father was born. 
 It was not till after my father s death, and my own 
 return from France, that a queer thing happened." 
 
 He paused, looking at me doubtingly. "Per 
 haps I m boring you awfully please tell me if 
 I am." 
 
 "Boring me of course not. Please go on what 
 was the queer thing?" 
 
 "Well, the settling up of a little business the 
 sale of the old family home, where we used to go 
 summers when I was a child took me back to the 
 little town in the Genesee Valley where my fore 
 bears on the Bates and Lambert side had lived a 
 very long while. They were tearing down the old 
 post-office, and a letter was found which had slipped 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 43 
 
 behind a shelf and been forgotten. Being addressed 
 to Joseph Lambert, it was delivered to me. But it 
 was not written to me it was written to my father, 
 and dated two years before my birth the same 
 year he had left the old place to settle in the city. 
 It was from his uncle, Heber Bates." 
 
 "Oh, please go on!" I urged breathlessly, as once 
 more he paused. 
 
 "Well, Uncle Bates wrote from Bandy s Flat, 
 of course suggesting that his nephew should come 
 out to California. The letter seemed to be in reply 
 to one from my father telling of his mother s death 
 she was Heber Bates s sister, you recollect. So 
 Uncle Bates wrote that as he himself was childless, 
 and his nephew his only near relative, he wanted 
 him to come out and take the place of a son. There 
 was a good deal in detail about his affairs Uncle 
 Heber seems to have been a pretty shrewd old 
 party." 
 
 "But after all he didn t leave such a frightful lot 
 of money, and most of what he did leave was in 
 mining-stock which has since become worthless," I 
 reminded Mr. Bates s grand-nephew, though reluct 
 ant to dim even in this slight degree the romance 
 of this surprising story. 
 
 "So I understand." Mr. Lambert left off to 
 
44 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 grind an acorn very fine with his boot-heel. "Well, 
 anyway, I felt a certain interest in the place that 
 might have been my father s home, in case he had 
 received that letter, and as soon as I got things 
 wound up both my parents were gone and there 
 was nothing to hold me I came out to San Fran 
 cisco. There first thing I stumbled on the job that 
 brought me up here raising the level of the 
 Grizzly dam. The work kept me hustling at first, 
 so that though I managed to drop in a couple of 
 times at Bandy s it was never with any time to 
 spare. Then something happened and the link 
 between me and Bandy s seemed pretty definitely 
 snapped." 
 
 "Something happened ?" 
 
 "When I was in that hold-up ten days ago the 
 fellows took the wallet that had Uncle Bates s let 
 ter in it. That letter was the only thing I had in the 
 way of credentials." 
 
 "In the way of credentials I don t quite under 
 stand." 
 
 "I mean as an introduction to the present owner 
 of the Bates property, a Miss Luppy, I believe." 
 
 "Yes, Miss Luppy. Kit and I are staying with 
 her how odd, when you come to think of it in 
 your great-uncle s house." 
 
 "Very odd. I suppose I ought to remark, with 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 45 
 
 startling originality, that this is a small world. Of 
 course" he hesitated "of course I had still a 
 lingering idea of calling on Miss Luppy some 
 time " His pause was suggestive. 
 
 "Perhaps you may happen to while we are there." 
 This much was due, surely, to the man who had 
 just saved one s brother s life. 
 
 "Happen to? Naturally I d make a point of it if 
 I thought " 
 
 I, sedately : "Kit and I would be very glad to see 
 you." 
 
 He: "Oh Kit! But may I, really?" 
 
 I, feeling it unnecessary to be sedate twice in suc 
 cession, and smiling up into his questioning eyes: 
 "Of course!" 
 
 Kit having awakened sufficiently restored, we 
 went back together along the flume. Mr. Lam 
 bert s replies, given with cheerful candor, to Kit s 
 brazen catechizing soon made one fact evident be 
 yond dispute that he was not an acquaintance of 
 whom Arabella would have approved. He had 
 worked his way through college, at least the last 
 two years, he hadn t a single influential relation, 
 he had neglected the social opportunities the friend 
 ship of his chief might have given him in town, and 
 expected to rise in his profession only by his own 
 hard work. How different from Jimmie Halliday, 
 
46 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 for instance, of whom Arabella so emphatically 
 approved, and who was coming in for all his uncle s 
 money, and who flunked out of college in his fresh 
 man year and had since been too delicate, in his 
 mother s opinion, to go back! There had been a 
 time when I too had approved of Jimmie, but how 
 long ago it seemed! And I tried unavailingly to 
 imagine Jimmie with the background of Bandy s 
 Flat. But he seemed to get very thin, somehow, 
 and melt completely from my mental grasp. The 
 Flat did not make an impressive background, but 
 as a test of reality it was remarkably effective. 
 
 At the fork in the flume, where one arm of it 
 crossed through the saddle to our side of the ridge, 
 we parted, Mr. Lambert to go farther along the 
 canon of the Grizzly, to where men from the dam 
 were repairing a break in the flume. I gave him 
 my hand, and he mentioned, with an air rather 
 elaborately casual, that he might perhaps ride over 
 to the Flat on Sunday if I didn t mind. I said I 
 didn t, and that Miss Luppy would be immensely 
 pleased to see him, which unauthorized statement 
 made Kit stare. And if he did hold my hand a lit 
 tle lingeringly, one could overlook more than that, 
 couldn t one, in the man who had saved one s 
 brother s life? Even Arbella must have admitted it. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SUNDAY at Bandy s Flat was distinguished from 
 other days mainly by the prevalence among the 
 masculine population of clean shirts and a scrubbed 
 look about the ears. No sweet melody of church 
 bells echoed among the lanes, for the reason, first, 
 that this was not one of the semi-occasional Sun 
 days when a minister from the outer world came 
 to officiate in the little church; second, that said 
 little church possessed no bell. I was in my room 
 doing my hair for the third time when Kit burst in 
 on the heels of a tremendous knock. 
 
 "Say, Sally, he s down-stairs," 
 
 Coldly interrogated as to the significance of the 
 pronoun, he explained it as referring to the fellow 
 who had ducked him in the flume, this being Kit s 
 version of the episode. When asked still more 
 coldly if he was speaking of Mr. Lambert he replied, 
 "Yep, I guess that s his label," and pelted down 
 stairs to have his innings before I arrived to diminish 
 his importance. 
 
 47 
 
48 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 The parlor at Miss Luppy s was seldom used and 
 of a gloomy grandeur, being kept sunless and air 
 less and speckless in accordance with the best Down 
 East tradition Miss Luppy came from Maine. It 
 had shiny horsehair furniture, stuffed birds and wax 
 flowers under glass on the mantel, and portraits of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Heber Bates looking down solemnly 
 from the wall. Mr. Lambert was seated on the 
 slippery sofa, expounding the mysteries of dam- 
 building to Kit. I saw that in Kit s eyes my en 
 trance was ill-timed, and that I would have done 
 better to stay away and let the conversation retain 
 its masculine solidity. And that the guest seemed 
 otherwise minded was due, of course, merely to that 
 belief in the necessity of truckling to females so 
 unintelligible to Kit in the maturer members of his 
 sex. . .Mr. Lambert was much interested, naturally, 
 in the portraits of the Bateses, of which Bandy s 
 showed a rather handsome old man the legs were 
 not in evidence and his wife Eliza s a very plain 
 elderly woman. I had already inferred that Mrs. 
 Bandy s origin was decidedly more plebeian than 
 her husband s, whose father had been a minister, 
 far as the son seemed, in some features of his 
 career, to have fallen from the paternal standard. 
 
 The squeak of substantial shoes heralded the 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 49 
 
 entrance of Miss Luppy, in her best alpaca gown. 
 She had declined to accept Mr. Lambert into favor 
 beforehand, on the strength either of the relation 
 ship or the rescue of Kit, declaring that she would 
 look him over for herself. And look him over she 
 did, deliberately. If he didn t feel her eye boring 
 into his very marrow he must have worn the armor 
 of a good conscience, or a very hardened one. But 
 he remained calm, and even put out an apparently 
 fearless hand. 
 
 "Well !" said Miss Luppy. "So you re the young 
 man Sally s been tellin of, who kep the Boy here 
 from shootin down the flume to the county-seat. 
 It s a mercy you did, for they say if anything gits 
 into the machinery down there to the power-house 
 it throws the lights off in seven towns. I m thank 
 ful to say we ve stuck to kerosene, here to the Flat. 
 And so Sally tells me you claim to be kin to Heber 
 Bates, my cousin Eliza s husband. Not that I ever 
 knew him, for I didn t come out to look after 
 Cousin Eliza till he died. She was a good deal 
 shook up by his passin out so sudden Jest where 
 was you raised, did you say?" 
 
 Mr. Lambert told her. 
 
 "Yes, I ve heard tell he had some kin back in 
 York State," she said musingly. "Warn t there 
 
50 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 some kind of tale you told Sally about a letter?" 
 She put this question suddenly and challengingly. 
 
 "I explained to you all about it, Miss Luppy," I 
 interrupted, but Miss Luppy was not to be diverted. 
 
 "I ast him," she said firmly, and Mr. Lambert 
 gave in sketchy outline the story I had already 
 heard, while the attentive eye of Miss Luppy 
 searched his countenance for signs of confusion and 
 guilt. But he came through the ordeal triumphantly. 
 
 "Umph!" said Miss Luppy, conveying the im 
 pression that she granted him, if an impostor, at 
 least the credit of being a thoroughgoing one. For 
 a minute or two she sat rubbing her nose in silence. 
 Then, "Jest what might the letter have said?" she 
 abruptly demanded. 
 
 "It was a very friendly letter, urging my father 
 to visit him in California," said Mr. Lambert, look 
 ing straight at Lavinia, his expression calm but 
 unrevealing. 
 
 "And you say you lost it when the Overland was 
 robbed a couple o weeks back?" 
 
 "It was in the wallet that the hold-up men took." 
 
 "And you ain t got no other proof of who you 
 are?" 
 
 I felt the blood tingle in my; cheeks, but Mr. 
 Lambert smiled. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 51 
 
 "None in the world, Miss Luppy, though I sup 
 pose my army discharge papers would show that I 
 really am named Joseph Lambert. But then, of 
 course, I have no particular reason for proving any 
 thing. I am interested, naturally, to see the house 
 where my great-uncle lived we are a nearly 
 extinct family, so that even a deceased great-uncle 
 whom I never saw counts for something. And I 
 am very glad indeed to find the place in such good 
 hands as yours. You won t grudge me this, will 
 you, even if I have lost the letter that should have 
 been my introduction?" 
 
 "Mr. Lambert has a better introduction, I should 
 think, than a million letters, in having saved Kit s 
 life !" I exploded, conscious of an alarmingly strong 
 impulse to assault the inquisitorial Miss Luppy. 
 Why did she harp so ridiculously on that lost let 
 ter of old, long-dead Bandy Bates? Did she sup 
 pose Mr. Lambert had come to throw himself on 
 her hands as a needy orphan? 
 
 "There, don t you git het up, Sally," advised 
 Miss Luppy with unexpected mildness. "It ain t but 
 common sense, and Joe Lambert here will tell you 
 the same, for me to kind of look into things a little 
 when a stranger walks in claimin to be kin. And 
 besides it might a been worth my while to know 
 
52 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 more in particular jest what that letter said Well, 
 Joe Lambert, I make you welcome, not jest because 
 you re Bates s kin but because I expect you re a real 
 decent young man myself. It ain t often I m fooled, 
 once I look a party in the eye like I have you." 
 
 Miss Luppy thereupon rose and shook hands with 
 Joe Lambert, with an air which imparted to the 
 action the solemnity of a rite. This accomplished 
 she withdrew, remarking that she must see to din 
 ner, to which the guest was duly bidden. Left to 
 ourselves we looked at each other, and Mr. Lambert 
 gave an appreciative grin. 
 
 "Taken all by herself, she d have been worth the 
 ride from the dam," he remarked. 
 
 "I was afraid you would be furious !" 
 
 "Not at all. As she said, it was right for her 
 to look into things a little. After all, though, she 
 seems to have accepted me merely on face value." 
 
 "If only you hadn t lost the letter. How I would 
 have loved to see it, even the outside of it, with such 
 a history!" 
 
 "Ah, if I hadn t! Never mind, there are plenty 
 of other souvenirs of Bandy Bates around. I ex 
 pect the hold-up men felt sold when they opened 
 that wallet, all right." 
 
 Kit broke in to demand details of the robbery, of 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 53 
 
 which a fuller account than we had heard at Gol- 
 conda had appeared in the papers brought by the 
 tri-weekly stage to Bandy s. It had been a bold and 
 skilful one, and bade fair to be successful until the 
 brakeman had achieved his unexpected coup. All 
 three bandits, including the wounded man, had 
 made their escape, and as far as was known no trace 
 of them had been discovered. Mr. Lambert had 
 little to add to this outline, except, for the benefit 
 of Kit, a highly imaginative sketch of his sensations 
 when the bandits entered the car. 
 
 "S pose they ll be caught?" asked Kit, drinking 
 in this recital with avidity. 
 
 "I wouldn t bank on it. The chaparral down 
 there in the foot-hill country is a pretty good place 
 to hide." 
 
 "So you will probably never see the letter again!" 
 I mourned, my mind still running on that interest 
 ing topic. 
 
 "Probably never," he agreed, and was silent, 
 staring abstractedly at the portrait of his great- 
 uncle on the wall. 
 
 As we strolled about the garden or the village 
 that morning, I made surprising discovery of the 
 multitude of things there are to talk about, if only 
 the right person is there to listen. Oddly enough, 
 
54 FpRTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 this all but perfect stranger had turned out to be 
 the right person, exactly and precisely the right 
 person, to understand the things I had thought 
 most often, but had almost never found it possible 
 to talk about before. For instance, he understood 
 at once just what it was like to have nobody at all 
 but Kit, and how Arabella was very nice but didn t 
 really count, and how you resented boarding-school 
 when you went there with a bundled out-of-the-way 
 feeling, and how absurdly young and unimportant 
 a boy like Jimmie Halliday would seem when you 
 were a year older and had never really cared about 
 him anyhow. He did appear to be a little dense 
 about Jimmie Halliday at first and to take him for 
 a grown-up person whom one might have consid 
 ered seriously. But in the end I made him see it all 
 quite clearly at least he said so then. And there 
 was a lot to tell about his dad, and what pals they 
 had been his mother, like ours, had died when he 
 was small. It seemed that at the time when Heber 
 Bates had written his strangely-fated letter, his 
 nephew, just out of college, had made up his mind 
 to leave his native village for wider fields. If the 
 letter had reached its destination, instead of slipping 
 down behind the shelf to lie forgotten all these 
 years, Joseph Lambert Senior would unquestion- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 55 
 
 ably have accepted his uncle s invitation to come 
 out to California. As it was he went to Buffalo, 
 where, he met and precipitately married Joseph 
 Junior s mother, and practised law and did well, 
 and then lost everything in an unlucky venture 
 when his son was in his sophomore year in college. 
 Then he died, and Joe was left alone. 
 
 "So I suppose I owe my existence to the letter 
 having been lost that first time," he concluded. 
 
 "Isn t it queer that it should have brought a 
 Joseph Lambert to California after all?" I mused. 
 
 "Isn t it queerer that after bringing me here it 
 should have played me that low trick and got lost 
 again?" he returned with a certain bitterness. 
 
 "Oh, well, I suppose it thought it had done its 
 work!" I said lightly. 
 
 His lips opened as if on a reply, then closed again 
 rather suddenly, and we strolled on in silence. We 
 had made a roundabout progress to the end of the 
 village, and were now returning up the shady street, 
 where the low strong buildings of dark old brick 
 with their iron outer doors and shutters bore wit 
 ness that to make your premises bullet-proof had 
 once been simplest prudence here at Bandy s. 
 On either side of the street was a roofed-over 
 wooden sidewalk, the lounging-place of village 
 
56 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 ancients whose chairs blocked the way, while they 
 sat with rheumy eyes gazing into the distance, and 
 lips mumbling soundlessly in converse with invisible 
 companions. Cottonwoods and locusts and pop 
 lars grew along the street, filling it with cool fluc 
 tuating shadow. It was all curiously still and 
 peaceful, with the peace of arrested life, of deep but 
 dreamful slumber. Our own youth seemed 
 strangely, almost jarringly incongruous in this place 
 from which all that was young and vigorous and 
 hopeful had departed long ago. 
 
 We passed the grassy stretch which separated it 
 from the other buildings and paused before the old 
 saloon. 
 
 "Here is the place where Mr. Bates was found 
 dying," I told him. We stood gazing at the dingy 
 walls, the uncompromising iron defenses of door 
 and windows. Other buildings on the street were 
 likewise tenantless and disused, but on this there 
 rested, in my eyes at least, the shadow of its 
 history. 
 
 "Do you care to go in?" I asked. "After the 
 barkeeper was murdered and the saloon given up 
 your great-uncle spent most of his time here, tinker 
 ing about, as Mr. Cobb says. I have always meant 
 to ask Miss Luppy to let me go in some day. I m 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 57 
 
 sure she won t mind. The key hangs on a nail by 
 the kitchen window I know because she men 
 tioned what it was when Kit had the nose-bleed and 
 she put it down his neck." 
 
 He paused a moment before replying, his eyes 
 meditatively on the front of the old building. 
 
 "Yes, let s," he said finally. 
 
 Miss Luppy made no difficulty about giving us 
 the key, and we returned with it to the grim iron 
 door. The lock yielded stiffly, and the twin leaves 
 swung back heavily on their rusty hinges. The 
 inner doors were not locked, and we opened them 
 and went in. It was a dusky, gloomy place, lighted 
 now only from the open doorway and a small 
 unshuttered window high in the side wall, put there, 
 I suppose, for ventilation. In one corner a number 
 of little round tables and chairs were piled together. 
 At the upper end a massive mahogany bar ran 
 across the room, with a little gate at one side admit 
 ting to the space behind it. Against the rear wall 
 rose an elaborate construction of shelves and mir 
 rors, where an accumulation of dusty decanters and 
 drinking-glasses stacked one inside another spoke 
 eloquently of past festivity. 
 
 These items exhausted, there remained apparently 
 nothing more to see. The air was close and musty, 
 
58 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 cool even on that day of ardent heat. Big dusty cob 
 webs hung from the ceiling and the shelves of the 
 buffet, though what the spiders lived on, unless one 
 another, I am sure I can t imagine. I had a sense of 
 a pervading gloom and depression about the place, 
 for which of course its darkness, its mustiness, and 
 my own imagination would account. Mr. Lambert 
 was rather silent, and wandered about with an air 
 of being absorbed in his own thoughts, emerging 
 from them with a start when I wanted to know 
 where, in his opinion, the murdered Brett Morgan 
 had probably fallen in his blood. He professed him 
 self unable to decide this point, and we turned back 
 to the entrance. Directly before the door was a closed 
 trap in the floor, which on being lifted disclosed a 
 runway into a dark cellar. It was a low-ceiled, 
 dank, uninviting place, containing only three or four 
 large hogsheads and a litter of rubbish, mostly 
 empty bottles. After a cursory inspection we 
 closed the trap and went out. 
 
 When we were again on the sidewalk and the 
 door of the saloon had swung to with a sullen jar, 
 I drew a long breath which had in it an element of 
 relief. How good it was to be out in the warm 
 fragrant air, with the fluttering lazy shadow of the 
 poplar playing over us, the sunshine pouring its 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 59 
 
 mellow flood upon the earth ! There had been, yes, 
 certainly there had been, an oppressiveness about 
 that deserted building, like a queer haunting echo of 
 its old sordid revelry, which death had so abruptly 
 ended. Absorbed in these thoughts I stood watch 
 ing my companion struggle with the lock, in which 
 the key had somehow jammed. At last we turned 
 away together and turning, came face to face with 
 some one who had approached unnoticed, and who, 
 it didn t need a second glance to tell me, was Brett 
 Morgan. It wasn t the first time, of course, that 
 I had seen him since our meeting a few days ago 
 in his mother s kitchen. It had seemed to me, in 
 deed, that I was perpetually getting glimpses of him, 
 that whichever way I looked Brett Morgan, with 
 his hat drawn low over his dark brows and the 
 inevitable cigarette between his lips, closed the vista. 
 Although uncomfortably aware that these encounters 
 were not accidental, I had managed so far to keep 
 them at long range. Brett Morgan had had oppor 
 tunity for no more than an occasional bow always 
 with that cavalier-like grace to which I replied as 
 sedately as my somewhat quickened breath would 
 let me. Even the passing glimpse of him evoked 
 again that disconcertingly mixed sensation of fear 
 and unwilling recognition of a certain dark charm 
 
60 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 he had, which at our first meeting had so perturbed 
 me. 
 
 Now we were face to face. I had time for a swift 
 uprush of thankfulness that I was not alone before 
 I realized that,* surprisingly, the eyes of Brett Mor 
 gan were fixed, not on me, but on Joseph Lambert. 
 
 Intently, concentratedly, Brett Morgan was tak 
 ing Joe Lambert in. His lips, with their subtle sug 
 gestion of cruelty, were set, and his black brows 
 frowning. For a long moment of silence he stared 
 somberly at the other man, in whose face dawned a 
 half-humorous astonishment as he met this intently 
 observant as well as blackly hostile look. We had 
 both, of necessity, stood still, for on the narrow 
 sidewalk there was not room to pass unless the man 
 before us should make way. He did not, but delib 
 erately blocked it. 
 
 My companion had opened his lips to speak, 
 rather peremptorily, I imagine, when Brett Morgan 
 turned suddenly from him to me and took off his 
 hat with his air of the cavalier. His lips smiled, but 
 his eyes were like hot embers. 
 
 "Good mornin , Miss Armsby. I ve been thmkin 
 you d mebbe be in to see my mother again it d sure 
 be a pleasure to her." 
 
 "Oh, would it? I hope she s well I ll come in 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 61 
 
 some day," I stammered. Then, obedient perhaps 
 to the purpose I saw in his face, I added, "Mr. Lam 
 bert, this is Mr. Morgan," and had instantly the 
 uncomfortable realization that in thus recognizing 
 Brett Morgan s social existence I had made him just 
 so much the more difficult to ignore. 
 
 The two men shook hands without cordiality. 
 
 "You round this part o the country to stay?" 
 inquired Morgan, civilly enough, but with an under- 
 note of defiance in his voice. 
 
 "I m in charge at present of the work on the 
 Grizzly dam," replied Mr. Lambert stiffly. 
 
 "Huh expect to be ridin over often to the 
 Flat?" There was no mistaking the significance 
 of Morgan s manner. It made of the question a 
 challenge, almost a threat. He stared gloomily at 
 Joe Lambert. 
 
 "I shouldn t wonder." The cool brevity of this 
 was matched by the frigidity of Mr. Lambert s air. 
 His blue eyes, usually so amused and frank, could 
 be very hard. He nodded to Morgan curtly. 
 
 "Shall we go on, Miss Armsby ?" The determina 
 tion of his advance amounted almost to putting 
 Morgan to one side. Morgan gave way, but as we 
 passed him he turned on the other man a dark look 
 of hate. Joe Lambert didn t see it; he was gazing 
 
62 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 straight ahead, as having dismissed Brett Morgan 
 from his consciousness completely. I did, and I 
 murmured a good-by that was almost propitiating, 
 there was something so formidable in that powerful 
 figure, in that implacable, handsome face. He 
 caught my upturned glance and his eyes lighted as 
 when a flame springs suddenly from a bed of sullen 
 coals. A hot devouring eagerness came into them 
 and involuntarily I shrank closer to Joe Lambert 
 and went on quickly. 
 
 "That fellow live around here ?" asked Mr. Lam 
 bert as soon as we were out of ear-shot. 
 
 "His mother lives here. He has come home to 
 see her, I suppose. He is the son of the man whom 
 Mr. Bates hired to run the saloon, and who was 
 shot down at the bar in some sort of quarrel." 
 
 "Don t think I exactly fancy the cut of his jib 
 eh?" 
 
 "He doesn t strike one as very lamb-like," I ad 
 mitted. "Miss Luppy rather hinted that he wouldn t 
 be an altogether desirable acquaintance." 
 
 "Right-o, Miss Luppy!" Then, with a sudden 
 keen look at me: "Has he been bothering you at 
 all?" 
 
 "Oh, no, not at all !" I said hastily, and, so far as 
 literal fact went, truthfully. Not on my account 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 63 
 
 should Joe Lambert do or say what would make 
 Brett Morgan any more his enemy. 
 
 At the garden gate we both, as by a single im 
 pulse, looked back. Brett Morgan stood where we 
 had left him, staring after us, but now he turned on 
 his heel abruptly and went on down the street. 
 
 "I suspect I m in wrong there all right," said Joe 
 Lambert, laughing. "Mind, though, that you let 
 me know if he annoys you at all. He looks like a 
 tough customer to me." 
 
 Except for this encounter, which after all when 
 you thought it over was ominous rather in imagina 
 tion than in reality, there was not a cloud upon the 
 day. Having accepted Joe Lambert Miss Luppy, as 
 was her way, did it thoroughly. We found her in 
 the kitchen when we went to return the key, and 
 her eye had a gleam of satisfied proprietorship as it 
 rested on the young man who as her Cousin Eliza s 
 husband s grand-nephew appeared to figure in her 
 mind as a near relative. Sitting with her in neigh 
 borly fashion was Mrs. Morgan in her rusty black, 
 her worn face still keeping, for all its brooding look 
 of sorrow, a likeness to her son s. 
 
 "Here s the key, Miss Luppy," I reported, and 
 hung it on its accustomed nail. "It s a fearfully 
 spooky old place, isn t it ?" I stopped short, remem- 
 
64 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 bering Mrs. Morgan s connection with the spooky 
 old place, but she did not raise her eyes from the 
 hands folded on her lap. We retired to the gloomy 
 grandeur of the parlor while Miss Luppy went on 
 getting dinner, and some time later I saw Mrs. 
 Morgan go out by the gate into the lane. 
 
 After dinner Kit went back to Asa Cobb, and we 
 two strolled out into the garden. It was a fascinat 
 ing old garden gardens, like violins, need age to 
 mellow them secluded, and leafy, and crowded 
 with old-fashioned flowers. In the middle was a 
 stone-rimmed basin presided over by the effigy of a 
 pudgy child holding an umbrella. When the foun 
 tain played which was intermittently, because it 
 was always getting out of order and the services of 
 Asa Cobb being required to mend it a jet of water 
 rose from the peak of the umbrella and descended 
 in a shower of rain. This object of art was much 
 esteemed at the Flat; the neat conception of the 
 umbrella and the shower never lost its point for the 
 admiring citizenry. 
 
 Beside the fountain was a honeysuckle arbor 
 where we sat while Mr. Lambert smoked an 
 after-dinner pipe, and we decided that last 
 names were out of place at Bandy s Flat and 
 that we would be Joe and Sally henceforth and 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 65 
 
 count him as one of the family, having for this the 
 sanction and example of Miss Luppy. And I ex 
 plained again about Jimmie Halliday, and Joe 
 admitted that though only a year ago it did no 
 doubt belong with that childhood which was now 
 so far behind me, calendars being misleading and 
 taking no account of the things that really aged you, 
 far more than mere lapse of time. For I knew that 
 I had grown immensely older since coming on my 
 own to Bandy s; a decade under Arabella s thumb 
 wouldn t have counted so. And he insisted I was 
 mistaken about his having thought me at all too 
 young that day at Golconda. He said it was impos 
 sible to take any fixed view about what was too 
 young, because well, certain girls seemed always 
 exactly the right age. When I asked whether he 
 had known many who seemed so he said no, scarcely 
 any, and smoked very hard in silence. But he 
 added, after quite a long pause, that there was one 
 girl who always would, whether deliciously young 
 as at present, or after years and years. I said what, 
 even at thirty? And he said of course, because then 
 he d be thirty-six, and such things were entirely 
 relative. And anyway, what would it matter, so 
 long as she was the girl ? Nothing did matter, really, 
 but that. 
 
66 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Decidedly, it seemed to me, as at bedtime I took 
 my good night look at the glowing mountain stars, 
 there hadn t been a cloud upon the day. Even the 
 faintly unpleasant episode of our encounter with 
 Brett Morgan that morning seemed unimportant 
 now. So did another, still smaller, incident the 
 stirring of a curtain at a window of the Morgan 
 house, as I stood at the gate that afternoon, watch 
 ing Joe ride away. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THIS meeting with Brett Morgan made me rea 
 lize more sharply that, try as I might to elude 
 him, encounters like this were certain to occur. The 
 handful of people left at Bandy s Flat hardly con 
 stituted a crowd among which one could conveniently 
 lose one s self. Unless I remained permanently 
 behind the barrier of Miss Luppy s garden fence, a 
 person bent on a meeting would have little trouble 
 in bringing it about. I had to remind myself rather 
 forcibly that there was, after all, nothing alarming 
 in this prospect, that the emergency would be one 
 to which a very moderate amount of courage ought 
 to make me equal. Brett Morgan wasn t an ogre, 
 merely a young man quite out of what Arabella 
 called my social sphere, and requiring to have that 
 fact brought gently but firmly to his attention. 
 Only at Bandy s, where social spheres didn t exist, 
 there was a difficulty about this which I felt might 
 have floored Arabella herself. And besides I knew 
 well enough, in spite of feeble efforts at self-decep 
 tion, that this wasn t the crux of the matter. It 
 
68 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was Brett Morgan himself to whom I objected, with 
 a warmth which was perhaps a chemical result from 
 the presence of a strong element of fear. Why I 
 feared him I couldn t say; simply, he had imposed 
 himself on my imagination as somehow sinister and 
 portentous, as well as possessed of a kind of dark 
 personal power I refused to call it fascination 
 which intensely as I rebelled at it I couldn t alto 
 gether deny. 
 
 The event so plainly inevitable was not long in 
 coming about. Kit being now more difficult than 
 ever to detach from Asa Cobb, I had gone myself 
 one morning for the mail. Such activity as there 
 was at Bandy s was concentrated at the lower end of 
 the street, where its cool shade met the hot glare of 
 the road. Here on one side of the street was the 
 Bonanza House, of which the bar, for many years 
 the only part of the establishment showing signs of 
 life, was now of course closed down. On the other 
 side was the general store and post-office. The 
 postmaster and owner of the store was a Mr. Samuel 
 Davis, who in spite of his fifty-odd years was gen 
 erally known as Young Sam, because of a paternal 
 Old Sam still clinging to a moribund existence. 
 
 What with the mail and various errands for Miss 
 Luppy, I had been to the store so often that I was 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 69 
 
 now on quite intimate terms with Young Sam. As 
 he was of a friendly, not to say loquacious disposi 
 tion I might have found our interviews amusing, 
 had the faith of Mr. Davis in the fascinations of his 
 son Sam the Third been less misplaced. 
 
 This scion of the Davis line enjoyed the sobriquet 
 of Little Sam, having been endowed with it, I sup 
 pose, before he acquired six feet or more of sham 
 bling body. He had enormous feet, which seemed 
 to set themselves down at random when he moved, 
 to the damage of the heterogeneous merchandise 
 with which the store was crowded. He always took 
 to cover when I appeared, so that my arrival was 
 announced by the banging of overturned boxes and 
 the clatter of hardware. Once safely in hiding he 
 would peer forth with fantastic cranings of his long 
 neck and a Cheshire-cat-like grin on his round moon 
 face. Meanwhile Young Sam would exhort me to 
 keep up hope in spite of this discouraging behavior. 
 
 "Well, I swan," he would remark, looking about 
 him anxiously, "if that boy ain t lit out again. And 
 jest when I thought I d got him to the sticking 
 point, where he d step up like a little man and let 
 me make you acquainted with him. Sam, Sam! 
 Where in time is that boy ? Expect if you re ever to 
 git to speak to him you ll have to sneak up on him 
 
70 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 sort of quiet-like. Not that he has anythin ag in 
 you, you understand; it s jest his bashful natur 
 scarier n a rabbit of a petticoat. But jest you git 
 the ice broke once and I bet Sammy ll be easier 
 hooked n a hungry trout. Them quiet ones is good 
 stickers, once you git a holt on em." 
 
 Thus Young Sam, who being unable to see across 
 the store without hi? glasses, was unaware of Little 
 Sam ambushed behind a sugar barrel and regarding 
 me with pale unwinking eyes and a large fixed grin. 
 
 On this particular morning as I waited at the 
 post-office window for the mail I heard a step 
 behind me. A wicked impulse to demoralize Little 
 Sam by catching him in the open before he could 
 retreat made me turn quickly. But instead of the 
 alarmed moon face of Little Sam I saw the darkly 
 handsome one of Brett Morgan. He was leaning 
 on the counter and watching me, not eagerly, but 
 with the tranquillity of the hunter who sees the 
 bird securely limed. 
 
 Well, the moment I had foreseen was here, and 
 it was my business to meet it in a fashion which 
 would dispose with finality of Brett Morgan. I 
 was annoyed to find my heart beating rapidly. My 
 hand trembled as I gathered up the letters which 
 Young Sam passed out through the window, and I 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 71 
 
 even welcomed his facetious comments on the 
 entirely mythical young men whose devoted out 
 pourings . they were supposed to be. It meant a 
 moment of delay and then I pulled myself together 
 angrily and went out, with the merest nod to Brett 
 Morgan as I passed. It was too absurd that I 
 should let myself be disturbed in this fashion by a 
 man with scarcely a claim to bare acquaintance. I 
 would take a leaf out of Arabella s book and adopt 
 a pose of cool superiority that should settle any 
 mountain-bred rustic of them all. 
 
 But when I heard his step I trembled. Against 
 my will I looked up into the harshly handsome face, 
 the smoldering dark eyes, of the man who was at 
 my side. 
 
 "How fast you walk!" he said, his smile telling 
 me plainly that he understood my haste and the 
 panic that had prompted it. "Come, don t hurry 
 so." His voice was at once authoritative and 
 caressing. Involuntarily I found my steps slacken, 
 in the face of a strong impulse to break into a run. 
 
 "I guess you been used to fellows of a different 
 kind from me," Brett Morgan went on. "I see some 
 o them city-raised swells in the army the kind I 
 expect you been in the habit o knowin . Mebbe 
 you don t think it makes a man pretty sore, to have 
 
72 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 some kid that never done a day s work in his life 
 set over him, and givin him orders like he was dirt 
 and all that, jest because the guy had had a chance 
 at a college education. The way I been brought up, 
 the first thing, you got to be a man. No Miss Lily- 
 fingers would git far in some o the fixes I been in. 
 There was one or two of them officers say, I d 
 like to git em out here in the mountains once, 
 where they didn t have no army regulations to back 
 em or nothin . I d show em a few!" His face 
 darkened and grew fierce. Strangely, the ferocity 
 became it. It might have been a terribly beautiful 
 mask of the tragic passions. 
 
 "I m sorry you didn t enjoy your army experi 
 ences," I murmured inanely. 
 
 "Enjoy em ! Say, does a wildcat enjoy bein put 
 in a cage? But never mind that now." His deep 
 voice mellowed and softened. "I was only talkin 
 about me bein a different kind from what you been 
 brought up among. Well, I understand jest the 
 handicap it puts me under. I m a fellow that never 
 had a show though mebbe some day " He 
 broke off suddenly, then went on. "I got Spanish 
 blood in me, and it s blood that s hot and quick. It 
 don t take me long to git to where I can t hold my 
 self in very well, whether it s lovin or hatin . I ll 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 73 
 
 be goin along jest kind of peaceful, not worry in 
 about anythin in particular, and then all at once 
 something, happens, mebbe somethin that wouldn t 
 faze another fellow worth a darn, and first thing 
 I m boilin up like the Stony in a spring flood, and 
 no more able to git a grip on myself than a chip 
 whirlin along in the foam. I love that way and I 
 hate that way. I hated that way when I saw you 
 and Lambert strollin round town together here last 
 Sunday, like you been friends from way back, in 
 stead o never knowin each other till jest now." 
 (Asa Cobb got that from Kit and has told the whole 
 town! I reflected.) 
 
 "He ain t known you as long as I have, yet you 
 treat him friendly and intimate, and me oh, I ve 
 known well enough you was dodgin me, Sally !" 
 
 I gasped. We had come to Miss Luppy s gate, 
 and with a sense of escape I put out my hand to 
 open it. But Brett Morgan was before me. A quick 
 movement brought him between me and the gate, 
 where he stood resting his elbow on the cross-bar. 
 Thus we were face to face, and I got the full bene 
 fit of the intense dark eyes that looked into mine 
 and held them. Fear and resistance stirred in me, 
 yet I continued to gaze up at him, helpless as a rab 
 bit under the serpent s spell. 
 
74 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Sally--" 
 
 "Don t call me Sally, please," I interrupted, rally 
 ing my forces feebly. "You ve no right to." 
 
 "How can I call you anything but what I m sayin 
 over and over to myself, every hour, every minute 
 I m awake yes, and in my dreams too?" he de 
 manded, that hot spark which seemed always to 
 smolder in his eyes leaping into life. "Would I 
 be thinkin Miss Armsby, do you suppose, while I m 
 watchin for a sight of you all day, or for the light 
 in your winder at night? No, you re Sally in my 
 thoughts and on my lips too, when there ain t no one 
 round to hear I m too hard hit for anything else. 
 It was the very first sight of you done it, too, Sally, 
 the first sight of you there there in my mother s 
 house. I ve seen a lot o girls besides country girls 
 since I been knockin round, but never one that could 
 touch you, you beauty, you little peach ! Oh, Sally, 
 give me a chance! Mebbe I look to you now like 
 jest a low-down roughneck, but I tell you straight I 
 got chances that a good many that think they re 
 some class would give their eye-teeth for. Let luck 
 jest play a little bit my way, and I ll be able to do as 
 good for you when it comes to money as any o 
 these here white-collared fellows you know yes, 
 and a whole lot better. Sally, leave me have a 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 75 
 
 show! Leave me keep company with you while 
 you re here, and if I can t git you to carin for me 
 before the summer s over I swear I ll never bother 
 you again. Sally, say you will!" 
 
 Under this amazing outburst I had felt myself 
 grow pale, less at the words themselves than at the 
 passion and intensity in the man s face and voice. 
 This wasn t a boy, I remembered; this wasn t 
 Jimmie Halliday, who had been so furious when I 
 wouldn t give him my address or let him write to 
 me this summer that he had sent me back my photo 
 graph arid asked for his which I couldn t send on 
 account of having accidentally squirted ginger ale 
 on it at a dormitory feed at school. Jimmie s 
 heroics hadn t moved me; I had seen him as a little 
 ridiculous even before that great revolution in my 
 mind and character which seemed to have been 
 accomplished by this trip to Bandy s Flat. But 
 Brett Morgan one couldn t laugh at; poor as his 
 words were, there was that about the man which 
 gave them force and power. One trembled, rather, 
 at the sense of something primitive and dangerous, 
 elemental and untamed, threatening to break 
 through a thin veneer of civilization. So I stood 
 pale and tongue-tied, overwhelmed by his unex 
 pected torrent of pleading. 
 
;6 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 As if my confusion gave him confidence he came 
 nearer. 
 
 "Sally," he began, on a deeper note of his rich 
 voice, "you don t need to answer now. Jest don t 
 say nothin , and leave things go on leave me have 
 my chance. I swear you won t be sorry, girlie!" 
 
 He smiled, and with the smile somehow the spell 
 his deadly earnestness had put upon me broke. Sud 
 denly I had slipped around him and in at the gate. 
 With that between us I found breath to speak. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Morgan, I m so sorry but please don t 
 think of anything like this any more ! I couldn t I 
 couldn t really! Please let s forget that you ever 
 spoke this way it will be much better." 
 
 He stood looking at me across the gate in silence, 
 his face ominously darkening. 
 
 "You mean you won t stand for me comin round 
 you, like that guy Lambert does?" he said at last. 
 
 "Please leave Mr. Lambert out of the question," 
 I requested, with a belated attempt at dignity. 
 
 He stared at me somberly from beneath his low 
 ered brows. "Not much. That s jest what I ain t 
 goin to do," he announced with a kind of still, 
 suppressed violence. "He s right in the question 
 in the very middle of it, so long as you let him hang 
 round you like he done last Sunday. What right 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 77 
 
 has he got that I ain t? Ain t I a white man? 
 Ain t I known you as long?" 
 
 "Mr. Lambert is a a kind of relation of Miss 
 Luppy s," I said, moved to at least a show of cour 
 age by his insolence. "Besides that, he saved my 
 brother s life." 
 
 "And besides that, he s one of these here college 
 willieboys, ain t he?" demanded Morgan, anger be 
 ginning to break from him like lightnings from a 
 brooding cloud. "He s a willieboy and I m a 
 roughneck, huh? He s got a job and I m hangin 
 round here without one. Well, you wait, that s all. 
 Mebbe I ll cross his path yet in ways he nor you 
 don t think for. Mebbe I ll be livin soft and easy 
 when he s still huntin engineerin jobs at a couple 
 o hundred per. But let me tell you this, Sally girl, 
 if that there guy values his skin or you value it for 
 him, don t you show him too much favor ; don t you 
 let me see him a-danglin round here so awful much. 
 I told you I got Spanish blood, and it goes with that 
 to even up pretty well with any one that does you 
 dirt." 
 
 He turned and strode rapidly away. 
 
 On Saturday at supper-time came Joe, riding the 
 buckskin which for unknown reasons he called the 
 
78 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Grumpy-horse. Miss Luppy had invited him 
 to come down for overnight whenever he pleased 
 and he was taking her at her word. So he 
 told her with his big frank laugh, adding that she 
 had better not treat him too well or he might con 
 clude to move down altogether; he said he had 
 been able to think of nothing all week but the dinner 
 she had given him last Sunday. Miss Luppy gave 
 a skeptical sniff, though you saw she was pleased 
 enough to purr. I never was quite certain why Joe 
 Lambert so obviously found favor in her sight, 
 whether on the ground purely of their much atten 
 uated relationship, whether because he took her so 
 fearlessly and humorously, or because for all her 
 austere spinsterhood she had really a heart no 
 harder than another s for personable young men. 
 
 Out in the honeysuckle arbor, later, Joe owned it 
 was mere camouflage about the dinner and that he 
 had really been thinking all week about something 
 entirely different. And he asked did I mind his 
 coming again so soon, and I said rather faintly no, 
 of course not, it was quite all right. Because at the 
 back of my mind all the while was the thought of 
 Brett Morgan and his threat ; a threat which might 
 be and probably was all talk, but which held for me 
 an element of terror in its very vagueness. It was, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 79 
 
 of course, too absurd, in the twentieth century, to 
 think of one man waylaying another out of jealousy, 
 but then JBrett Morgan, you felt, didn t belong in the 
 twentieth century. Neither, in a sense, did Bandy s 
 Flat, but was simply a fossilized survival of the 
 1 850 $, with the untamed spirit of those riotous old 
 days still hovering over it, and eager, perhaps, to 
 come to life in some wild deed. I wondered much 
 that evening, as I had wondered ever since the thing- 
 occurred, whether I should tell Joe of Morgan s 
 enmity. The difficulty was that I would also have 
 to tell Joe why Morgan hated him, that it was on 
 my account and as a rival, and this required a braz- 
 enness beyond me. Even the thought of it, as often 
 as it came to me, made my cheeks burn. And yet I 
 did think of it, as we sat in the arbor, or strolled 
 in the garden, or played casino like uncrowned 
 martyrs with Miss Luppy and Kit around the table 
 in the sitting-room. Always I saw the fierce black 
 eyes and heard the sullen voice : "I told you I got 
 Spanish blood and it goes with that to even up 
 pretty well with any one that does you dirt " 
 
 That I really expected a knife or a bullet to arrive 
 suddenly among us as the messenger of Brett Mor 
 gan s vengence I can t say. But at least a vague 
 expectancy of evil haunted me, and it was with a 
 
8o FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 sense of relief that I hailed the coming of bedtime 
 * postponed to the unhallowed hour of ten in honor 
 of the guest and knew the evening safely over. I 
 could even, in the light of their non-fulfillment, 
 reflect on the absurdity of my fears as I went up 
 stairs to bed, leaving Joe to his repose in the down 
 stairs sleeping-room which had been Bandy Bates s 
 own. 
 
 It was that rare thing in California, a stiflingly 
 hot night. Thunder muttered far away among the 
 mountains, and the sky was starless and lowering. 
 Whether my nerves were jumpy for this reason, or 
 because of my worry about Joe and Brett Morgan I 
 don t know, but at least I couldn t sleep. For two 
 hours I tossed, half dozing sometimes, then waking 
 with a start to vague apprehensions, the echo of 
 those that had haunted me that evening. At last 
 in despair I sat up. With every window open the 
 room seemed close. I rose, threw a light robe about 
 me, and stepped out on the porch that ran before 
 my windows, where I paced up and down in the 
 darkness, trying to cool the feverish unrest which 
 kept my blood racing. 
 
 At last at the corner of the porch I paused and 
 stood looking down on the garden. It lay below me 
 invisible in the murky dark, but sending up a fra- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 81 
 
 grant breath of the growing things that slept there, 
 undisturbed by the dim fears that kept me wakeful. 
 I was turning to go, thinking that now I would be 
 quiet enough to sleep, when from somewhere out 
 beyond the garden I caught a gleam of light. 
 
 It was a faint gleam, but steady. And it came 
 from the point where, at the end of a vista between 
 trees, the side wall of the old saloon was visible by 
 day, to one who stood as I was standing now, in the 
 angle of the porch railing. Experimentally I 
 moved a little. The light disappeared. I resumed 
 my position, and there it was. I remembered the 
 small window high up in the wall through this, it 
 must be, the light was shining, though shining was 
 too strong a word for that faint and feeble ray. It 
 suggested a candle or a lamp set at a lower level 
 than the window. But what was lamp or candle 
 doing in that place, and at this hour? Beyond the 
 fact that it was impossible to conceive of a reason 
 for anybody wanting to go there, was not the door 
 locked and the key hanging on the nail beside our 
 kitchen window? How had any one outside the 
 house got possession of it to-night? As to any one 
 inside the house 
 
 I put the thought from me quickly and stood 
 waiting, thinking that when the bearer of the light 
 
82 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 emerged from the building I might see where he 
 went. But the ray continued to shine steadily 
 though faintly from the window, and by and by I 
 turned away and went slowly to my room. There 
 almost at once, as though overstrained nature had 
 provided its own narcotic, I fell into a deep sleep. 
 
 But I was awake early and down-stairs, astonish 
 ing Miss Luppy by my promptness. Yes, there was 
 the key on its nail by the window. I felt a miser 
 able little chill of disappointment. Only then did I 
 realize how I had counted on finding it gone 
 because then I could be sure that some one outside 
 the house had taken it. But it was no one outside 
 the house. And if no one outside the house ? 
 
 But why, why, why? When we had gone 
 through the place together, when he might have the 
 key any time for the asking ? What was he looking 
 for in the old saloon and why look for it, like a 
 thief, secretly and in the dead of night? And then 
 he came into the room, his thick fair hair still damp 
 and his tanned cheeks glowing from his tub. He 
 said good morning briskly to Miss Luppy, but his 
 brightening eyes sought mine that fell shamed 
 before them. No, I couldn t meet his eyes and sus 
 pect him well, of what did I suspect him, after all ? 
 Not, certainly, of any evil purpose, however mysti- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 83 
 
 fying that secret midnight visit to the old saloon 
 might be. No, if it had been he and how it could 
 have been any other it seemed, in the face of the 
 key s miite testimony, impossible to imagine he 
 had had a reason. It was a reason not now to be 
 explained, perhaps, but still a reason which I must, 
 I would, accept on faith. Some time I would under 
 stand; now, I would believe. 
 
 So it came about that neither to Joe nor to any 
 one did I speak of the light I had seen at midnight 
 in the old saloon. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ASA COBB had a mortal enemy in town, one 
 Eben Gregg, a bachelor in the comparatively 
 juvenile fifties, on whom a certain Lorena Pettis 
 still at forty-three known as "Mis Pettis s girl Lo 
 rena" was understood to look with the eye of favor. 
 What he and Asa Cobb had fallen out about was 
 lost now in the mists of antiquity. Probably they 
 did not remember themselves. But the quarrel, 
 whatever its cause, had long since settled down into a 
 steady feud. Hating Eben Gregg was one of the 
 main occupations of Asa Cobb s life. Another was 
 chuckling over his own cleverness in having out 
 lived the late Mrs. Cobb, in spite of her predictions 
 to the contrary. Mrs. Cobb had been a member of 
 a sect called by themselves the Peculiar People. As 
 the Peculiar People claimed, as chief among their 
 special blessings, a truly patriarchal length of days, 
 it followed that the unbeliever to whom Mrs. Cobb 
 was unequally yoked would depart this life a long 
 while in advance of his spouse. Mrs. Cobb did not 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 85 
 
 fail with due frequency to point this out, and had 
 even composed an appropriate epitaph which she 
 had worked on cardboard in black worsted and 
 hung above the mantel in the sitting-room. It was 
 still there when I saw it, imparting to Mr. Cobb 
 vast satisfaction of a kind he was especially fitted 
 to enjoy. 
 
 Here Asa Cobb doth lie in long repose, 
 Laid low as ever are Religion s foes. 
 His widow Martha, by true Faith protected, 
 Survives him still to have this Stone erected. 
 
 "There you have it," said Asa Cobb triumphantly, 
 on the occasion of exhibiting it to me. "It s worked 
 real neat, ain t it? Martha was as smart as the 
 next one with her needle, if I do say it. Survives 
 him still to have this stone erected/ Twas what 
 that woman would call to my notice every time we 
 had a little argument. And all because I was a 
 Methody and she a Peculiar ! And then she d hint 
 that after I was gone she might feel it on her con 
 science to take a Peculiar for Number Two, on 
 account pf this world s goods bein not any too 
 plenty among em, and her havin the house and all. 
 Woman, says I, that there Peculiar, if such there 
 be, that s a-settin round waitin to devour my sub 
 stance along o my widder, says I, he s got quite a 
 
86 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 spell to set yet. Methody though I be, I ll back 
 myself as a setter ag in any Peculiar of them all/ I 
 says. And at that she flares up and she says, 
 You re a child o wrath and I ll have no truck with 
 you, she says, and I m a-goin now to lay away my 
 best black woolen that I ain t had but four years for 
 your funeral, she says. 
 
 " Lay it away all you like, I ll live to lay you 
 away in it! I yells, and gosh darn me if I didn t! 
 Peculiar here or Peculiar there, Mis Cobb up and 
 died o the quinzy that winter before you could say 
 scat, and here be the old Methody a-livin yet !" 
 
 "Did you have a stone put over her?" I asked. 
 
 He shook his head. "Not yet. Stones comes 
 high, with the carvin and all, and seems like I allus 
 wanted the money for other things. But I m 
 a-layin by for it little by little, and I got the poetry 
 part all worked out. See here." 
 
 He produced from a dilapidated pocketbook a 
 much-creased sheet of paper, which he offered me 
 with a satisfied air. 
 
 "That s what I m a-layin by for to have put on 
 the stone," he said pridefully. 
 
 Here lies the mortal part of Martha Cobb, 
 Who aimed to be a widow but bungled the job 
 By catching a Quinzy what laid her low, 
 In December, 1913 years ago. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 87 
 
 This is erected by her husband who outlives her yet, 
 And often comes here in his spare time to set, 
 And think how twas expected to be contrariwise 
 By her who underneath this stone now lies. 
 
 "I ve left a blank for the number of years ago," 
 he pointed out, "bein as I can t foresee how many 
 twill be when I get the stone put up. But what do 
 you say to that for rhymin , now?" 
 
 "It s quite remarkable," I said truthfully. "But 
 don t you think eight years it s that already, you 
 know is rather a long while to hold a grudge ?" 
 
 " Twas a good deal more, than eight that she 
 was a Peculiar and a-prophesyin mornin , noon and 
 night about me dyin and she not," he answered 
 doggedly. "I ain t near even with her yet." 
 
 So it will be seen that Mr. Cobb was by no means 
 of a soft or forgiving nature. And his capacity for 
 rancor found vent in his feud with Eben Gregg. 
 
 Kit, as a new and respectful auditor, got the full 
 benefit of Mr. Cobb s eloquence on the subject. 
 And of course the more mephistophelian Mr. Gregg 
 loomed, the more he held Kit s fascinated eye. Kit 
 would desist from the most enthralling occupations, 
 such as chasing the Bonanza House cat, or luring 
 tarantulas into a wide-necked pickle-bottle, or help 
 ing Little Sam sweep out the store, to glower at 
 
88 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Eben Gregg with an expression compounded of 
 ferocious loyalty to Asa Cobb and admiration of 
 such really superior villainy. 
 
 On an evening after supper I was sitting on the 
 porch steps, where Kit for a wonder was favoring 
 me with his society. I had just opened my lips to 
 inquire whether I owed this privilege to the indis 
 position of Asa Cobb, when Kit, who had been 
 fidgeting about in an uneasy fashion, suddenly, and 
 with the air of one who decides to free his mind, 
 asked if I had heard that Eben Gregg had left town. 
 
 I replied indifferently that I had not. 
 
 "I guess nobody else has, either/ he said in a 
 tone of profound significance, "only I just happen 
 to know he has, that s all." 
 
 "Well, what of it?" I remarked. "We re not his 
 keepers, are we?" 
 
 He looked at me with pitying contempt. 
 
 "Say, did it ever strike you that a head was to 
 use?" he inquired sardonically. "If he d left town 
 like like any one would, he d have gone on the 
 stage, wouldn t he? And every one would have 
 known about it, wouldn t they? And there would 
 have been a lot of talk about where he went, and 
 what he went for, and everything. That s the way 
 it would have been, but it wasn t," 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 89 
 
 The mysterious, not to say incoherent, nature of 
 this speech caught my attention a little. 
 
 "Well,- if it isn t, I should say, if you give me 
 three guesses, that he probably hasn t gone," I 
 hazarded. 
 
 "Then why isn t he around anywhere ?" demanded 
 Kit, with an irritation clearly due to my having 
 failed to grasp some obscure but vital point. "If 
 he hadn t left town he d be here, wouldn t he? A 
 man can t just not be anywhere all of a sudden, can 
 he?" 
 
 I acknowledged the seeming impossibility of this. 
 "But how do you know he isn t here?" I persisted. 
 
 " Cause I keep my eyes open, that s how," he 
 declared emphatically. " Cause when I know a 
 man needs watching like Eben Gregg does Mr. 
 Cobb says so thout making a fuss or anything I 
 just naturally keep my eyes open, that s all. That s 
 how I came to notice way back last week that Eben 
 Gregg s house was shut up. And then I went on 
 noticing, and it s been shut up right along. There 
 hasn t been a window opened or anything. I tell 
 you, Sally, Eben Gregg just isn t there any more, 
 that s all." 
 
 I rose abruptly. "Kit Armsby, it s just forty 
 times as likely that he is there, but hurt or ill and 
 
90 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 with no way to get any help. Why on earth didn t 
 you speak of it before ? Let s go right up there now 
 and find out what s the matter." 
 
 Though rejecting with contempt this simple solu 
 tion of the mystery he had manufactured, Kit con 
 sented to put it to the test, and we set out at once 
 for Eben Gregg s cottage. This stood some dis 
 tance up the road beyond Miss Luppy s, and quite 
 apart from any other dwelling. From the rear 
 fence the cliff dropped away abruptly into the mine, 
 and across the road in front the dismal little ceme 
 tery lay on the slope of the hill. There was every 
 possibility that Eben Gregg might have been ill and 
 helpless here for days, without any one in the Flat 
 discovering it. 
 
 Nevertheless, the little place had a distinctly shut- 
 up and deserted look. The blinds of the two front 
 windows had been closed. A knock at the front 
 door brought no answer, and when we tried it it 
 was locked. 
 
 "Let s go round to the back," I suggested, 
 though not without an inward qualm at the thought 
 that death might have visited Eben Gregg here in 
 his solitude. I opened the gate and went in, fol 
 lowed by Kit wearing an expression of portentous 
 gloom. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 91 
 
 The back windows likewise had their blinds 
 drawn, and the door at which I rapped vigorously 
 repaid our efforts to open it with the rattle of a shot 
 bolt. Nothing stirred about the place except a 
 small gray cat, which appeared suddenly from 
 somewhere and began mewing about our feet. You 
 saw that she was lonely and very glad of a human 
 touch and voice. 
 
 There was no question here of death or illness. 
 By every outward sign it was obvious that Eben 
 Gregg had carefully locked his house and gone away. 
 
 "But still I see nothing startling about it/ I in 
 sisted, when we were out in the road again, the gray 
 cat trotting anxiously at our heels. "And anyway 
 it doesn t concern us." 
 
 "Well, I m a friend of Asa Cobb, I guess, ain t 
 I?" demanded Kit truculently. I conceded this. 
 
 "And if anybody was to go and do anything on 
 purpose to make things look bad for Mr. Cobb I 
 guess it would be my business to kind of find out 
 about it, wouldn t it?" 
 
 "Look bad for Mr. Cobl>-how?" 
 
 "Well, make it look as if Mr. Cobb might have 
 murdered him " 
 
 "Murdered him? Asa Cobb murder Eben 
 Gregg?" 
 
92 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Don t holler so !" he commanded fiercely. "You 
 don t want to be the first to start it, do you ? All it 
 needs is somebody to start em and there s folks 
 round this town that ll say any fool thing Mr. 
 Cobb told me so. And when I kind of mentioned to 
 him about Eben Gregg not being anywheres round 
 he said right off, That ere skunk is just pizen 
 enough to go break his own neck or something and 
 then pin a note on hisself to say I done it. 
 Twouldn t be anything for him to do if so s he 
 could git me to swing for it, that s just what Mr. 
 Cobb said." 
 
 "And so your idea is to find the corpse and take 
 the note off?" 
 
 He stood still in the road to survey me with a 
 fine scorn. 
 
 "That s right, laugh! Just laugh good and hard 
 at me doing what it s my business to do as a friend 
 of Mr. Cobb! Would you want me to let the note 
 stay on? Don t you know a trick like that of Eben 
 Gregg s would fool most any jury in this state? 
 Don t you know there s a heap of juries that would 
 rather be fooled than not ? Mr. Cobb says so. And 
 if he isn t dead, on account of not having the nerve 
 for it or something, then it s up to me, isn t it, to 
 find out where he is and get the goods on him so as 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 93 
 
 every, one will know just what kind of game he is 
 trying to play." 
 
 Though I had always known that Kit was im 
 mensely my superior in the sublime faculty of imag 
 ination, I was unprepared for such a flight as this. 
 But I didn t repeat the unpardonable sin of laughing. 
 
 "Well, good luck to you," I said placatingly. 
 "Isn t it important, though, before you begin to 
 hunt a missing person, to have what they call a 
 clue? I thought detectives always had. In fact, I 
 should think one might waste a great deal of time 
 without one. Because you might look in so many 
 wrong places first " I indicated the landscape 
 generally with a comprehensive gesture. 
 
 "Huh, you must think I m green !" he gibed. "A 
 clue why, a clue is the very thing I m watching 
 out for everywhere right now. I expect to pick up 
 one most any time that ll land me right on Eben 
 Gregg s trail. I m not telling any one, of course, 
 not even Mr. Cobb, cause if it got out that I was 
 trailing Gregg like as not he d hear of it and take 
 extra care to cover up his tracks that is, if he isn t 
 dead. What I ll do is just hang round, and keep 
 awful quiet, and have my eyes open all the time 
 and I bet there won t much happen in this town 
 that will get by met" 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE Fourth of July was now at hand, and the 
 day was to be celebrated in the accustomed 
 fashion of Bandy s Flat by a dance in the opera- 
 house. I think Bandy s was prouder of the opera- 
 house than of anything else within its limits, not 
 excepting the bronze child with the umbrella which 
 presided over our fountain. Elsewhere, I suppose, 
 the opera-house would have been called a hall, for 
 the little stage at one end was only some two feet 
 above the general level and provided with the most 
 modest adjuncts in the way of tattered wings and 
 moldy back-drop, which could hardly, even in their 
 pristine freshness, have created illusions of splendor. 
 Nevertheless, in the good old days Booth had 
 played there, and famous operatic stars had sung, 
 to an audience able and willing to pay lavishly for 
 the entertainment. In these earlier and gayer years 
 the place had likewise been much used for dancing, 
 so that the stout oak floor was somewhat pitted 
 with scars from the nails in the miners boots. But 
 it was a very good floor still. 
 
 94 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 95 
 
 At the suggestion of a dance at the Flat I had 
 shown rather too candidly my surprise. 
 
 "But who will come to it ?" I inquired. The vision 
 of various hobbling ancients like Old Sam Davis 
 disporting themselves at a dance was too much for 
 my credulity. And the able-bodied population was 
 pathetically scanty. 
 
 "Well, the Fourth o July dance has been held 
 every year for the last twenty to my knowledge, and 
 there s always a plenty come to it," said Miss Luppy 
 tartly. " Tain t a thing any Flatter would stay 
 away from while he was able to walk, I expect." 
 
 Asa Cobb, who was present, went further still. 
 "More n that, I ve known em when they couldn t 
 walk to have theirselves toted," he declared. 
 " Twas so with Loreny Pettis s pa ; he got em to 
 lug him down there so s he could look on, only the 
 week before he died. Mis Pettis, she was worried 
 they wouldn t git him home alive; she said twould 
 have seemed to her a real ungodly thing to pass out 
 at a dance." 
 
 It developed that a large part of the attendance at 
 Bandy s annual dance was from the outlying re 
 gions, people coming from remote ranches, from 
 lumber-camps, and even from Golconda, for the 
 occasion. As the holiday wore on the main street 
 
96 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 became quite blocked with vehicles, ranch wagons, 
 buckboards, flivvers. Men and a few girls arrived 
 on horseback. The street was decorated with flags 
 and red, white and blue bunting strung across it on 
 ropes. The Flat was intensely patriotic. Its people 
 were almost purely of the old American stock, and 
 several of the men were veterans of the Civil War. 
 In the happy past the celebration of the nation s 
 birthday had lasted all day long and included horse- 
 racing, a barbecue, fireworks and a band, as well as 
 an oration, usually by Bandy Bates himself. In 
 these times of diminished prosperity and population 
 all that survived of the former festivities was the 
 dance in the evening, which had once been the 
 climax of a hectic day. Before this last vestige of 
 the Flat s glory would be abandoned, I was given 
 to understand, the last Flatter would have descended 
 to the grave and the sun set on Bandy s forever. 
 
 Joe Lambert had been invited, of course, or 
 rather, Miss Luppy had given him to understand 
 that Bandy s expected every man to do his duty in 
 the matter of attendance. He and the Grumpy- 
 horse arrived in the course of the afternoon. Miss 
 Luppy, as the most notable housekeeper in town, 
 had been busy all the preceding day, baking, frying 
 doughnuts, icing cakes and otherwise contributing 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 97 
 
 to the supper which was a prominent feature of the 
 occasion. Indeed, appetizing fragrances had been 
 issuing from every house which contained an able- 
 bodied woman. Female heads bristled with curl 
 papers, and Jem Hicks, who cobbled shoes and bar- 
 bered with equal dexterity, had a sudden rush of 
 custom in the hair- and beard-trimming line. 
 
 Fortunately I had brought along a little pink 
 taffeta thing for possible occasions of dressing up, 
 and when I appeared in it at supper Joe s eyes said 
 he liked it and Miss Luppy hesitated between con 
 demnation of its frivolousness and approval that 
 she couldn t help. She herself was wearing curl 
 papers and calico, though after supper she would 
 blossom forth gloriously in frizzes and her best 
 alpaca. Miss Luppy had had this garment con 
 structed some ten years before by the best talent in 
 Golconda and believed in it profoundly. Panoplied 
 in the alpaca she would have obeyed a summons to 
 the White House, confident of reflecting credit on 
 Bandy s Flat. 
 
 By this time, such is the intoxication of dressing 
 up in one s best clothes, I was as excited about the 
 dance as any Flatter of them all. One little rift 
 within the lute there was Brett Morgan would be 
 there, and how to get out of dancing with him I 
 
98 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 knew not. Joe offered me an apparently simple 
 solution by remarking, "Don t you think you d bet 
 ter dance every dance with me and turn the others 
 down? There ll be some pretty decided roughnecks 
 there, you know. And no one can get up a grouch 
 if you treat them all alike." 
 
 But I knew one who could and would, one to 
 whom this program would be the best reason in the 
 world for translating into some ugly deed the 
 hatred he had voiced for Joe. It was odd and dis 
 quieting that though when Brett Morgan receded 
 into the background for a while I became incredu 
 lous of his real will or power for evil, as soon as he 
 loomed into prominence again my dread returned. 
 Even the anticipation of meeting him to-night, as I 
 knew I must, revived in me the sense of his terrible 
 earnestness, his untamed primitive force. Never 
 theless, even the shadow his presence cast upon the 
 evening didn t blunt my eagerness for it as we 
 walked down the road to the opera-house, from the 
 open door of which light was streaming, along with 
 an excited and exciting hum of voices. 
 
 As is customary at country festivities, many en 
 tire families were in attendance, and mothers were 
 frankly nourishing their offspring on the benches 
 along the wall. As there wasn t a single baby at 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 99 
 
 the Flat, the presence of these young outlanders in 
 itself gave an exotic air to the occasion. Old Sam 
 Davis, the still older Clay Fairfax, blue-grass Ken- 
 tuckian, grim and stately even in his decay, Mrs. 
 Pettis, and other relics of the past were accorded 
 honorable prominence in chairs set near the door 
 from which refreshments would later issue. On the 
 stage musicians imported from Golconda were tun 
 ing a fiddle and trying the notes of the cracked old 
 piano. The younger women of the Flat, young only, 
 one must own, by contrast with the venerableness 
 of their elders, were there in. their best, bustling 
 about with flushed cheeks and excited laughter. A 
 group of girls from Golconda displayed their 
 superior attractions, to the decided dimming of the 
 home-grown product. And there were men of all 
 ages and in all varieties of garb, short of conven 
 tional evening dress. 
 
 Young Sam Davis acted as master of ceremonies. 
 At a signal that the musicians were ready to strike 
 up, he took his stand upon the stage and called for 
 silence. 
 
 "Now then," he shouted, when the general atten 
 tion had been secured, "walk up, gents, walk up and 
 pick your ladies. It won t be the fault of the com 
 mittee which our fellow citizens have deputed with 
 
ioo FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the honor of engineerin this here entertainment if 
 it ain t the most sky-hittin success ever known at 
 the Flat. There ain t no expense been spared in 
 decoratin the opera-house, where formerly the 
 brightest stars of the theayter galaxy has shone, nor 
 in engagin the music, which I may say that Mexi 
 can Pete and his pardner, Al Green, is known to 
 you all. You ladies and gents from outside what 
 have gave us the pleasure of your company, the 
 most obligin thing on your part will be to have the 
 darndest good time ever. As to my fellow citizens, 
 I needn t tell em what their duty is to-night. It s 
 to behave, each and all, like the Flat has ever been 
 noted for not to let no lady go without dancin 
 jest because she ain t so young as she uster be, nor 
 hog the victuals before strangers has a chance at 
 em. So hustle up, gents, don t be bashful. The 
 ladies is waitin , I see em a-tiptoe now. Cut loose, 
 Pete and Al, the festivities is on." 
 
 At a shriek from violin and piano two or three 
 girls and their escorts glided out upon the floor. 
 Joe and I followed suit. Sooa the space was 
 thronged with couples, timing all manner of steps 
 to the rag which beat shrilly on the air. For an 
 instant, among a group of men who were not yet 
 dancing, I caught a glimpse of a dark, somberly 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 101 
 
 handsome face. The eyes were following me. I 
 turned my own away quickly. When next I saw 
 Brett Morgan he was ragging with a gaudy young 
 woman from outside the Flat. With a thrill of 
 hope I saw that she was pretty, and that she was 
 exerting her attractions to the utmost. Perhaps 
 Brett Morgan would prove as fickle as he was pre 
 cipitate, and transfer his unwelcome devotion, at 
 least for this evening, to the new charmer. This 
 hope increased when without competitors appearing 
 Joe claimed the second dance also. But as the 
 violin tuned up for the third time I saw the man 
 whom I dreaded approaching. 
 
 Joe saw him also and his face darkened. 
 
 "Let me tell him you re dancing only with me, 
 Sally," he urged in a low voice. 
 
 I shook my head. "It won t do, Joe," I whis 
 pered back. 
 
 Then Brett Morgan was before me. 
 
 "Might I ask for this dance, Miss Armsby?" he 
 said with something of his mother s ceremonious 
 grace. 
 
 I did not reply, for my heart was beating too 
 quickly, but took an acquiescent step toward 
 him. As his arm went round me a queer panic 
 caught my breath, but it was too late now for re- 
 
102 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 treat and I submitted to be drawn out upon the 
 floor. 
 
 Perhaps this too was part of his Spanish heritage, 
 but certainly Brett Morgan danced superlatively 
 well. His whole powerful frame seemed to become 
 plastic, to flow as it were with the rhythm of the 
 dance. After the first moment of fear and shrink 
 ing I yielded myself up to a kind of unwilling enjoy 
 ment. We had made the round of the hall before 
 he spoke, bending down so that the murmur stirred 
 my hair. 
 
 "Sally!" 
 
 "I m Miss Armsby, please," I reminded him, with 
 what futility I knew beforehand. 
 
 "Not to me, Sally. I told you already how it was 
 goin to be. I came through with Miss Armsby just 
 now all right, didn t I ? You don t need to be afraid 
 of me doin nothin raw in public. But you re Sally, 
 Sally, Sally in my heart always, and on my lips 
 when I git the chance." 
 
 In spite of myself I looked up to the face bend 
 ing down to mine. It was very close, very eager, 
 and I felt the suddenly tightening clasp of the 
 strong swarthy hand that held my own. I had a 
 terrified impulse to escape, to struggle for my some 
 how threatened freedom. But the music seemed to 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 103 
 
 hold me spellbound, to whirl me on helplessly in 
 his embrace, my frightened eyes on his. 
 
 "Sally, won t you give me a chance, jest a 
 chance?" His lips were very close beside my ear. 
 "Oh, if you knew you can t know, a little girl like 
 you what it is jest to hunger and thirst and ache 
 for somebody the way I do for you, Sally ! It s jest 
 plain torment all the time, like there was a fever in 
 me. I ve wanted some things bad in my life, bad 
 enough so I took the biggest kind of chances for 
 em. But I ain t ever wanted anything, not for a 
 minute, like I want you all the time!" 
 
 Whether it was the music s throbbing rhythm, or 
 the sheer vitality and power of the man in whose 
 arms I was I did not know, but a glamour seemed to 
 fall upon me from which only by utmost effort 
 could I release my will. 
 
 "You must stop," I said faintly. "I can t listen, 
 and I won t dance with you any more " 
 
 As I spoke the music ceased. We paused, and his 
 arm slowly released me. But with his hand still 
 clasping mine he looked down upon me darkly. 
 
 "You won t dance with me no more ? You mean 
 that?" In the swift transition from one passion to 
 another his face appeared convulsed. "You mean 
 that, do you?" 
 
104 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "I mean that I won t dance with you again unless 
 you promise not to talk like this." With the end 
 ing of the dance I seemed in a measure to have 
 regained my self-possession, but prudence warned 
 me to temporize. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 "Then answer me one thing/ he said at last, 
 frowning down on me in a fierce intensity of ques 
 tioning. "Are you and Lambert promised to each 
 other?" 
 
 The blood rushed flaming to my cheeks. 
 
 "No!" I flung at him savagely. Yet out of a 
 baffling mixture of emotions emerged a clear-cut 
 satisfaction that I could thus deny what it might 
 have been so dangerous to affirm. In Brett Mor 
 gan s presence my vague fears no longer seemed 
 fantastic, but the shadow of a real if still unseen 
 and formless peril. 
 
 He drew a deep breath. "Well, don t be," he 
 said, with the effect less of a threat than of a som 
 ber warning. 
 
 And then Joe appeared and with a formal, "Our 
 dance, I think, Miss Armsb^ ?" took me from him. 
 
 At the conclusion of that number, while I was 
 wondering whether I dared dance the next with Joe, 
 I looked up suddenly to behold the spectacle of 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 105 
 
 Young Sam Davis coming toward us, accompanied 
 by his son Sam the Third. Very obviously Little 
 Sam was under duress, and he struggled feebly in 
 his father s grasp, resisting as best he might the 
 mixture of force and persuasion employed by his 
 parent. 
 
 All in vain. The stalwart arm of Young Sam 
 conveyed his alarmed offspring to the spot where 
 we stood. Here he halted, wiping his forehead, for 
 the night was warm and his exertions had been 
 severe. 
 
 "Miss Sally," he said firmly, "this here s my son 
 Sam. He s awful pleased to know you, and if it 
 pears like to the contrary don t take no stock in it 
 cause it ain t so. He wants to know you and he 
 wants to dance with you don t you go for to deny 
 it, Sammy! and so I ve took the opportunity to 
 make you acquainted. Now, Sammy boy, buck up 
 and don t act like you never had no raisin . Here s 
 the lady all ready and waitin tain t no ways pos 
 sible for you to back out." 
 
 Possible or not, Little Sam would certainly have 
 backed out, to the extent of instant flight, if his 
 father had given him the least chance. But the 
 large hand of Young Sam kept a firm clutch on the 
 unhappy youth. Little Sam writhed to a degree 
 
io6 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 which made his members appear to have no relation 
 to each other. If he had actually come apart at the 
 joints and slumped down in a fragmentary state 
 you would hardly have been surprised. His gaze 
 rolled distractedly from floor to ceiling, and his 
 mouth was pulled down at the corners with a sug 
 gestion of impending tears. But under parental 
 pressure, both moral and physical Young Sam s 
 hand was contracting like a vise he at length 
 achieved speech. 
 
 "If you want to dance I m willm ," he muttered, 
 and then, as if emboldened by the sound of his own 
 voice, or perhaps by having thus fatally committed 
 himself, he beamed out in a sudden coy, ecstatic 
 grin. 
 
 "Thanks, I ll be delighted," I said demurely, all 
 at once perceiving the strategic value of this move. 
 Besides, Young Sam deserved it. As the music 
 struck up I placed my hand in Little Sam s it was 
 moist and clammy cold and he contrived by a con 
 vulsive effort to get an arm about my waist. With 
 a fine independence of the music in our motions we 
 plunged into the throng. Our first rush carried us 
 well into the center of the floor, where for a few 
 moments we gyrated helplessly. The flounderings 
 of Little Sam seemed so entirely aimless that I 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 107 
 
 inaugurated a forward movement on my own ac 
 count, at which he took alarm and dashed off, 
 carrying me with him, in a wholly new direction. 
 Relentlessly we plowed through the stream of 
 dancers, overturning one couple and scattering 
 others before our advance. There was no question 
 of our keeping step Little Sam s feet couldn t even 
 agree between themselves. I was entirely occupied 
 in avoiding their impact, as they descended with the 
 force of pile-drivers in unforeseen spots. Still we 
 hurtled onward, people scuttling from our path. 
 Little Sam had forgotten his fears ; bliss shone in 
 his countenance, in his gaze riveted to some point 
 in the ceiling. The ecstasy of the dance possessed 
 him. His encircling arm held me in a firm clutch. 
 
 All things come to an end at last, and I retreated 
 to a vacant chair beside Miss Luppy, who had 
 emerged from the refreshment room to look on 
 and been seized by Joe and made to join the dance. 
 She had just sunk down panting, with disarranged 
 frizzes and an apologetic smile, when I came up, 
 having with difficulty detached myself from Little 
 Sam, who as his father had prophesied turned out a 
 good sticker. I was limping a little, for my toes 
 had been severely stepped on. But my best hope 
 had been fulfilled, for we had not actually meas- 
 
io8 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 ured our length on the floor. To be pursued by the 
 curses of those to whom we had dealt out that fate 
 seemed comparatively a light matter. 
 
 I danced twice more with Joe and once with Brett 
 Morgan, who did not resume his love-making, at 
 least in words. Then Young Sam leaped upon the 
 stage and held up his hand. 
 
 "Ladies and gents," he announced, "we ve had a 
 lot o dancin to-night that s to the likin of the 
 young folks, which is only fair seein how fur some 
 of em has come. Pete and Al has sweated away 
 here givin you all the new tunes, which is mostly 
 the kind it takes a lot o elbow-grease to play. Now 
 we re goin to have a dance which some as is gittin 
 a trifle stiff-j inted will welcome. Ladies and gents, 
 pick pardners for a quadrille!" 
 
 Loud applause greeted this speech, and before it 
 subsided I found myself claimed for the set by that 
 sardonic widower, Asa Cobb. 
 
 "None o them grasshopper goin s-on for me," 
 he declared, as we took our places opposite Miss 
 Luppy and Joe. "This here caperin and cavortin 
 what folks calls dancin nowadays ain t no more n 
 fit for them whirlin -dervish-harem-scarums what 
 you read about in foreign lands the Head Turk s 
 wives, I believe they is, if you ll excuse me men- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 109 
 
 tionin it. But a real steady, sensible dance like this 
 ain t a thing you have to limber up after next day." 
 
 All the Flat that had the use of its limbs was on 
 the floor. Young Sam Davis called the figures, 
 which were many and remarkable. In the heat of 
 his excitement, as the dance progressed, he had 
 flung off his coat, and stood in his shirt-sleeves, 
 beating his palms together, while the moisture 
 streamed from his brow. Violin and piano worked 
 with desperate energy. The little building seemed 
 to rock with the thud of dancing feet. 
 
 "Ladies bow, gents know how!" came the 
 caller s chant. "Lift your feet, swing first one you 
 meet!" Then presently, "Chase the squirrel!" he 
 commanded, and the women began a serpentine at 
 furious speed in and out under the chain formed by 
 the men, who afterward chased the squirrel in their 
 turn. "Allyman right, Allyman left! Now hands 
 across, swing pardners, o course! Ladies chain, 
 grab pardners again!" With shout and gesture 
 Young Sam urged on the dance. 
 
 Kit had remained persistently a wall flower 
 throughout the evening, refusing all solicitations to 
 dance with me and turning an indignant back on the 
 suggestion that he offer himself to Miss Luppy as a 
 partner. When I expressed a fear that he was not 
 
i io FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 enjoying himself he replied with tranquillity that 
 the eats were coming soon he had smelled the cof 
 fee heating in the little room back of the stage. So 
 I left him without further uneasiness to the bliss of 
 prospective gormandizing. 
 
 During a pause in my exertions in the quadrille I 
 glanced across to the bench where he was sitting, 
 watching the performances of his elders with a 
 superior and aloof expression. But on the instant 
 this expression changed, became startled, alert, 
 intent, and he sat up suddenly, staring with wide 
 eyes at something behind me. I turned quickly. 
 Directly in the rear was an open window, and it 
 seemed to me that I detected a face in the act of 
 withdrawing from it. But if so it melted into the 
 shadow so swiftly that to identify it was impossible. 
 I looked again at Kit. He was on his feet and edg 
 ing round the room toward the door. He reached 
 it and disappeared into the night. 
 
 This was mysterious, especially in view of his 
 interest in the eatables and the announcement of 
 Mr. Davis before the dance began that they would 
 be served at its conclusion. But I trusted in the 
 supper as a magnet to bring him back before very 
 long, and my faith was justified. The sandwiches, 
 cake and coffee were beginning to circulate when I 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 1 1 1 
 
 observed my young brother back on his bench with 
 a plate heaped with slices of layer cake, variously 
 filled and iced. Before I could go over to him to 
 inquire what had taken him so suddenly from the 
 hall Miss Luppy called me. 
 
 "Sally, would you as soon hand these sandwiches 
 round? Loreny Pettis has gone and slipped off 
 somewheres, and I was lookin to her as my right- 
 hand bower. I can t think what would make her 
 quit right now when she s most needed. Anyway, 
 the folks can t wait to eat till I find out, so I expect 
 we ll have to git on somehow." 
 
 Supper ended, Miss Luppy, who had borne the 
 heat and burden of the evening so far as the refresh 
 ments were concerned, announced that she was beat 
 out and ready to go home. I proposed with alacrity 
 to accompany her, as an escape from the further at 
 tentions of either Brett Morgan or Little Sam, the 
 latter of whom was hovering near, evidently on the 
 very edge of the daring exploit of asking for an 
 other dance. And Miss Luppy and Kit and Joe and 
 I slipped unostentatiously away, leaving the sound 
 of revelry by night still rising to the gleaming 
 mountain stars. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NEXT morning Kit and I rode back to the dam 
 with Joe. A trail nearly paralleling the flume 
 climbed the ridge to the point where the flume 
 swung across into the canon of the Grizzly, then 
 turned east along the summit of the ridge, dropping 
 finally to the plateau above the dam where Joe had 
 made his camp. The dam had been thrown across a 
 narrow gorge into which the valley had now con 
 tracted, at the foot of some swift cascades where 
 the water came tumbling down with foam and up 
 roar. By a path cut steeply in the precipitous wall 
 of the caiion we descended to the dam, where a 
 number of men and a hoisting apparatus impelled 
 by a noisy little donkey-engine were at work. Here 
 was the beginning of our old friend, or enemy, the 
 flume. Still farther down flowed shallowly the 
 shrunken Grizzly, whose deflected waters went 
 hurtling through the flume instead of foaming 
 among the boulders of its ancient bed. We looked 
 about us and admired, I ignorantly, Kit with an air 
 
 112 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 113 
 
 of profound, not to say critical, understanding. In 
 my heart I smothered a regret for the unspoiled 
 savage beauty of the canon, as it must have been 
 when the water came leaping down in freedom and 
 no donkey-engine competed with its thunderous 
 music. Nevertheless I admired and marveled duly 
 at Joe s dam, whose charms he pointed out with 
 modest pride, to the accompaniment of sagacious 
 nods from Kit. 
 
 We lunched under the pines overlooking the 
 canon above the dam. After lunch Kit wandered 
 away to interview the cook, an old-fashioned China 
 man in a blue blouse, and Joe smoked the brier wood 
 pipe and we talked over the party. 
 
 "Not much like a dance in town, I suspect, eh?" 
 said Joe. 
 
 "Not exactly," I admitted. "But then of course 
 I haven t been to many. Arabella thought me too 
 young just as you did at first, you know !" 
 
 "But I didn t," he declared. "I thought you I 
 mustn t tell you, though." He broke off suddenly 
 and thrust the pipe again between his lips. 
 
 I opened my mouth to ask why he mustn t tell me, 
 then closed it again. Of course if he didn t want 
 to 
 
 "I suppose I mustn t tell you, either, just how 
 
ii4 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 well, just how refreshing to the eyes you were last 
 night," he added after a pause. "You couldn t well 
 have helped knowing though, Sally. Take the 
 effect on Little Sam, for instance!" 
 
 "Do you mean the effect on his dancing?" I 
 laughed. 
 
 "Well, I hope you weren t responsible for that!" 
 he grinned. "Say, that other fellow, though, that 
 Morgan some dancer, eh?" He turned his eyes 
 on me in a steady, observant look, noting which I 
 was guilty of an ill-timed blush. 
 
 "He dances very well," I said shortly. 
 
 "You remember you promised to tell me if he 
 bothered you at all?" The blush had done its 
 work, evidently. 
 
 Now I had promised nothing of the sort, but 
 instead registered a silent vow to exactly the con 
 trary effect. 
 
 "I don t think I did," I said as indifferently as 
 possible. "Anyway, there has been nothing to tell." 
 
 "All the same, he s in love with you and you 
 know it, Sally," he informed me soberly. 
 
 As I did know it I found nothing to say. 
 
 "One doesn t blame the fellow, of course," he 
 went on. "It s the old story of the desire of the 
 moth for the star, I suppose. You looked like one 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 115 
 
 last night, Sally like a star that had wandered into 
 the kerosene light by mistake and really belonged in 
 a highly polished, most exclusive, and very expen 
 sive firmament." 
 
 I laughed. "Arabella bought that taffeta at a 
 bargain sale," I told him. "She loves bargains, 
 but won t wear them herself, so she buys them for 
 
 me." 
 
 "Well, I suspect Arabella s bargain would have 
 made a pretty big dent in a humble pay-check," he 
 said lightly, but with an undercurrent of moodiness. 
 "Perhaps Morgan and Little Sam were not the only 
 moths at the dance last night!" 
 
 "Asa Cobb danced with me, too, you may have 
 noticed," I remarked, then flashed a laughing look 
 at him and rose. "Where are Kit and the ponies? 
 It s high time we were starting for home." 
 
 He rose too and stood looking at me uncertainly. 
 What words were on his lips I did not know, but I 
 moved away before they could be spoken. I was 
 taking no chances on renewing the topic of Brett 
 Morgan. 
 
 As Kit and I rode down the ridge trail, after say 
 ing good-by to Joe, I questioned him about the 
 puzzling little episode of the night before. What 
 had he seen at the window that had taken him out 
 
ii6 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 into the night in pursuit? He looked rather sulky 
 and discomfited at discovering that his maneuver 
 had not passed unnoticed it was a reflection on the 
 artistry of his sleuth-work. But after an interval of 
 evasiveness the natural human desire to tell a secret 
 overcame him. 
 
 "Well, I was just sort of looking straight ahead 
 while you and the rest were dancing, just sort of 
 looking straight ahead and not thinking about any 
 thing in particular, when all of a sudden I kind of 
 looked a little ways to one side and there was 
 somebody standing at the window right behind you 
 there. Not right close up, you know kind of 
 keeping back in the shadow. And he kind of made 
 a little sign as if to somebody inside sort of like 
 motioning to some one. And then before I could 
 be sure he dodged back." 
 
 "Before you could be sure of what?" 
 "That it was Eben Gregg, of course !" 
 "But was it Eben Gregg?" I asked, rather inter 
 ested. Because if Eben Gregg were in town it was 
 certainly odd that he hadn t appeared at the dance. 
 
 "Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn t," said 
 Kit, with a caution which left no room for error. 
 "It looked like him sure enough, even if he did keep 
 back in the shadow like that. But when I sneaked 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 117 
 
 out to spot him, so I d be able to swear to its being 
 him in case it came up in court or anything, he was 
 gone." 
 
 "Wasn t anybody there?" I inquired. I knew if 
 Kit had found some one else outside he would still 
 be loath to surrender the hypothesis of a lurking 
 Eben Gregg. 
 
 "Not a soul, and I looked everywhere. First I 
 thought of beating it up the road to his house, to 
 see if there was a light or anything, but when I d 
 gone a little ways I remembered supper was about 
 ready so I beat it back again. Only person I met 
 was Lorena Pettis coming up street from the opera- 
 house. I said Hello/ and she said she d forgot her 
 handkerchief and was going home for it and went 
 on in a hurry." 
 
 This made me a little thoughtful; Lorena Pettis, 
 I recalled, was supposed to be still patiently waiting 
 on that long-dallying bachelor, Eben Gregg. How 
 ever, their private affairs were none of mine, and it 
 was rather pleasantly romantic that if Eben Gregg 
 had indeed returned to Bandy s for the Fourth he 
 should have preferred a stolen moment with his 
 sweetheart to the more public joys of the dance. 
 
 Kit then volunteered the information that he had 
 taken time this morning to run up the road to 
 
ii8 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Gregg s house, and found no signs of his return 
 the place was still locked up and deserted. When I 
 asked how Eben had been able to disappear so com 
 pletely without arousing comment in the town Kit 
 reluctantly admitted that he was generally under 
 stood to have taken a temporary job at a sawmill 
 over on the South Fork. But he hastened to add 
 that no one could speak of this with definiteness, 
 and that though the town was satisfied with this 
 explanation he was not. 
 
 "Then what do you think he is doing ?" I asked. 
 
 But at this Kit withdrew into a cloud of mystery 
 which I recognized without difficulty as a cloak for 
 ignorance. 
 
 Instead of returning to Bandy s by the ridge trail 
 we decided, having the afternoon before us, to 
 branch off into another path which crossed the 
 canon of the Stony and would bring us home by 
 way of Gantry s Hill. Kit had got this information 
 from Asa Cobb and in consequence felt in duty 
 bound to act upon it. We diverged into this route, 
 therefore, and pursued our way leisurely, now under 
 blazing sunshine past dense-growing buckthorn and 
 manzanita which reached stiff, gaunt fingers for us 
 from beside the trail, now through the cool of deep 
 woods. The trail was rough, broken, and evidently 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 119 
 
 seldom used. We dropped with it into the canon of 
 the Stony, then wearily climbed out again, until at 
 last we stood on Gantry s Hill, some two or three 
 miles, we guessed, beyond the cluster of deserted 
 cabins known as Little York. Here for a while we 
 rested in the shade, watching the methods of a pair 
 of blue jay parents who were teaching a young bird 
 to fly, and nudging each other in delight as a fox 
 stole silently through the bear-clover a stone s throw 
 away. When we were once more in our saddles 
 and headed down the trail for home Kit, who led 
 the way, called back over his shoulder: 
 
 "Say, Sally, there s been horses along here lately." 
 
 I looked down and saw the marks of hoofs in the 
 light dust. The trail into which we had now turned 
 was that which we had once followed as far as Lit 
 tle York, and beyond this point it continued on into 
 the mountains. All along its course, as far as we 
 could see, it was marked confusedly with hoof- 
 prints, as though horses had lately traveled it in 
 both directions. 
 
 "Who do you s pose has been along here ?" asked 
 Kit with a profoundly pondering air. 
 
 "Don t know, I m sure. It isn t up to us, is it, 
 to keep tab on every one that comes and goes within 
 miles of Bandy s ?" 
 
120 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "But there isn t any reason why people should 
 travel over this trail," he persisted. 
 
 "You mean, you don t know of any reason," I 
 corrected him. "Of course there was a reason, or 
 they wouldn t have done it." 
 
 "Well, it isn t any one from Bandy s, anyway," 
 he declared, "because there hasn t any one been 
 away from there lately except " Kit s eyes, 
 which are rather like green buttons, if I am his sis 
 ter, grew round, and bulged alarmingly. "Except 
 Eben Gregg," he concluded in a portentous whisper. 
 
 "But why should he be wandering up and down 
 this trail? And he doesn t own a horse." I was 
 rather bored by Kit s insistence on making a mys 
 tery of the tracks. I knew by experience that noth 
 ing makes you feel sillier than to seize on some 
 promising mystery and then have it on closer inspec 
 tion turn out, as it always does, not to be one. 
 
 "How do you know what he owns?" demanded 
 Kit darkly. But he rode on as one convinced of the 
 futility of argument. Before long we swung round 
 the shoulder of Gantry s Hill, where the canon of 
 the Stony bends sharply to the north, and were 
 looking down on the mine and on Bandy s on the 
 cliff beyond it. In the usual devious fashion of 
 mountain trails we continued to drop toward Little 
 York. 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 121 
 
 Just above the group of cabins we paused to 
 drink at the spring which bubbles up in a little 
 pebbly pool beside the trail. Hot, sunshiny silence 
 brooded over the mountain. High up on the dead 
 pine sat with folded wings a buzzard, like a watch 
 man on a tower. Out of the brush which lay be 
 tween us and the cabins popped a tawny jack, 
 caught sight of us and popped in again. And the 
 horse-tracks, which I had somehow vaguely fancied 
 might be leading to Little York, went on steadily 
 down the trail. We followed them to the river, and 
 saw them reappear upon the other side. But when 
 we had climbed from the river canon into the mine 
 they became difficult to trace on the white, sun 
 baked earth, hard almost with the hardness of the 
 underlying rocks. We, of course, followed the 
 roughly marked road which crossed the old work 
 ings and ascended into the town at the foot of the 
 street, and after a little I became certain that the 
 tracks had diverged from it somewhere, though at 
 what point I had not been able to detect. 
 
 It was after all unimportant ; we had nothing to do 
 with these horses, or they with us. I had ceased to 
 think of them before we reached the house. But after 
 a bath, fresh clothes and supper, my mind reverted to 
 the subject of Eben Gregg. Had he really come to 
 
122 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the window of the hall last night and looked in on 
 the dance? It seemed so improbable that he would 
 have done so, only to vanish again in ghost-like 
 fashion, that I might have dismissed the idea as the 
 product of Kit s fertile brain, had it not been for 
 his encounter with Lorena Pettis. I remembered 
 that she had disappeared without explanation at the 
 very moment when her aid was needed. If she had 
 gone for her handkerchief she must have had diffi 
 culty in finding it, for I was sure she had not 
 returned when we left the hall. I was leaning on 
 the gate while I reflected thus, looking up the road 
 toward Eben Gregg s house, though I could see 
 only the top of the tall cottonwood which shaded 
 his front yard. At last, my feet following half- 
 consciously the direction of my thoughts, I opened 
 the gate and went out. After all Kit s inspection 
 this morning had probably been hasty perhaps 
 Gregg simply hadn t got up yet. I would stroll up 
 the road and see for myself whether the cottage 
 still showed no signs of habitation. 
 
 As I came in view of the house behind the cotton- 
 wood I saw that some one was moving about the 
 little yard. I glimpsed a patch of blue against the 
 weathered gray wall of the house, and then the 
 figure passed out of sight. I walked faster. Eben 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 123 
 
 Gregg, I recalled, used to wear a blue shirt I 
 hoped not always the same one, though from ap 
 pearances it might well have been so. 
 
 But when I got to the gate the yard appeared 
 deserted. I stood hesitating, unable to think of any 
 excuse for calling out, much less for entering the 
 yard. I was just turning away, when around the 
 corner of the house came, not Eben Gregg, but 
 Lorena Pettis. She had a small pitcher in her hand 
 and at her heels was trotting the little gray cat, 
 licking milky jaws and mewing anxiously, her eye 
 upon the pitcher. 
 
 At sight of me Lorena paused abruptly. For an 
 instant she stood poised between advance and re 
 treat, then as though accepting the inevitable came 
 slowly toward me. From her flushed, confusedly 
 smiling face I knew she had not wished me to find 
 her there. 
 
 "Oh, howdy-do, Miss Sally," she said with an 
 effort at cordiality. "I was real kind o took aback 
 to see you there don t no one come out this way 
 much. It it jest happened I was passin , you see, 
 and kitty, she was out front mewin , and thinks I, 
 that ere cat s hungry, that s what. So I jest slipped 
 round in back to give her a little drop." 
 
 It was certainly opportune for kitty that Lorena 
 
124 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 should happen to be passing with a pitcher holding 
 just the right amount of milk for a hungry little 
 cat. She showed her appreciation of this happy 
 accident by purring loudly and rubbing herself 
 against Lorena s blue gingham skirt. 
 
 "It is very good of you to take care of Mr. 
 Gregg s cat while he s away," I said, sweeping her 
 subterfuge aside remorselessly. "Or perhaps he 
 asked you to last night?" I made this bold stroke 
 with a casual and unconscious air. 
 
 She started, and if her round red face did not 
 exactly pale an almost unthinkable phenomenon 
 it at least assumed an uneasy, anxious shade. 
 
 "Oh, M-miss Sally!" she stammered. "How d 
 you find out?" 
 
 Concealing my triumph, I smiled in a knowing 
 and superior fashion. 
 
 "Oh, a little bird told me!" I laughed, and 
 paused, waiting for her to give me a lead. 
 
 She looked profoundly troubled. "Then I ex 
 pect it s all over the place," she mourned, "and 
 ben, he ll hold to it twas me let it out. And I as 
 good as swore on the book oh, Miss Sally, won t 
 you please tell me where you heard about it?" 
 
 "It was only from Kit," I comforted her. "He 
 thought he caught a glimpse of him, but wasn t 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 125 
 
 sure. And I am sure he has spoken of it to no one 
 but rne." Which I was, for except for making me 
 his confidante on the principle of a safety-valve 
 Kit was working in profound secrecy on his theory 
 of Eben Gregg s disappearance. 
 
 "Of course, though," I added, "it s easy to under 
 stand why he dropped into town so quietly last 
 night of course he d want to see you, instead of 
 all the crowd at the dance." This remark, set 
 exactly in the key of local badinage, caused Lorena s 
 raddled cheeks to bloom more fierily than ever. 
 But she simpered in a shy pleased fashion, and 
 melted like butter in the sun. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Sally," she murmured, "ain t you the 
 worst? Why, whatever got you to thinkin there 
 was anythin between me and Eben?" She made 
 little creases in her skirt with her fingers, waiting 
 eagerly for my reply. 
 
 "Oh, those things are bound to get out!" I re 
 turned with artful ambiguity. It wasn t at all what 
 I would have liked to say, with poor Lorena waiting 
 there so hungrily. But I couldn t, absolutely, pre 
 tend that I had observed the worm of an unspoken 
 passion feeding on Eben s damask cheek. How 
 ever, I looked immensely knowing, and it seemed 
 enough, for she beamed delightedly. 
 
126 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "If you ain t the worst!" she again protested. 
 "O course it warn t but natural he should make it 
 a p int to see me, I guess. You feed kitty regular/ 
 he says, and there ain t no tellin but what when I 
 git back There, I didn t go for to let it out! 
 But o course with the place and kitty needin care 
 it ain t but natural he should look to me. I mean to 
 water every night and git the yard to lookin like 
 somethin . I expect he ll be real pleased when he 
 gits back." 
 
 "You might tell him about it when you write," I 
 suggested guilefully. 
 
 She shook her head in a discouraged way. "I 
 guess I won t git to write much/ she sighed. 
 "Eben did tell me where to leave a letter in case 
 I wanted one took, but he said to kind of hold in as 
 long as I could. That there party ain t so awful 
 easy-tempered/ he says, and he s sore now over me 
 tellin you what I have, little as it is/ he says. 
 You better not give way to your feelin s much 
 about writin me/ he says." 
 
 "Oh, but why not just send your letters through 
 the post-office?" I asked innocently. 
 
 "Through the post-office?" she echoed. "Why, 
 there couldn t no post-office " she paused, while 
 into her mild dull eyes a faint gleam as of suspi- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 127 
 
 cion crept. "There, I m a great one to run on, I 
 am," she said in a changed voice. "I jest mean that 
 where Eben s stoppin is pretty out o the way, 
 that s all. But I d take it as a favor, Miss Sally, if 
 you wouldn t let out anything I ve said, Ebeii bein 
 one that don t like folks clackin about his business 
 much, and like to blame me for talkin ." 
 
 I assured her I would not let it out, and the smile 
 returned to her lips, which had drooped like those 
 of a scared child. I let her go down the road 
 alone, divining that she would be glad to escape 
 from all temptation to further confidences. What 
 those she had already given me really amounted to 
 wasn t quite clear. Certainly whatever the business 
 which had taken Eben Gregg from town it was 
 of an entirely private nature. Also, his present 
 abiding-place was at some point far from post- 
 offices. But it was not so very far from Bandy s, 
 else he could hardly have dropped in for his brief 
 call last night. Incidentally, some other person, of 
 not too tractable a disposition, was involved in the 
 affair. These various points I pondered for a while, 
 leaning meditatively on the gate of the cemetery, 
 looking in upon the graves overgrown with tall 
 brown grass and creepers. Kit s instinct had been 
 right after all in detecting the flavor of mystery in 
 
128 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Mr. Gregg s disappearance. Yet the mystery was 
 so insoluble, from any clue I had, so apparently 
 unconnected with any possible interests of my own, 
 and, after all, was probably so trivial, that my mind 
 soon drifted off to other things. 
 
 The warm, grassy, earthy odors that rose around 
 me were deepening as the evening cool increased, and 
 somehow in my imagination the fragrance of a brier- 
 wood pipe had begun to mingle with them, when the 
 sudden sharp consciousness of another presence 
 brought me with a jerk back to reality. I turned 
 quickly, the ever-abiding dread of an encounter with 
 Brett Morgan sending my heart into my throat. But 
 it was Brett Morgan s mother who stood beside me. 
 She had a thin black shawl draped Spanish fashion 
 over her gray hair, and her dark eyes regarded me 
 somberly from her pale gaunt face. 
 
 "Mrs. Morgan oh, how you startled me!" I 
 sighed in a deep breath of relief. 
 
 "I m sorry I done that, Miss Sally," she replied 
 in her soft voice. "Mebbe I d ought to a spoke. 
 But you was in my mind, and when I see you and 
 stopped I forgot you wouldn t be thinkin of me or 
 expectin to find me by you." 
 
 "I was in your mind?" I murmured interroga 
 tively, understanding all at once that the encounter 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 129 
 
 was not accidental, that she must have waylaid me 
 here with intention. 
 
 She nodded a grave assent. "Like you been 
 pretty often lately," she affirmed, then paused. In 
 the increasing evening dimness her dark eyes 
 seemed to grow cavernous and boding. "Like you 
 been more n ever since last night," she resumed. 
 "Miss Sally, I expect you ll think what I m goin to 
 say is queer, mebbe you won t understand it. But 
 last night I see enough with my own eyes to know 
 I ought to say it. You re young, child, and I guess 
 you don t know much yet about men, anyway such 
 men as my son Brett. Don t think I mean to speak 
 hard of my boy whatever faults he s got can be 
 laid to my raisin of him, I guess, or mebbe to 
 the blood he gits from me. His father was shot 
 it s twenty-six years ago now when my boy was 
 jest a baby in my arms, and I had to bring him up 
 the best I could alone. And he wasn t no boy for 
 a woman s hand to manage. I ain t complainin of 
 nothin he s a good boy to me always. But when 
 I see him a-lookin at you last night, a-watchin you 
 and followin you everywhere with his eyes, I says 
 to myself I got to warn you. I know you won t 
 ever care for him; only trouble would come of it if 
 you did we ain t your kind. So I m tellin you, 
 
130 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 child, to be careful, not play with him or lead him 
 on, the way you might do and mean no harm, girls 
 bein what they are. Don t think of him like he was 
 the kind o man you ve known he ain t. He 
 ain t no tamer, inside, than a panther up in the 
 mountains yonder, and he s a lot more dangerous, 
 once he s made ugly, than a dozen of em. What 
 he wants, he wants bad, and I guess he wants you, 
 right now, more n ever he wanted anything. Miss 
 Sally, don t you take no chances ; keep clear of my 
 boy Brett." 
 
 She looked like a sibyl as she spoke her warning, 
 regarding me solemnly from beneath the dark 
 drapery of her shawl. That the words cost her pain 
 and effort, I saw. Only the deep sense of necessity 
 could impel her to utter them. The realization of 
 this came to me with a sudden faint shock of fear. 
 
 "But, Mrs. Morgan," I defended myself, rally 
 ing. "I ve done nothing, absolutely nothing, to en 
 courage him. Because I understood that that 
 something like what you speak of was so, I have 
 avoided him all I could. It isn t my fault if " I 
 broke off helplessly. 
 
 "Not your fault, child, no," she agreed sadly. 
 "I ain t blamin you I think you been doin the 
 best you knew. Only but there, you re too much 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 131 
 
 a child, I guess, to understand. You don t know 
 how a man like him can be drove beyond his 
 senses Well, I ain t any more to say, only don t 
 you forget what I did say, and don t you take no 
 chances." 
 
 We walked back through the twilight together 
 without further speech, but at Miss Luppy s gate I 
 paused and took the dark sad woman s hand. 
 
 "Thank you for telling me, Mrs. Morgan," I 
 said earnestly. 
 
 She shook her head gloomily. "I jest done what 
 I could to fend off trouble," she replied, and slipped 
 away through the twilight, a dim melancholy fig 
 ure in her black shawl. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ONE morning a few days later Kit and I were in 
 the garden. I had been cutting roses, but was 
 now sitting idly on the seat under the honeysuckle. 
 Kit was hovering near, throwing gravel into the 
 fountain at the pair of goldfish that resided there. 
 
 "Say!" he hailed me suddenly, interrupting what 
 I can t call a train of thought on my part, for it 
 was a mere vague sense of well-being, such as is 
 probably common on the pollywog level of existence. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "There s a strange guy in town blew in yes 
 terday." 
 
 "Well, what about him?" 
 
 "Well, he came in a flivver, and drove up to the 
 Bonanza House, and got out and walked in and 
 wanted to register, just like it was a real hotel. And 
 Ben Moody that runs it that used to, I mean, 
 when there was anything to run pretty near fell 
 dead, and all he could do was to holler kind of 
 weak-like, Mariar! And Mrs. Moody, she came 
 
 132 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 133 
 
 in a hurry, and when she saw it was some one to 
 stay she pretty near fell dead, but she had the 
 strength not to say anything and just lug out the 
 register and turn over a fresh page for the man to 
 sign, so he wouldn t see how long it was since any 
 one had signed before. And the name he signed 
 was Hackett E. Nestor Hackett. People have been 
 going in there pretty steady ever since to look at it. 
 Mr. Cobb says so. He says it would be enough to 
 get any dry squad guys that was around here hot 
 on Ben Moody s trail, cause they d sure think he 
 was selling booze again, to get the boys flocking in 
 like that." 
 
 "Did Mr. Cobb tell you all this?" I was sure I 
 recognized his characteristic style throughout the 
 narrative. 
 
 "He didn t exactly tell me," admitted Kit reluct 
 antly. "He was telling Miss Luppy, and I I 
 heard him, that s all." 
 
 "Kittredge Armsby, you listened!" 
 
 "Didn t either!" he denied hotly. "He was tell 
 ing Miss Luppy at the kitchen door, and I was 
 eating bread and molasses at the pantry shelf, where 
 she told me to stay for fear of dripping, and I I 
 just heard, I tell you!" 
 
 "Well, go on," I sighed, after a brief but losing 
 
134 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 struggle with my principles. "That is, if there is 
 anything to tell." 
 
 "Well, this guy Hackett he asked for a good 
 room, and he let Ben Moody stick him on the price 
 and didn t say anything, and he wanted a bath, and 
 could he have something else than pork and beans 
 for lunch because his stomach was delicate. And 
 Ben Moody had kind of come to by that time, and 
 he didn t look astonished about the bath or any 
 thing, but said, Sure thing, pardnerf like he was 
 used to talking to millionaires and senators every 
 day, Mr. Cobb said." 
 
 "Does this Mr. Hackett seem to be a millionaire 
 or a senator?" I inquired. 
 
 "Not on your life he don t," asserted Kit emphati 
 cally. "I ve seen him myself, and he s a kind of 
 country-looking guy not like the folks up here, but 
 kind of country-looking all the same. Wears a 
 white straw hat with a wide brim and a duster and 
 kind of fool whiskers and spectacles. You wouldn t 
 say, to look at him, that he was so awful bright." 
 
 "Maybe he s not," I indifferently suggested. 
 "But did Asa Cobb keep Miss Luppy standing at 
 the door just to tell her about a strange man \vith 
 whiskers who doesn t look bright?" 
 
 "You bet he did, and Miss Luppy never edged off 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 135 
 
 the way she does when she s in a hurry, either!" 
 he declared indignantly. "She listened like any 
 thing, you bet. And she said, Didn t this Hackett 
 give Ben any notion what he was here for? And 
 Mr. Cobb said, Oh, yes, he give a song-and-dance 
 about comin up because he heard there was fine 
 fishin round these parts/ And she said, Well, 
 mebbe that s all there is to it/ and he said, Mebbe, 
 but it looks kind o fishy to me not intendin any 
 joke/ he said. And then she said, Well, Asa, I 
 wouldn t be the one to start any talk, if I was you, 
 cause you know what s likely to come of it/ And 
 he said, Oh, I ain t aimin to do that, o course, but 
 all the same it does look to me mighty like as if he 
 was a slickens man/ 
 
 "As if he was what?" Kit had lowered his voice 
 mysteriously at the last, and I concluded, not unnat 
 urally, that I had not heard aright. 
 
 "Slickens man!" This time he had recourse to 
 an indignant shout, as if I had grown suddenly and 
 wilfully deaf. 
 
 "But what is a slickens man? What does the 
 ridiculous word mean?" 
 
 Kit at once became injured and morose, by which 
 I knew he was no wiser than myself. Indeed, I 
 more than suspected that he had led carefully up to 
 
136 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 this point in the hope that I might enlighten him, 
 incidentally, as to the import of this cabalistic term, 
 without his being obliged to confess his ignorance. 
 
 "Slickens man why, as if anybody wouldn t 
 know that right off! Why, a slickens man is 
 why, anybody d know what he is !" 
 
 "But I don t know," I admitted shamelessly. 
 "Why don t you tell me?" 
 
 But Kit had begun a shrill whistling which I 
 knew meant finis, like the orchestra playing Home, 
 Sweet Home. 
 
 Being without Kit s aversion to owning myself 
 possessed of something less than omniscience, I 
 sought enlightenment later in the morning of Miss 
 Luppy. 
 
 "Miss Luppy," I inquired, "what is a slickens 
 man?" 
 
 At this Miss Luppy, who was stirring fruit in a 
 large kettle on the stove, turned rather suddenly. 
 
 "What s that?" she asked sharply. 
 
 I repeated my question. Lavinia stood with her 
 spoon poised in the air, while the juice dripped 
 down and sizzled on the immaculate stove. Across 
 the width of the kitchen I felt her look bore into me 
 like an auger. If ever I have a guilty secret I shall 
 keep well out of range of Lavinia Luppy s eye. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 13? 
 
 But being without a guilty secret at that moment 
 I was able to sustain this penetrating gaze with no 
 other emotion than surprise. This was increased by 
 the solemnity of the tone in which she demanded : 
 
 "Sally Armsby, who s been a-tellin you of such a 
 thing?" 
 
 "Only Kit, and he knows no more than I do what 
 it means. But he heard Asa Cobb say that the 
 stranger who is at the Bonanza House was perhaps 
 a slickens man," 
 
 "It s a true sayin about little pitchers bavin big 
 ears!" she exclaimed crossly. "If there was another 
 about widder men havin long tongues it would be 
 a good snug fit for Asa Cobb, too. As to callin 
 decent-lookin visitors slickens men jest because 
 they ain t accounted for their business to suit cer 
 tain parties that ain t got much o their own, I don t 
 holt with any such thing. Live and let live is my 
 motter, till you know the ground you stand on." 
 
 "Yes, but what is a slickens man, Miss Luppy?" 
 I persisted, not much enlightened by this discourse. 
 "Do tell me, even if Kit is not to know. I m 
 eighteen, remember." 
 
 "You may be eighteen or you may be eighty, 
 without bein the right age for askin questions 
 about what don t concern you," said Miss Luppy 
 
138 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 emphatically. "I ain t a Flatter born or raised, and 
 I don t holt with a good deal that s gone on under 
 my eye since I come out to care for old Cousin 
 Eliza more n twenty years ago. But spy on my 
 neighbors I will not." She returned to her stirring 
 with an air that proclaimed the conversation at an 
 end. 
 
 Discouraged by the severity of this snub I did 
 not pursue the conversation further. I must simply 
 add the mystery of the slickens man to the mystery 
 of Eben Gregg and that other, greater, mystery of 
 the light in the old saloon. If I chose, I might 
 lengthen the catalogue by the cigarette we had 
 found at Little York that day, and the hoof-prints 
 we had followed down the trail into the depths of 
 the old mine. In so far as I could perceive, or even 
 conjecture, there was no relation between any of 
 these things. Probably, my common sense told me, 
 there was a simple solution for every one of them. 
 How could Bandy s, so small, so dull, so altogether 
 of the past, supply material for a mystery, much 
 less for several? Nevertheless, trivial and appar 
 ently unrelated as they were, there was an element 
 of the obscure and inexplicable running through 
 these various incidents which seemed somehow to 
 thread them on one string. Pondering thus, I left 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 139 
 
 the garden and crossed the road to the grassy 
 stretch between it and the brink of the old mine. 
 Farther down the side wall of the old saloon blocked 
 the view, the little round window high up in the 
 wall through which I had seen the light presenting 
 now a surface of dull opacity. 
 
 About mid-way between Miss Luppy s house and 
 the saloon a steep footpath led down the cliff into 
 the mine. With no very definite aim in mind, 
 except perhaps that of picking up and following to 
 their destination the horse-tracks we had lost the 
 other day, I descended the path. It had been trod 
 den lately, I perceived, a good deal trodden. I won 
 dered why, for it was steep and narrow and for 
 most of the village less convenient for getting into 
 the mine, in case any one had occasion to go there, 
 than the road at the foot of the street. Suddenly I 
 paused. Lying in the path at my feet was a half- 
 burned cigarette. Inevitably and instantly, it re 
 called that other half-burned cigarette in the path at 
 Little York. For a moment the inference seemed 
 plain that unknown visitor to Little York had left 
 these footprints in the dust. Then came the dis 
 couraging reflection that right here in Bandy s 
 were half a dozen smokers of cigarettes. Brett 
 Morgan was one, Ben Moody was another, lame 
 
140 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Wade Barrett who repaired the town s clocks and 
 watches was a third. No, the half-burned cigarette 
 proved nothing. 
 
 Leaving the stub lying in the dust I went on. The 
 distance to the bottom of the cliff was not great, 
 perhaps some seventy feet, though the mine sank 
 away to greater depths in many places. No sooner 
 had I reached the bottom of the path than for a 
 second time I came to an abrupt halt. For here, in 
 the bleached white soil, the marks of hoofs were 
 plain. Horses had stood here, pawing and stamp 
 ing as the way is with tethered animals. They had 
 been tethered to this little manzanita shrub which 
 had found lodgment somehow in a low shelf of the 
 cliff I saw where the ropes had rubbed the bark. 
 This, then, had been the end of the trail for the 
 horses whose tracks we had followed down Gantry s 
 Hill and across the river. 
 
 But why? Vainly I asked this question as I 
 stared up at the face of the cliff. The slope of the 
 path had brought me to a point almost directly 
 beneath the old saloon. I knew, because a huge old 
 sycamore which grew beside it hung out a little 
 way over the cliff. On what possible errand had 
 horsemen come here? Although the top of the 
 path was in full sight from the garden where I 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 141 
 
 spent so many hours I had seen no one go up or 
 down; neither, in the little community where the 
 smallest incident, in the absence of large, was mat 
 ter for so much gossip and discussion, had I heard 
 of anything to account for the presence of horses 
 here. Certainly nothing in the routine business of 
 the little place accounted for it. Was something, 
 an unguessable something, afoot which the town 
 knew nothing of? Or did the town know, and 
 were Kit and I alone in ignorance? In either case 
 what, on any possible hypothesis, could the busi 
 ness be? With my eyes on the ground I followed 
 the tracks some distance from the cliff. Unques 
 tionably they led to the river, though on the ridgy, 
 hard white earth they soon became blurred and dif 
 ficult to trace. But it was the same trail, of course, 
 that Kit and I had followed down Gantry s Hill. 
 
 Slowly I returned to the little space of trodden 
 ground at the foot of the cliff, where I stood star 
 ing up at the overhanging boughs of the tree that 
 marked the position of the old saloon. Without 
 connection that I could perceive or induce my imagi 
 nation to supply, the light I had seen there in the 
 small hours of that black thunderous night linked 
 itself persistently with these tracks in the mine be 
 low. What was the thread which bound them 
 
142 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 togetKer ? Was there such a thread at all, wasn t it 
 rather a pure instinct for melodrama on my part 
 that supplied it? Or if there were, where then did 
 Joe come in, Joe who alone had had access to the 
 key that night? I was pondering this, my face 
 upturned to the cliff, when a voice spoke at my ear. 
 
 "Very interesting, I expect, but why?" 
 
 With a faint shriek I turned. A man was stand 
 ing at my very elbow, engaged as I had been in 
 looking up at the top of the cliff. He was a thin 
 man in a linen duster and a wide-brimmed straw 
 hat with a black band. He wore large, owlish-look 
 ing spectacles with metal rims, and close-trimmed 
 whiskers of a sandy brown. Even in that first 
 startled moment it flashed into my mind that this 
 was that new arrival in the town of whom Kit had 
 spoken. 
 
 At the exclamation I uttered the stranger with 
 drew his gaze from the cliff and turned it on me. 
 It seemed a mild, even a deprecating gaze, as it 
 came through the large round spectacles set far 
 down on a prominent nose. Removing his hat he 
 said again, in a voice with a dry crackle to it like 
 dead leaves: w 
 
 "Very interesting but why?" 
 
 "Oh no reason in particular," I stammered. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 143 
 
 "But you seemed so kind of wrapped up in it!" 
 he said with a disappointed air. "I thought maybe 
 it was something geological like fossils, or re 
 mains of the Ice Age or something that you were 
 studying about. Wasn t it anything of that sort, 
 now ?" He asked this as though with reviving hope 
 that I must, after all, turn out to be the earnest 
 young student I had seemed. 
 
 Under that mild and serious gaze I appeared 
 unable either to withhold a reply or to invent one. 
 
 "I I was just looking at that tree up there," I 
 mumbled idiotically. 
 
 "Ah!" The stranger too looked at the tree up 
 there. "I see; it ain t geology after all, it s botany 
 you re interested in. Particularly trees. But 
 wouldn t you get it more in dee-tail if you were 
 closer?" Once more he turned his spectacles upon 
 me. I was aware that I looked confused and con 
 science-stricken, as one does when surprised in a 
 situation one doesn t care entirely to explain. But 
 that mild unseeing gaze obviously didn t take it in. 
 
 "I m not a botanist, either," I found myself con 
 fessing. "I was just just getting the effect from 
 here, that s all." 
 
 "Oh, of course an artist !" He spoke with con 
 viction, as sure now that he had got me classified. 
 
144 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Without pausing for a response he continued flu 
 ently: "Well, this is a great place for an artist, I 
 expect. I came up myself for the fishing heard 
 down at Golconda it was first-class around here. 
 Thought I d treat myself to a little vacation this 
 year, on account of doing pretty well down in the 
 valley towns where my beat is getting subscrip 
 tions for the papers I handle, you know. Wait a 
 minute better introduce myself, I guess." 
 
 He produced a card and offered it to me. Neatly 
 engraved thereon was the inscription: 
 
 MR. E. NESTOR HACKETT 
 Representing 
 
 The Farmer s Friend 
 The Poultry World 
 The Rural Review 
 
 "I expect that will identify me sort of give me 
 a local habitation and a name, as the poet says," 
 remarked E. Nestor Hackett. "I presume when 
 folks are vacationing in a little place like this it 
 ain t necessary to be too formal. But of course if 
 not agreeable " 
 
 "Oh, it s quite all right, Mr. Hackett," I ha 
 stened to assure him. I had recovered myself by 
 this time, and was in a state to appreciate and be 
 grateful for the duster, the spectacles, the whole 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 145 
 
 delicious incongruity of him. What would he 
 make of the Flat as he came to know it? What 
 would the Flat make of him? Of course what he 
 represented should have been the Sunday-School 
 Banner, or some such publication. Still, The 
 Farmer s Friend did very well. 
 
 "And this is Miss Armsby, if I ain t mistaken," 
 pursued Mr. Hackett. "Oh, yes, I heard of you 
 from Mr. Davis at the store a real lively, sociable 
 party, ain t he? Says he, the storekeeper, Well, 
 this here town is a-gittin to be a reg lar ree-sort, 
 ain t it, with three from below visitin here to 
 oncet ? Mr. Hackett uttered a dry cackle over 
 this. "Must you be going along? Well, I m real 
 pleased I happened by this way, if you don t mind 
 me saying so Hello, what s the matter?" 
 
 The matter was that as I stood facing Mr. 
 Hackett I had chanced to glance past him, and 
 there, arising moonlike over the edge of a boulder, 
 at a few yards distance, I beheld Kit s face. And 
 the surprise had betrayed itself in my startled 
 countenance. 
 
 Without waiting for an answer Mr. Hackett had 
 wheeled about 1 instantly in the direction of my 
 stare. But Kit was quicker still. No vestige of a 
 living boy appeared in the strange dead landscape. 
 
I 4 6 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Mr. Hackett took a forward step, but I detained 
 him with a gesture. 
 
 "Mr. Hackett, please! It s no matter at all, 
 really! I thought something moved, but oh, 
 well, Fm always imagining things !" 
 
 He paused, but with spectacles still trained on the 
 spot where Kit had disappeared. On the broken, 
 seamed white earth loose boulders, large and small, 
 lay about confusedly. Could Kit manage to 
 wriggle off somewhere in the minute of grace I was 
 giving him? I knew it was not chance that had 
 brought him here. For reasons of his own con 
 nected no doubt with the mystery of the slickens 
 man he was stalking E. Nestor Hackett. And 
 how w r ould Mr. Hackett, mild as his aspect was, 
 enjoy the discover}^ that he was being stalked? 
 
 But he seemed destined not to make the discov 
 ery, for the alertness of his attitude relaxed, and he 
 turned to me with his dry cackling little laugh. 
 
 "Imagine things, do you ? I guess you re no dif 
 ferent from other young ladies, that way. There 
 was a girl I used to keep company with some, back 
 in loway, and she could imagine snakes easier n 
 anybody ever I saw, unless a D. T. patient. What 
 is it you re partial to imagining, now bears?" 
 
 "Oh, no, just things that pop up where you 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 147 
 
 don t expect them and wiggle," I replied hastily, 
 feeling that this description really fitted Kit rather 
 well. "Of course it may not have been imagina 
 tion" I was feebly clinging to veracity "perhaps 
 something did wiggle. There may be some rather 
 queer little animals about, you know." Which boys 
 certainly are, whether brothers or not. 
 
 "That s a fact," he assented. "Squirrels, for in 
 stance saw a lot of em a ways back. Well, 
 there s the wonders of nature all around us, if we 
 have an eye for em. I love not man the less, but 
 nature more/ as the poet says. Good day, Miss 
 Armsby. If your little brother likes fishing, he 
 might come along with me some time. I expect he 
 could qualify as guide around these parts by now, 
 if he s got the exploring turn of boys in general." 
 
 I wondered if Kit heard as from near-by bur 
 row well he might and if he felt the friendly over 
 ture as coals of fire on his unworthy head. And I 
 parted amicably from Mr. Hackett and climbed 
 slowly up the little path, where the cigarette stump 
 still lay in the dust. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 KIT didn t appear till dinner, but afterward I cor 
 nered him before he could escape. 
 
 "You wretched child," I upbraided him, "what 
 did you mean by behaving so this morning?" 
 
 He looked at me sulkily, but I detected a gleam 
 suspiciously like triumph in his green eyes. 
 
 "Strikes me you were behaving some yourself!" 
 he countered. "Taking up with strangers that way 
 and all!" 
 
 "Kittredge Armsby! And me keeping you from 
 getting caught and shaken as you should have been, 
 ungrateful little beast! Now fess right up what 
 made you trail the man that way and hang around 
 and listen? Why, he s just a kind of farmer- 
 traveling man up here on a vacation !" 
 
 "He is, is he?" said Kit darkly. "A lot you 
 know about it!" 
 
 I offered Mr. Hacketfs card, which he inspected 
 with open skepticism. 
 
 "Huh!" he jeered. "He acts queer for what he 
 says he is, that s all !" 
 
 148 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 149 
 
 "How, queer?" I demanded. 
 
 He considered me dubiously. He was itching, I 
 saw, to disclose some important discovery, greatly 
 redounding to his own honor and glory as a sleuth. 
 I don t believe he unbosomed himself freely to Asa 
 Cobb, who was usually much more anxious to talk 
 than to listen, and was besides of a satiric bent, 
 inclined to belittle information or opinions not 
 emanating from himself. It would have to be a 
 complete chain of evidence one offered Asa Cobb. 
 
 Therefore in the end I got it out of him, as I 
 usually do get things out of Kit, by means of pa 
 tience, bribes, and feints of indifference resorted to 
 at precisely the right moment. Having entered into 
 sole and undisputed possession of my last box of 
 chocolates from the city, he gloatingly recounted his 
 adventures of that morning, which he had devoted 
 to stalking Mr. Hackett. For a while the new 
 arrival had lingered about the store and the Bo 
 nanza House, conversing affably with whomsoever 
 seemed inclined to conversation, and enviably 
 obtuse to the hard silences, the gruff withdrawals, 
 of most of those to whom he made advances. 
 The Flat, it was evident, regarded Mr. Hackett in 
 a mysteriously unfavorable light. Young Sam, 
 talkative both by nature and in the way of business, 
 
150 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was kinder, and was rewarded by the purchase of 
 sundry small matters from his stock. After this 
 Mr. Hackett, attended at a distance by Kit, took a 
 stroll up the street, displaying a frank and curious 
 interest in all he saw, from Old Sam dozing in his 
 chair to the beauties of Miss Luppy s garden. Hav 
 ing strolled up one side of the street to the edge of 
 the village he had turned and strolled down the 
 other, to the point where the road into the mine 
 branched off. After a pause, during which he 
 stood with hands in pockets looking vaguely about 
 him, he sauntered on down this road, Kit follow 
 ing with immense precautions, dodging from 
 boulder to boulder, traveling on all-fours from one 
 hummock of earth to another, and altogether com 
 porting himself, I inferred, as much like an intend 
 ing assassin as possible. 
 
 They had no more than got fairly into the mine 
 than Kit, whose eye, of course, was glued to the 
 man he was following, saw him pause and look 
 attentively at something or some one in the dis 
 tance. Doing likewise, Kit was surprised to see a 
 female figure, recognizable as my own, roaming 
 about in an aimless manner, its eyes on the ground. 
 
 "What were you up to, anyway?" Kit interpo 
 lated here. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 151 
 
 "Looking for something," I replied with truth. 
 
 After a minute or two, during which both Kit 
 and Mr. Hackett had observed me unseen, I had 
 abandoned these tactics and gone to the foot of the 
 cliff, where I stood staring upward in an idiotic 
 fashion Kit was particular to make this last point 
 clear. I was obliged to mention to him, as I had to 
 Mr. Hackett, that I was looking up at the tree. 
 He accepted this explanation as undoubtedly true 
 because absurd, and resumed his narrative. While 
 I stared, Mr. Hackett had advanced in a remarkably 
 light-footed and noiseless manner followed with 
 circumspection by Kit until he stood at my side. 
 
 "And I never saw anything look sillier than you 
 when you turned round and spotted him," added 
 Kit with fraternal candor. 
 
 When the interview was over and I had climbed 
 the path Mr. Hackett had stepped quickly to the 
 boulder where Kit had been concealed and looked 
 behind it. But already Kit had retreated to another 
 hiding-place. Then Mr. Hackett had strolled about 
 a little, his eyes, as my own had been, upon the 
 ground. Finally he had returned to the cliff and 
 ascended the little path. Half-way up he had 
 stopped and picked up something, which he ex 
 amined carefully, then flung away over the edge of 
 
152 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the path. But when Kit had found it it was only 
 the end of a half-burned cigarette. 
 
 The point of this story, if it had one, seemed to 
 be that Mr. Hackett was a person with a well- 
 developed bump of curiosity and of a somewhat 
 snooping habit, though certainly my brother ap 
 peared to outdo him on both counts. Very likely 
 my behavior in the mine had been quite odd enough 
 to attract the interest of an idle onlooker. Perhaps 
 he was contemplating an article for The Fanner s 
 Friend on the manners and customs of Bandy s Flat 
 and was anxious that no detail should escape him. 
 Or perhaps he really was that creature of mystery, 
 a slickens man, and then there was no accounting, in 
 my present state of ignorance, for anything he 
 might do or say. 
 
 Returning shortly before noon next day from a 
 canter on Mittens so called because of white fore 
 feet attached to an otherwise brown ensemble I 
 was surprised to find the object of the above reflec 
 tions seated on the porch in amicable converse with 
 Miss Luppy. Amicable at least on his side, for on 
 hers there was a certain repressed hostility in her 
 bleak observant eye and the uncompromising pose 
 of the crossed arms on her bosom. Still more to 
 my surprise Kit made a third in the group, though 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 153 
 
 his gloomy air bespoke him an unwilling one. As I 
 was later to learn, Kit had been forced by circum 
 stances and Mr. Hackett into an eminently false 
 position. Mr. Hackett s early morning walk at 
 tended unseen by Kit had taken him again into 
 the mine. Dogged by his self-appointed shadow, he 
 had strolled on along the track leading to the river, 
 to which it descends by a break in the cup-like edge 
 of the vast excavation. The floor of the mine beside 
 the track is comparatively smooth and open, and 
 Kit had difficulty in keeping himself under cover. 
 Therefore his alarm was great when Mr. Hackett, 
 with no premonitory symptoms of change of mind, 
 abruptly turned and began to retrace his steps. A 
 little hummock of earth was providentially at hand, 
 and Kit dropped behind it, to wait until the quarry 
 passed him by. But at that very point Mr. Hackett 
 paused, pulled out a pocket-knife, eyed it consider 
 ingly, opened it, and seating himself on the hum 
 mock began carefully to trim his nails. It was a 
 bad moment, extremely bad, for the tails of the 
 duster were actually tickling Kit s nose. He had no 
 choice but to lie still, and no hope but that Mr. 
 Hackett would rise and proceed without happening 
 to glance behind the hummock. Kit was weighing 
 the chances of this and had about concluded they; 
 
154 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 were fair when Mr. Hackett, who had been hum 
 ming a tune while meticulously attending to his 
 nails, remarked in a conversational tone : 
 
 "Maybe, now, it would be worth while to try a 
 brown hackle in the stream down yonder, though I 
 expect on the whole the fishing ain t as good as in 
 some of the little creeks up in the woods." 
 
 A stupor of amazement fell on Kit. Then, his 
 wits returning, he reflected that as Mr. Hackett cer 
 tainly did not know there was a boy behind him he 
 was talking to himself and must consequently be a 
 lunatic. This, especially in view of the open pocket- 
 knife, was not reassuring, and Kit held his breath 
 till suffocation threatened. 
 
 "I said," repeated Mr. Hackett, "that I was 
 thinking of trying a brown hackle. Would you as 
 lives mention if you ve had any luck with em up 
 here? Let em say what they like, the real cracker- 
 jack fisherman, to my mind, is a boy any boy. 
 
 Oh, that thou couldst know thy joy 
 Ere it passes, barefoot boy! 
 
 Not, of course, to say you re barefoot, being con 
 trary to the facts, but you won t take offense at a 
 poet s license, hey?" 
 With this he turned half round and tapped the 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 155 
 
 knife-blade on the hummock till it snapped shut. 
 At the same time the mild and earnest eyes behind 
 the spectacles met Kit s with a tranquillity which 
 Kit could not return. He continued to lie prone, 
 staring- up at Mr. Hackett with his neck stretched at 
 an uncomfortable angle, until roused by that gen 
 tleman s suggestion that they might perhaps con 
 verse more freely if Kit resumed an upright posture. 
 
 "Not but that if you were to go far enough back 
 in our common genealogy you d find our ancestors 
 traveling on all fours or even on their stomachs," 
 conceded Mr. Hackett. "I suspect some of em 
 were those very monsters of the prime the poet 
 writes of that tore each other in the slime, you 
 know. But we ve changed our habits so that to-day 
 a boy looks more natural perpendicular than hori 
 zontal. So I d pick myself up, if I were you." In a 
 dazed fashion Kit found himself obeying this indis 
 putably sound advice. 
 
 Mr. Hackett rose also and they strolled on to 
 gether in the friendliest manner up into the village. 
 Here Kit suffered the mortification of passing with 
 his new acquaintance under the eye of Asa Cobb, 
 without opportunity to inform his older and more 
 valued friend that he himself was to all intents and 
 purposes a captive. Of course he might have broken 
 
156 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 away and run, but under the spell of Mr. Hackett s 
 affability, his confiding friendliness, this somehow 
 seemed impossible. Besides, could one be certain 
 just how far it was safe to defy Mr. Hackett? 
 Meanwhile Mr. Hackett discoursed on angling. 
 Not a word as to what Kit had been doing behind 
 the little ridge of earth, or how Mr. Hackett had 
 discovered him there. Bait and tackle alone were 
 Mr. Hackett s theme. And before Kit knew what 
 was impending they had walked in at Miss Luppy s 
 gate and up to the side door, where, the mistress of 
 the house appearing, Mr. Hackett had introduced 
 himself, with playful allusions to his young friend 
 from which you might have inferred that he was 
 there at the young friend s earnest solicitation. 
 
 This was the situation when I arrived, to be 
 greeted with warmth by Mr. Hackett as an old 
 acquaintance. To my surprise I found myself tac 
 itly accepting that character. One couldn t, really, 
 disappoint that child-like confidence in our friend 
 ship and esteem which his unembarrassed air dis 
 played. Already he had taken the Flat to his lean 
 bosom, had detected that special favor of the past 
 which it possessed. Producing a book from his 
 pocket, he proceeded to read us extracts which he 
 felt were exact portrayals of the Bandy s Flat of 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 157. 
 
 seventy years ago. Various aged persons whom he 
 had seen about were, to his mind, mere later phases 
 of Tennessee s Pardner, M liss, and others. One 
 elderly man, whom we identified as Wade Barrett, 
 the lame clock-mender, had in Mr. Hackett s 
 opinion figured in infancy as the Luck of the cele 
 brated tale of Roaring Camp. 
 
 "But the Luck was drowned when he was a 
 baby!" I remonstrated, struggling against an 
 insane inclination to believe that Wade Barrett 
 Sreally was the Luck. Mr. Hackett s own faith was 
 so contagious, there was something so almost 
 hypnotic in the earnest regard of the owlish spec 
 tacles, that the absurd conviction had all but forced 
 itself upon me. 
 
 "According to the author, I ll allow/* he said, 
 shaking his head, "but ain t it a fact that authors 
 will now and then kind of dress up the facts a little? 
 Of course drowning the Luck that way made a bet 
 ter story of it, I admit. Or to give the author 
 the benefit of the doubt, he may have thought the 
 Luck was drowned, sure enough, and then at the 
 last minute the child may have been brought to by 
 rolling on a barrel. Anyway you look at it there 
 ain t a mite of proof, not a mite, but what Wade 
 Barrett is the real genuine Luck." 
 
158 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 While I was still seeking confusedly for the 
 answer for I felt sure there was an answer to 
 this preposterous assertion Mr. Hackett had passed 
 on to other matters. 
 
 "That s a neat little cottage up the road a ways," 
 he remarked. "J ust beyond the cemetery, I mean. 
 Looks well cared for ground watered regularly, I 
 see yet nobody home, it seems, but a cat. I hap 
 pen to have paid attention on account of taking a 
 notion to the place. Thought if I could rent it I 
 might stay on a while. You mightn t think it, but 
 I ve got a kind of melancholy streak that would 
 make the neighborhood of a bury ing-ground real 
 congenial. The curfew tolls the knell of parting 
 day that sort of thing, you know. And when it 
 comes to the line, The rude forefathers of the ham 
 let sleep/ ain t it this very cemetery to the life? I 
 tell you, ladies, poetic inspiration is a wonderful 
 thing! Where might the owner of that cottage 
 happen to be just now?" 
 
 The query came with an effect of suddenness at 
 the end of Mr. Hackett s meandering speech. The 
 effect was so pronounced, indeed, that neither Miss 
 Luppy nor I seemed capable of a reply, though Mr. 
 Hackett turned his spectacles inquiringly from one 
 to the other. It was Kit, finally, who murmured 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 159 
 
 hoarsely that the fellow that lived in the cottage 
 had slid out. 
 
 "Slid out? Well!" remarked Mr. Hackett with 
 an air of impersonal interest. "That s an odd 
 expression, now ! But then the rising generation do 
 seem to talk a lingo of their own. Ain t that so. 
 m am?" he appealed to Miss Luppy. 
 
 "It certainly ain t the kind of talk / was rizzed 
 up on," Miss Luppy agreed. Though her aspect 
 was still ungenial as a wintry dawn, her attentive 
 gaze at Mr. Hackett had in it an element of unwilling 
 admiration. 
 
 "Slid out, hey?" continued Mr. Hackett. "Sup 
 pose you explain to us grown folks to count Miss 
 Sally here as one, though she s really only standing 
 with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet/ 
 as the poet says just precisely what you mean by 
 this party what d you say his name was, by the 
 way?" 
 
 Kit had not said it was anything, but he now 
 admitted that the party in question was one Eben 
 Gregg. 
 
 "Eben Gregg so twas!" Mr. Hackett wore a 
 cheerful air of having recalled it for himself. "Well, 
 and so Eben Gregg has slid out, has he ?" 
 
 Kit squirmed resentfully, not caring, naturally, to 
 
160 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 share with this too curious stranger his belief as to 
 the cause and circumstances of Eben Gregg s de 
 parture. And yet that odd knack of Mr. Hackett s 
 of drawing forth answers to questions which were 
 obviously none of his business was not to be re 
 sisted. Kit therefore gave up with an ill grace the 
 information that Mr. Gregg had been for some time 
 absent from his cottage, but that he, Kit, had been 
 unable to make sure of the whereabouts of the 
 absentee. And of course you plainly perceived that 
 in Kit s opinion this was matter of mysterious if not 
 of tragic import. 
 
 But Mr. Hackett evidently did not grasp this. 
 He merely said in a disappointed tone : 
 
 "Ah! So you don t know how I could get word 
 to him about wanting to rent his house?" 
 
 "Search me!" muttered Kit crossly. 
 
 "Nor you, m am?" Mr. Hackett turned his 
 spectacles on Miss Luppy. 
 
 "If Eben s away, which I ain t heard tell of, I 
 expect he s off workin somewheres round the coun 
 try," she replied. "Anyway, he ain t left his address 
 with me! 9 
 
 Mr. Hackett shook his head regretfully, then like 
 a philosopher turned his thoughts to other matters. 
 
 "I ve been wondering just what the chances 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 161 
 
 might be for finding a real lively, hustling young 
 man in this community that would like to make a 
 good thing for himself, in a small way, financially. 
 I don t mind admitting, right here, that The 
 Farmer s Friend, et cetera, ain t the only iron I ve 
 got in the fire. I ve got the Coast agencies for 
 some attractive little side-lines besides, and I ve 
 been looking out, in the different towns on my beat, 
 for the right man to handle em for me locally. I 
 had made my mind up to forget business when I 
 came to the Flat, meant to be a regular old Ike 
 Walton for a couple of weeks anyway, but after all 
 I expect I may as well get in a few licks if I can. 
 Now this strikes me as a mighty substantial little 
 community, m am slow, maybe, but substantial. 
 Consequently, why not make it the center, for dis 
 tribution through this section, of the Fairy Princess 
 washing-machine, the only machine on the market 
 that is guaranteed at a minimum of cost and effort 
 to turn out work superior to the best hand? No, 
 no, m am" as Miss Luppy tried to interrupt "not 
 Sam Davis. He s a good man, no doubt, but his 
 methods are old-style. And he ain t young enough 
 to unlearn. I want a young man, one I could fill 
 up with my own ideas of salesmanship. Trouble is, 
 young men is so almighty scarce up here; why, it 
 
1 62 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 makes me feel like a spring-chicken myself, to see 
 all these old boys holding the center of the stage, 
 with no young "ones to shove em off. What I want 
 to know is, ain t there some likely young fellow in 
 the place that I could maybe talk business to?" 
 
 Miss Luppy had begun slowly to shake her head 
 when Kit spoke up. 
 
 "Sure, there s Brett Morgan," he remarked. 
 
 "Brett Morgan?" repeated Mr. Hackett. "Well, 
 that wouldn t look so bad on a business card. Let s 
 see, have I seen him around anywhere, I wonder? 
 I don t recollect any one who d answer to the 
 description of young unless the Davis lad down to 
 the store," he corrected himself with a chuckle. 
 
 "I guess Brett Morgan hasn t been around for a 
 day or so sometimes he isn t," explained Kit, con 
 firming an impression of the same sort I had had 
 myself. 
 
 "Ah where s he put in his time?" inquired Mr. 
 Hackett. 
 
 Kit didn t know, unless he was hunting or per 
 haps cutting wood somewhere on the ridge. 
 
 "And he s a real hustling, active young fellow?" 
 Before Kit could reply, or Miss Luppy either, on 
 whose countenance I saw the shade of disapproval 
 darkening, he went on. "Of course I d want some 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 163 
 
 one who knew the country and the folks this Mor 
 gan been here long?" 
 
 "He was born here/ said Miss Luppy shortly, 
 "but " 
 
 "Always lived here never been away?" pur 
 sued Mr. Hackett. 
 
 "He s been away more n he s been home, since 
 he was a man grown, anyway," replied Miss Luppy. 
 "It ain t but now and then he comes home to see his 
 mother unless you d call it to live on her. I don t 
 know when Brett s stayed around home long as he 
 has this summer. But " 
 
 "Oh, he just came home lately, did he?" Mr. 
 Hackett asked. "Of course these are all points to 
 be considered, you know," he added, looking round 
 at us with an air of taking it for granted that we 
 saw as clearly as himself why these were points to 
 be considered. None of us did see, I think, but 
 somehow we all joined in a murmur of agreement. 
 "What would you call lately, now?" he resumed 
 with a businesslike crispness in his tone. "Last 
 week, say or maybe sometime back in the spring?" 
 
 Having my own reasons for remembering it, I 
 was able to give with accuracy the date of Brett 
 Morgan s return. 
 
 "Well, it sounds fairly promising," admitted Mr. 
 
1 64 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Hackett, glancing at Miss Luppy, who had opened 
 her mouth to speak and then closed it without ful 
 filling her intention. I understood that her first 
 purpose of disclaiming all responsibility for the 
 selection of Brett Morgan as agent for the Fairy 
 Princess washing-machine incredibly fantastic the 
 idea seemed as he rose before my mind s eye had 
 been neutralized by regard for Mrs. Morgan. 
 
 "It sounds fairly promising," Mr. Hackett re 
 peated, "but of course a thing like this oughtn t to 
 be jumped into in a hurry. I expect I ll do a little 
 studying about it first got plenty of time, for I 
 aim to stay around a couple of weeks, anyway. 
 Meanwhile I want to get in all the fishing I can. I 
 suppose you won t object if I call round now and 
 then to get our young friend here to go with me. 
 We ve got it fixed up that he s to pilot me round 
 be in short my guide, philosopher and friend Stay 
 to dinner will I? Come one, come all, this rock 
 shall fly from its firm base as soon as I/ as the poet 
 says, which means that I am not to be pried loose 
 from this spot before doing justice to your hos 
 pitality." 
 
 Whether Miss Luppy had invited Mr. Hackett to 
 dine under the hypnotic spell which his rapid and 
 fluent conversation seemed to cast upon us all, or 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 165 
 
 to atone for the earlier coldness of her demeanor I 
 do not know, but certainly, and to my great sur 
 prise, she had invited him. Though still in the dark 
 as to the nature of a slickens man, I understood that 
 it was not such as to recommend him to any inhabi 
 tant of the Flat. Probably, then, Miss Luppy had 
 ceased to suspect Mr. Hackett of being one, and this 
 was her fashion of making him amends. It was 
 ample amends, if one might judge from his evident 
 appreciation of the fare set before him. 
 
 Who had told him about Bandy Bates I didn t 
 know, probably the loquacious Mr. Davis, but he ex 
 pressed the greatest interest in that celebrated charac 
 ter, and listened with attention to the outline sketch I 
 gave him of the pioneer s career. I repeated as nearly 
 as I could in Asa Cobb s own words the tale he had 
 told me of Bandy s last hours partly, I m afraid, 
 because Kit looked upon my imitations of Asa Cobb 
 as in the nature of iese majcste. But Mr. Hackett 
 applauded rapturously, and was good enough to de 
 clare it as good as any "piece" he had ever heard 
 spoken. 
 
 After dinner he insisted, in his friendly 
 fashion, on helping Miss Luppy in the kitchen, 
 where he proved himself a dish-wiper of parts. This 
 done he took leave, explaining that a feature of his 
 
166 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 vacation program was an after-dinner nap, and that 
 being a man of method he invariably followed a 
 program to the letter. Kit, still wearing the dazed 
 expression which had resulted from Mr. Hackett s 
 surprising tactics earlier in the day, departed to 
 make his peace with Asa Cobb. Miss Luppy, after 
 exclaiming several times, "My land, ain t he the 
 beatingest?" settled down to hemming tea-towels. 
 And I went up-stairs to write up my diary, in which 
 I put down all this story about Mr. Hackett, because 
 although there were other matters which were much 
 more in my thoughts, I hadn t yet got to the stage 
 where I could contemplate them in cold ink. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THWO days later I think, though the entries in 
 A rny diary are irregular and sometimes without 
 a date I heard from my window the sound of 
 hoofs and the click of the stable-yard gate. It was 
 Joe, of course, barely in time for dinner and with 
 only a little while to stay but he had ridden all 
 those miles for just that little while. Dinner over, 
 we sat in the arbor and I told him all about E. Nes 
 tor Hackett all, that is, but the exact nature of 
 the circumstances under which I had first encoun 
 tered him. For I couldn t explain my interest in 
 the old saloon without speaking of the light I had 
 seen in it that night. And to speak of it, without 
 revealing my consciousness that it was Joe to whom 
 the evidence of the key still hanging by the kitchen 
 window pointed was beyond me. Of course if it 
 had been Joe it was all right nothing could shake 
 my conviction of this but until he chose to give 
 me his confidence I would not seem to ask it. 
 
 But in spite of the necessary slurring of detail 
 
i68 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Joe at once understood the humorousness of Mr. 
 Hackett. That was the nice thing about Joe, he 
 always did understand. Except just sometimes 
 about Jimmie Halliday and things like that. But 
 he himself was rather quiet and preoccupied, and 
 after a while it came out that the chief had dropped 
 in at the dam suddenly, and praised everything, and 
 was especially pleased because the work was being 
 finished a good deal under contract time. And he 
 had as good as promised Joe something really big 
 as soon as in a very little while now Joe was 
 through with the job on the Grizzly. Only it would 
 almost certainly be a long way off, in South Amer 
 ica or somewhere And there was a silence that 
 lengthened until I began rather desperately to talk 
 of trivial things. 
 
 All of a sudden, time behaving in the unaccount 
 able fashion it does now and then, it was late and 
 Joe had to leave. But it was such a ridiculously 
 short afternoon that by way of prolonging it Joe 
 suggested my riding with him part way up the 
 ridge. So we saddled Mittens and had a good run 
 up the road until we had passed the cemetery and 
 Eben Gregg s deserted house and the trail turned 
 up the mountain. And presently the conversation 
 got round to South America again, and Joe said 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 169 
 
 gloomily that there was something- after all in being 
 a rich man s son, though he had always been glad 
 not to be, and proud of making his own way. I 
 asked in a voice that wouldn t sound quite ordinary 
 what had changed his mind, and he said simply the 
 discovery that a poor man had no business to fall in 
 love. Because the first thing it did was to make a 
 selfish beast of him, and there were moments when 
 he could even imagine a fellow s getting so low- 
 down as to ask a girl to come with him to some 
 horrible out-of-the-way spot for no better reason 
 than that he couldn t bear to go without her. I said, 
 in that absurdly shaky voice, that of course the abom 
 inably selfish thing would be for a man to go ever 
 so far off, perhaps for years and years, and leave a 
 girl to eat her heart out at home. But he answered 
 almost roughly that I didn t understand, didn t 
 dream what life was like in some of the places a man 
 might be sent to. 
 
 We were silent for a time, while the ponies 
 climbed up and up through the pine woods, and then 
 because the lump in my throat kept getting bigger 
 and bigger, until something had to be done about 
 it at once, I began to talk very gaily about Jimmie 
 Halliday, whose uncle had died lately and left him 
 whole barrels of money. I said just fancy the 
 
170 FORTUNE AT .BANDY S FLAT 
 
 swathe he d cut, and Joe said soberly of course he 
 would and equally of course a girl would be dazzled 
 by it, would be drawn in the end to a man of the 
 same antecedents, the same standards and associa 
 tions as her own. A plain old roughneck, a man 
 that had knocked about and lived as he could, had 
 best not try to climb out of his own grade. 
 
 We had got to the summit of the ridge, where 
 our ways parted. I reined in Mittens and lifted my 
 eyes to Joe s. He didn t meet them, but sat staring 
 straight ahead between Grumpy s ears. 
 
 "G-good-by, Joe," I managed with an effort, and 
 held out my hand. But he did not seem to see it, 
 and with a muttered good-by as if his throat too 
 were a little husky he turned and rode away. 
 
 As Mittens and I went slowly down the trail I 
 had to fight against an all but overwhelming im 
 pulse to turn and hurry up it again, to give voice to 
 the words that were crying themselves over and 
 over in my heart: 
 
 "Oh, Joe, let s not quarrel and Jimmie is a 
 pest!" 
 
 How much more sensible between friends, and 
 how much pleasanter than to go on enduring this 
 ache that was spreading its soreness through every 
 nerve. But I put a hard grip on myself and rode 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 171 
 
 on. Sensible things and pleasant things are so often 
 the very things one mustn t do! And because they 
 go undone lives are spoiled and happiness, that shy 
 Bird of Paradise that never quite touches earth but 
 only hovers near it sometimes for a little while, is 
 off on its swift wing, perhaps to return no more. 
 
 We had descended a good way, and had not far 
 to go before the thick woods upon the ridge would 
 give place to the scattering growth on the hill above 
 the town, when Mittens all at once \vent lame. I 
 dismounted, and after lifting and helplessly regard 
 ing the lame foot decided there was a stone in the 
 shoe which I had no idea in the world how to take 
 out, and that the rest of the way I must walk. I 
 had not more than come to this conclusion when 
 there was a sudden pricking of the pony s ears and 
 a slight sound behind me. I turned quickly, to* find 
 myself facing Brett Morgan. 
 
 He smiled down at me, a half-hidden gleam of 
 triumph in his eyes, and took off his hat with his 
 courtier-like air. 
 
 "It s right pleasant and quiet up here in the 
 woods, ain t it, Sally?" he said in his deep soft 
 voice. 
 
 Under the shock of the encounter I had felt my 
 lips whiten. They faltered now helplessly over the 
 
172 FORTUNE. AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 reply I tried to make. I stood looking* up at him 
 with all my terror in my blanched face. 
 
 "It s so nice and quiet, and there ain t no danger 
 of any one buttin in I guess we might as well set 
 here a while on the pine-needles and talk, Sally," he 
 continued. "It ain t often I git a chance with you, 
 you know; a person might pretty near suppose you 
 was keepin out o my way a-purpose." He said 
 this with irony, his gaze dwelling somberly on mine. 
 Anger and wounded pride had had their place in 
 the impulse which had made him seek this meeting, 
 and the realization did not comfort me. He would 
 be none the more tractable for that reason. 
 
 "I must go home," I said unsteadily. "Please 
 please don t delay me, Mr. Morgan. I have been 
 away too long now." 
 
 "If you have it was on account of Lambert," he 
 answered, his black brows contracting. "Because 
 you ve give him too much time ain t no reason for 
 not givin me none, is it? You know what I told 
 you, Sally I won t stand for but jest so much. 
 Lambert s been with you the best part o the day, 
 and a lot o other days besides. Now you can let 
 me have a show." 
 
 But my first demoralized terror had spent itself, 
 and against this masterfulness my spirit rose. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 173 
 
 "If you expect to get anywhere with me this way 
 you are mistaken," I said, meeting his frowning 
 eyes defiantly. "Gentlemen don t take this this 
 ordering tone with women, Mr. Morgan." 
 
 "All right, then, I guess I ain t one," he 
 answered coolly. "I guess I ain t anything but a 
 roughneck, that knows what he wants and goes 
 about the shortest way to git it. Order you ! Don t 
 I wish I was where I could order you yes, and 
 make you mind me, too ! And when I d got you all 
 broke in and gentled, the way a bronc is when it s 
 gone buckin round the corral long enough with a 
 rider it can t throw, why, then you d find you could 
 rule me with one finger of your little hand. And 
 you d love me, Sally, cause any woman ll love a 
 man that can first break her in and then ll bow 
 down and worship her like she was a queen like I 
 would you, Sally !" 
 
 He made a sudden step toward me. I drew 
 back quickly, but his hand had closed on mine. He 
 continued to hold it, while his dark eyes, fiercely 
 tender, glowing with dangerous light behind their 
 heavy lashes, dwelt hungrily on my face. And in 
 my ears was the echo of a voice that spoke in dreary 
 warning, "Miss Sally, keep clear of my boy Brett. 
 He s no tamer inside than a panther" 
 
174 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Ah, your beautiful eyes ain t blazin now!" he 
 went on, his tone half caressing, half exul 
 tant with the sense of power. "They re right 
 scared and beseechin , girlie, like they was pleadin 
 with me not to take the kiss you been owin me 
 this long time. Yes, you do owe it to me, Sally, 
 cause you been so damned proud and standoffish 
 tormentin me by lettin that half-baked pup of an 
 engineer hang round you, and keepin out o my 
 way all you could. And yet you know I love you, 
 and you don t forget it, not a minute. Every time 
 I see you, no matter how far off, I know you re 
 thinkin , There s the fellow that loves me, so he 
 can t put his mind on nothin else, nor quit the 
 Flat like I d a whole lot better, Sally nor keep 
 from waitin around night and day for a sight o me. 
 He loves me, and I m scared of him, and I don t 
 want to love him back, and yet I can t help but think 
 of him, whether I want to or not/ Ain t that the 
 truth, Sally?" 
 
 It was, but the fact that he had discovered it 
 reassured me not at all. Neither did the pressure 
 of the hand that held my wrist, nor the gaze that 
 dwelt on me ever more avidly. How was I to 
 release myself, without paying the toll that he 
 asked? To scream wouldn t help there was no 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 175 
 
 human being within ear-shot. Would tears, entreat 
 ies, move him ? Would anger and scorn ? Ah, none 
 of these would avail me at all against the thing that 
 I saw in his eyes, that swiftly brightening flame 
 which made my own droop before them! My 
 thoughts flashed to that moment now so terrify- 
 ingly near, when his arms would close about me, 
 when the kiss of which he spoke would be a scorch 
 ing, withering reality, when the warning of the 
 dark sad woman by the graveyard gate would 
 unforgettably have justified itself. And then, on 
 the moment of my choking dread, on the pause that 
 brought him closer and closer to my side, there 
 came the most incredible, the most amazing, the 
 most blessedly welcome of sounds a human voice, 
 thin, hoarse and most unmusical, singing The Long 
 Trail quite out of tune. It came from the woods not 
 far away, and was approaching steadily. 
 
 "There s a long, long trail a-winding 
 To the land of my dreams " 
 
 It was nearer 
 
 "Where the nightingales are singing 
 And a bright moon beams " 
 
 It was very near. 
 
176 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 For a minute, measured by my hurrying heart 
 beats, we had stood quite still, heads raised in listen 
 ing, and emotions the most opposite dawning in our 
 faces. As the man s thunderously darkened so, I 
 suppose, mine brightened. I know a sigh of utter 
 thankfulness escaped me. It was echoed by a low 
 curse from Morgan s lips. He had hardly an 
 instant s grace the unseen singer was at hand. 
 The tableau dissolved itself between two breaths, 
 and Morgan, the oath still on his lips, had disap 
 peared into the woods. At almost the same moment 
 from among the pines farther up the trail emerged 
 Mr. E. Nestor Hackett, duster, spectacles and all 
 still unmusically warbling : 
 
 "Till the day when I ll be going down 
 That long, long trail " 
 
 At sight of me he stopped short. Then with looks 
 of pleased surprise irradiating his very spectacles he 
 advanced quickly. 
 
 "Well, now, if this ain t luck!" he exclaimed 
 cordially. "Luck for me, I mean I was just about 
 the next thing to lost. Tried taking short-cuts, you 
 know, and pretty soon I d missed my bearings 
 altogether. And then I find you waiting in the 
 trail, all ready to guide my erring footsteps home." 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 177 
 
 I heard myself, in an unsteady voice, explaining 
 that the pony had gone lame. 
 
 "Well, it ain t but a stone, I guess/ he remarked 
 cheerfully. "Stand still, old boy, and let the doctor 
 feel your pulse. That s it" he made some deft 
 prods with his knife "there you are, little horse, 
 and here s the stone that was giving all the trouble, 
 Miss Sally you don t mind Miss Sally, do you, 
 from one already far gone in the sere and yellow 
 leaf? And now, always supposing you re willing, 
 I ll lead the pony and we ll hit the trail for town." 
 
 I was quite willing, I told him, with a lightness 
 which to me was the hollowest of shams, but to him 
 was evidently convincing. How thankful I was for 
 the simplicity or was it the short-sightedness? 
 of the eyes behind the owlish spectacles, eyes which 
 appeared not to see me as pale, agitated, or unrea 
 sonably, all but weepingly, glad to see him ; as any 
 thing, indeed, but my every-day self. For every 
 reason in the world, of course, I wished my encoun 
 ter with Brett Morgan to remain a secret. And as we 
 went down the trail together I thanked Heaven not 
 only for the opportune arrival but for the obtuse- 
 ness of Mr. Hackett. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 TRUE to his word, Mr. Hackett appeared next 
 morning to take Kit fishing. Having seen them 
 depart, Kit with the air of a captive led away in 
 chains, I went out to the stable with an apple apiece 
 for Mittens and Kit s Black Bart. I found Mr. 
 Cobb currying the ponies, with the aspect of a 
 deeply injured man. To my good morning he 
 replied only by a gloomy nod. 
 
 "Kit s gone fishing, you know," I remarked, to 
 explain my brother s absence from his usual post of 
 Mr. Cobb s prideful substitute in the work about 
 the stable. 
 
 "Uh-huh with that whiskered party he s took 
 up with," remarked Mr. Cobb, with a nod convey 
 ing unutterable things. 
 
 "I think it s rather the whiskered party that has 
 taken up with him," I amended, willing to soothe 
 if possible the jealous soul of Mr. Cobb. 
 
 There was a pause, while Mr. Cobb curried with 
 gloomy vigor. 
 
 178 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 179 
 
 "Well, he can t say I ain t warned him !" he pres 
 ently grumbled, 
 
 "Warned him of what?" 
 
 "Warned him about folks what ain t got no 
 business here stickin in their darned noses and 
 spyin round !" These disconnected mutter- 
 ings came from the depths of Mr. Cobb s beard. 
 
 "Spying round for what?" I recalled the con 
 versation Kit had overheard between Mr. Cobb and 
 Miss Luppy. Impressed though Miss Luppy was 
 with the fluency of Mr. Hackett s quotations from 
 the poets, you still perceived in her eye a shade of 
 the suspicion Mr. Cobb had voiced on that occasion. 
 Mr. Cobb s mysterious accusation, that Mr. Hackett 
 was a slickens man, had not yet been disproved. 
 
 "Spying round for what?" I more urgently 
 repeated. Mr. Cobb paused in his task and gave me 
 a sharp sidewise glance from under his shabby old 
 hat-brim. 
 
 "Spyin round for trouble, that s what," he said 
 darkly. "And it s what they re a deal liker to find 
 than anythin else, you bet! I ain t said nothin , 
 mind you, only to Miss Luppy, which for a female 
 she has a real un female talent for keepin her head 
 shut. Mostly, to tell anythin to a woman is like 
 feedin soap to a geyser it jest natcherally makes 
 
i8o FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 em spout. But I ain t the only party in this town 
 with eyes; there s others what s bound to see for 
 themselves, and when they does, why, Whiskers 
 had better keep that machine of his cranked up, 
 that s all. Cause somethin s liable to start and 
 start real sudden." 
 
 "Mr. Cobb, on Kit s account it s your duty to tell 
 me right away what this means," I announced with 
 a resolute air which I hoped disguised my tingling 
 curiosity. "If there s anything queer about Mr. 
 Hackett if he s a slickens man, for instance " 
 
 "Who s been tellin you anything about slickens 
 men?" he asked sharply. 
 
 "Kit," I replied, trying to look as if he had told 
 me a great deal. 
 
 Mr. Cobb drew a relieved breath. 
 
 "Well, then, he ain t told you much, cause he 
 don t know it to tell, though he s near plagued the 
 life out o me to find out. And before you start in 
 a-doin the same, which I see it in your eye, let me 
 tell you right now it ain t no use. I expect there s 
 a plenty would give up their buzzom secrets to you 
 easy enough, but they warn t married to the late 
 Mis Cobb. That woman, Miss Sally, was an eddi- 
 cation. She learned me so thorough to keep what 
 I knowed to myself, by never restin a minute till 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 181 
 
 she got it out and then never restin from throwin 
 it up at me afterwards, that there ain t no female 
 made could worm out o me what I didn t aim to 
 tell." 
 
 "But, Mr. Cobb," I persisted, "remember I m 
 Kit s sister, and I ought to know the kind of people 
 he makes friends with. Please " 
 
 He waved me off derisively. 
 
 "Miss Sally, there ain t an argument you can 
 bring for why you d ought to know somethin what 
 you oughtn t, that I ain t heard over n over from 
 the late Mis Cobb before you was born. Supposin 
 you don t "know what you re itchin to? Twon t 
 take the curl out o your hair, will it? Twon t 
 bring on a dry year or nothin like that? You jest 
 run along and write to your beaux and leave what 
 you ain t no business with be." Turning an uncom 
 promising back Air. Cobb departed. 
 
 Kit and Mr. Hackett appeared at noon, their 
 creels well filled with glistening brook-trout. Or 
 rather Kit and the trout appeared, Mr. Hackett 
 being represented merely by the latter and his com 
 pliments. Of course another dinner invitation was 
 in order and Miss Luppy came through with it 
 handsomely, sending Kit flying down to the Bo 
 nanza House to fetch back Mr. Hackett. The meal 
 
182 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 passed off agreeably, Miss Luppy sitting rapt by 
 the charms of Mr. Hackett s conversation, yet ever 
 with that faint air of doubt, of resistance to a fas 
 cination felt as perilous. In Kit s silence I saw evi 
 dence of a bewildered and chaotic state of mind. 
 On the one hand was the fact, patent to the most 
 casual eye, that E. Nestor Hackett, with his duster, 
 his whiskers and his poetical quotations, was absurd, 
 and unworthy of association with a valued friend 
 of Mr. Cobb. On the other was the discovery made 
 in the course of the day that in the company of t nis 
 absurd person he, Kit, had a strange and disconcert 
 ing habit of babbling aloud his most secret thoughts, 
 of imparting information about persons and cir 
 cumstances at the Flat which he had hardly sus 
 pected himself of possessing. To Kit, who prided 
 himself on being of a self-contained and incom 
 municative turn, this was little short of humiliat 
 ing, especially as it appeared beyond his power to 
 remedy. Mr. Hackett relieved Kit of these unwill 
 ing confidences as rapidly and neatly as he whisked 
 half-pounders from the riffles. And yet just when 
 you had begun to suspect him of the mastery of 
 some absolutely uncanny art, you looked again, and 
 the whiskers, the owlish spectacles, the limply flap 
 ping duster, the whole absurd cut of him, rose up 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 183 
 
 to contradict you. It was bewildering, like seeing 
 two distinct and different objects occupying the 
 same point in space at the same moment, or rather, 
 shifting characters so rapidly that you were never 
 quite certain which you did see. Kit even owned 
 to being made a little seasick by these kaleidoscopic 
 views of Mr. Hackett. All these confessions came 
 later, of course; just now I had to judge of my 
 brother s state of mind by his manner, which was 
 dazed and subdued, with occasional flashes of 
 pugnacity. 
 
 A week went by, of which the events may be 
 briefly summarized. In the first place, our acquain 
 tance with Mr. Hackett progressed so rapidly that 
 it bid fair to ripen with or without our consent 
 into bosom friendship. He sat on our porch and 
 quoted poetry, he came into the kitchen and won 
 Miss Luppy s unwilling admiration by concocting 
 salads and sauces of daring and exotic flavors. And 
 he led the dazed and glooming Kit about as though 
 in an invisible leash. 
 
 On Sunday Joe turned up and admitted having 
 been disagreeable that day on the trail, but seemed 
 still disposed to cling to the idea that Jimmie Halli- 
 day and his uncle s money were the inevitable doom 
 of a girl brought up to take the pomps and vanities 
 
1 84 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 for granted. I replied that while Jimmie was some 
 girl s doom, no doubt, she would have only herself 
 to blame for it, because no amount of bringing up, 
 not even at the hands of Arabella, could make you 
 that sort of person against your will. For my own 
 part, since coming to the Flat Jimmie and his world 
 seemed to have receded to antipodal distances. I 
 pointed out that it was precisely Jimmie s money 
 that was the matter; he might have been at least 
 quite harmless and nice if he hadn t had any, but 
 that it had come down on him like an extinguisher 
 and nipped him in the bud. Which sounded mixed 
 when I thought it over, but nevertheless seemed to 
 convey my meaning to Joe quite well. 
 
 It was on this Sunday that we matured a plan 
 we had discussed before, but which had been hang 
 ing fire owing to the difficulty of convincing Miss 
 Luppy that she would derive enjoyment from leav 
 ing her own roof and going forth to pass the night 
 on the bosom of Mother Earth. That night in the 
 open had been hovering before me like a delightful 
 mirage, which I couldn t believe as a possibility. 
 I would have rejoiced to make it more nights than 
 one, but on that point Miss Luppy was unpersuad 
 able. Neither chickens nor cat could be trusted 
 longer to Asa Cobb s unsupervised attentions, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 185 
 
 Besides, Joe couldn t well be absent longer from the 
 dam. But to ride for a whole day farther and 
 farther into the wonderland of the Sierra, to sleep 
 for a night under the stars, was to taste at least of 
 the cup of adventure. I had been far from hopeful, 
 Miss Luppy had expressed her scorn of such traips- 
 ings-about with so much emphasis, but in the end 
 she capitulated to Joe s persuasions. It was 
 arranged that on Friday of that week he should 
 come down from the dam, that we might get an 
 early start on Saturday. Our destination was a 
 lake some twenty miles back in the mountains, a 
 place little known or visited, and accessible only by 
 a trail which in the beginning was that very trail 
 over Gantry s Hill which led by Little York. And 
 I wondered a little how far we would keep com 
 pany with the horse-tracks, whether I might even 
 discover what was the other end of the journey 
 which had begun under the cliff in the mine. 
 
 Mr. Hackett dropped in while Joe was there, and 
 received him at once into that inner circle of 
 intimacy where Miss Luppy and Kit and I so sur 
 prisingly found ourselves. Joe seemed not to mind, 
 for his blue eyes were amused and friendly, not cold 
 and hard as on the day he met Brett Morgan. 
 Later when he said good-by at the gate I asked him 
 
1 86 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 how he liked the agent for The Farmer s Friend. 
 He laughed. 
 
 "Why, first rate! Seems a very decent sort. 
 Only what s he doing here, Sally?" 
 
 "Just taking a vacation fishing, mostly," I 
 explained, opening my eyes rather. 
 
 He laughed again. "Perhaps. But if there was 
 anything else he could be doing I admit I can t 
 imagine what, myself I d have my doubts. 
 Whiskers and poetical quotations and all, he dis 
 tinctly strikes me as having something up his 
 sleeve." 
 
 "But what on earth could it be?" I argued. 
 "Unless he really is what Asa Cobb calls a slickens 
 man." 
 
 "A slickens man? What breed of animal is 
 that?" 
 
 "Don t know though I hoped you might. But 
 something hig hly disagreeable at any rate, at least 
 to Asa Cobb." 
 
 "Well, you ve got me," he shrugged. "It s a 
 nice villainous-sounding word, though. Probably a 
 survival from the good old days when gold and 
 gore were both so plenty at the Flat." 
 
 "And your great-uncle was the Leading Citizen. 
 Oh, how provoking of you to lose that letter, Joe !" 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 187 
 
 I had never become reconciled to the disappearance 
 of that much-adventured letter. 
 
 "How provoking of it to have got lost, you d 
 better say," he returned, lightly enough, but with 
 an undercurrent of seriousness in his tone. 
 
 "Well, if you like. Stupid, too, after taking the 
 trouble to come to light after so long. It might as 
 well have stayed behind the shelf in the post-office," 
 I complained. 
 
 He had taken my hand for good-by, and he held 
 it a moment before he answered. 
 
 "Might it just as well, Sally ? Because it brought 
 me to California, you know." 
 
 I looked up and met his eyes, and the blood 
 burned suddenly in my cheeks. 
 
 "Might it, Sally?" he asked again. 
 
 What was it made me falter and stumble so over 
 my reply ? I think it was the dread, never far from 
 my mind when Joe was there, of fierce dark eyes 
 that might be watching, of some one who might 
 meet Joe as he had met me, but with intent far 
 different, on the lonely ridge-trail. 
 
 "Of course I m glad it didn t, Joe," I said faintly 
 and confusedly, drawing my hand from his. A 
 shade came into his face. He gave me a long look 
 with eyes from which the warm eager light had 
 
j.88 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 died, and abruptly turned and swung himself into 
 the saddle. 
 
 "We ll see you on Friday, Joe ?" I added hastily, 
 with some dim unhappy idea of making him under 
 stand. 
 
 "Of course." He paused, gazing down on me in 
 an uncertain, puzzled fashion. But I found noth 
 ing more to say, and he dug his heel into the 
 Grumpy-horse s flank and rode away. 
 
 On Wednesday of that week, which was stage- 
 day, I went to the post-office for the mail, Kit hav 
 ing been whisked off for the day in Mr. Hackett s 
 dingy little car. As I went down the street to the 
 store it seemed to me that I was conscious of an 
 unusual stir and animation among the sidewalk 
 loungers. Old men who as a rule passed the hours 
 dozing in their chairs now in twos and threes sat 
 wagging hoary beards in talk that ceased suddenly 
 as I approached. In the store a group were leaning 
 on the counter debating some matter with Young 
 Sam, who wore a perturbed, uneasy air. 
 
 As I entered silence fell. I went to the post- 
 office window and Young Sam left the group and 
 passed behind the partition. While he fumbled 
 with the mail the men who had been talking to him 
 went out, leaving us alone except for Little Sam, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 189 
 
 who had fled behind a pyramid of washboilers, 
 whence he peered forth fatuously smiling, secure in 
 an imaginary invisibility. 
 
 "Sammy lit out again?" inquired his father, as 
 he sorted the letters in his hand. "Well, I kind o 
 hoped that after gittin on so well at the dance you 
 and him would go on bein friends. You ain t to 
 blame, o course, unless mebbe for not goin about 
 it as smart as you might to git him cornered. If 
 you was once to git him cornered, now, you d find 
 Sammy as easy-managed as a lamb. Well, here s 
 
 your mail. And by the way, Miss Sally" 
 
 there was a faint but perceptible change in Young 
 
 Sam s easy-going air "didn t I see my friend 
 
 Kit a-whizzin off in that there Hackett party s car 
 this mornin ?" 
 
 I explained that Kit and Mr. Hackett had gone 
 fishing. 
 
 "Fishin ? Huh ! That Hackett party seems real 
 partial to it, don t he?" Young Sam s tone was 
 charged heavily with irony. "Got quite thick with 
 all you folks up to Miss Luppy s, too, ain t he ?" 
 
 "Oh, I think Kit s his only real chum, Mr. 
 Davis !" I said, laughing. I was quite aware that 
 in his clumsy fashion Young Sam was looking for 
 an opening, that he wanted very much to draw from 
 
190 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 me all I knew about Mr. Hackett. That was little 
 enough, of course, yet I had no intention of impart 
 ing that little. I nodded and turned away while yet 
 the storekeeper was opening his mouth to proceed 
 and left the store, followed by the crash of the wash- 
 boilers, which Little Sam in his agitation had over 
 thrown. As I passed along the street I realized 
 again and still more strongly that there was some 
 thing in the air, and a something to which I myself 
 had a relation, to judge from the suddenly lowered 
 voices, the silenced speech, that greeted my 
 approach. As I neared Miss Luppy s gate I saw a 
 woman coming out of it. It was Mrs. Morgan, 
 whose visits seemed to have ceased lately altogether, 
 though Miss Luppy still dropped over occasionally 
 in neighborly fashion to the small shabby house. I 
 would have stopped to speak, remembering 
 the cause I had to thank her, but she passed me with 
 a nod and went on quickly to her home. As I 
 entered the house Miss Luppy called to me. I 
 found her in the sitting-room. On the table stood 
 a basket filled with dark purple plums, which I 
 recognized as the fruit of a tree which grew in the 
 Morgan yard. 
 
 Miss Luppy was crocheting lace, the favorite 
 occupation of her leisure hours, if you could call 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 191 
 
 them such. She was working with a vigor and 
 rapidity unusual even in her, and there was an 
 ominous shadow on her brow. 
 
 "Look here/ she said peremptorily, "when 
 Hackett and the boy gets back I want you to let 
 me know. Tell Hackett I want to ask him some 
 thing. Understand ?" 
 
 I said I understood, and went out into the gar 
 den to await the anglers return. Something 
 was in the wind, that was clear; even Miss Luppy 
 didn t usually order me about like this. It was 
 some time before the car came chugging up to the 
 gate, where I stood ready to deliver my message. 
 Mr. Hackett received it benignly, protesting his 
 readiness to oblige Miss Luppy to any extent. But 
 he looked almost as astonished as I felt when Miss 
 Luppy, in her Sunday hat and with the black cotton 
 gloves of state on her hands, appeared and 
 announced that she wished to be taken for a ride. 
 
 "A ride, m am?" said Mr. Hackett, staring, but 
 instantly recovering himself. "Certainly, with all 
 the pleasure in life! I would have suggested it 
 before, of course, but for your expressing an unfav 
 orable opinion of self-propelled vehicles when I first 
 had the pleasure of making your acquaintance/ 
 Which she had, emphatically. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "But tis woman s privilege to change her mind, 
 and may it always be a change for the better, like 
 yours is right now. So get in, m am, and you too, 
 of course, Miss Sally." 
 
 I was about to comply when Miss Luppy waved 
 me back. 
 
 "No," she said firmly. "Sally got broke in to 
 ridin in these here things a long time back, and I 
 guess I don t care to have any more witnesses than 
 I have to when I make my trial trip. Sally and the 
 Boy can stay to home and keep house." 
 
 She stepped in and settled herself beside Mr. 
 Hackett. Her air was grimly resolute, her spine 
 more than usually unbending. Was it merely that 
 she was nerving herself for the trial trip, as she called 
 it? I saw Mr. Hackett turn his spectacles on her 
 in a swift inquiring glance. Then he gave his atten 
 tion to the wheel and the road ahead. 
 
 "Any preference as to direction, m am?" I heard 
 him ask. 
 
 "Make for the stage-road and turn down toward 
 Golconda," she commanded bruskly, and the car 
 started down the street, leaving Kit and me standing 
 at the gate, conveying to each other dumbly by our 
 open mouths and eyes the astonishment we felt at 
 this extraordinary proceeding. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 193 
 
 Our astonishment was not lessened when after a 
 considerable lapse of time Miss Luppy returned 
 returned alone, on foot, and looking as if she had 
 had a long and dusty walk. To our excited inquir 
 ies as to whether there had been an accident she 
 returned no answer, but retired to her room, reap 
 peared shortly in a fresh gingham gown, and set 
 about preparing supper. Kit and I were on the 
 dining-porch, waiting to take our places, and afraid 
 even in our wonder to break the portentous silence 
 which had prevailed since Miss Luppy s return, 
 when a step heavier than her own sounded in the 
 kitchen and we heard the voice of Asa Cobb. 
 
 "Well, m am," he said, and there was a queer 
 chuckle in his tone, "you sure did circumvent em 
 this time! A more took aback lot I never see. I 
 was down street myself and saw you drive past 
 along of him, and yet like a dummy I never sus- 
 picioned. Twarn t till you come trudgin back up 
 the road alone that it took hold of me as sudden as 
 if some one d grabbed me by the neck. By heck, 
 thinks I, if she ain t up and run that feller out o 
 town on her own hook! Sent him off with a flea 
 in his ear, by gum, and left the boys with that ere 
 nice little mess o tar and feathers on their hands! 
 O course them that see you comin up street made 
 
194 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 out how twar about s soon as I done, though none 
 was any quicker n me to suspicion when they seen 
 you start. But I can tell you, m am, if you hadn t 
 a be n with him, he wouldn t never have got any 
 further n the Bonanza House, for the boys had their 
 minds all made up to the job they was goin to do." 
 
 " Twas on account o knowin he wouldn t git 
 no further by himself that I kep him company, 
 warn t it?" she demanded sharply. "You don t 
 expect twas for pleasure I went ridin with the 
 man, let alone trampin two mile up the road in the 
 dust? Well, anyway, he s safe off, and I guess 
 pretty near to Golconda by this time, the rate he 
 was goin last I saw. And there s a passil o loons 
 in this town that had ought to be thankful to me 
 for keepin em from makin fools of themselves, 
 stead o blackguardin me the way I expect they 
 are this minute." 
 
 "Well, I don t know about that," remarked Asa 
 Cobb. "I guess there s a good many plumb glad 
 it turned out like it has. Only there s some will be 
 scratchin their heads pretty hard trying to guess 
 how in time you found out!" 
 
 "Let em scratch," said Miss Luppy grimly. "I 
 don t expect there s any of em will come right out 
 and ask me, anyway." 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 195 
 
 Through the open door I saw Mr. Cobb look at 
 her keenly. 
 
 "Well, mebbe there s them that could guess with 
 out askin ," he said significantly. He gestured 
 toward the basket of purple plums on the kitchen 
 table. "Them plums from the Morgan tree, now, 
 they re real tasty, ain t they, m am?" He gave 
 himself a moment s enjoyment of her discomfiture. 
 "Never mind," he resumed hastily, by which I 
 inferred that Miss Luppy, whom I could not see, 
 had not met this pleasantry encouragingly, "never 
 mind, there won t be a word said. You and me s 
 old neighbors, and so s a certain other party, and I 
 guess no harm ain t comin to her through us" 
 
 "Asa Cobb," said Miss Luppy warmly, "you 
 come right along and set down to table with us. 
 We ain t got but a light supper to-night jest cold 
 ham and chicken and baked macaroni-and-cheese 
 and hot biscuit and preserves and them plums and 
 blackberry pie with cream and soft cider and milk 
 to drink ; but if you can make out with that you re 
 kindly welcome. No, it won t be a mite o trouble. 
 It s a real pleasure to have you, Asa !" 
 
 From the expression on Mr. Cobb s face as he 
 sat down to the table I was convinced that his lips 
 were effectually sealed. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AS MISS LUPPY declined all explanation and 
 became grim and forbidding when pressed for 
 one, and as Kit, to the best of my belief, had no 
 better success with Asa Cobb, we had to make what 
 \ve could of these remarkable events for ourselves. 
 It was clear, of course, that there had been a well- 
 developed plan on foot to make things extremely 
 unpleasant for Mr. Hackett, even to the extent of a 
 coat of tar and feathers; that the scheme was to 
 have been carried out that very night; and that 
 somehow, apparently through Mrs. Morgan, Miss 
 Luppy had found it out in time to intervene. On 
 pretense of going to ride with him she had got him 
 safely through the village and far enough beyond 
 it to be out of reach of all pursuers, then informed 
 him of his danger and left him to complete his 
 flight alone. The presumable cause of Mr. Hack- 
 ett s unpopularity was the belief that he was a 
 slickens man, but in my ignorance of what a slick- 
 ens man might be I found this unenlightening. 
 
 196 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 197 
 
 That Brett Morgan was involved in the conspiracy 
 I did not doubt; it was Mrs. Morgan who had 
 warned Miss Luppy, and Miss Luppy did not wish 
 it known, for fear, probably, of Brett s displeasure. 
 Uneasily I wondered whether Mr. Hackett s so 
 opportune appearance, that day on the ridge, had 
 made him the object of Morgan s enmity. If so, 
 I could only rejoice doubly that Miss Luppy had 
 taken matters into her own ..firm hands and rescued 
 E. Nestor Hackett, whether slickens man or bona 
 fide agent of The Farmer s Friend, from the danger 
 that impended. 
 
 Friday morning Miss Luppy and I were in the 
 attic, collecting bedding for the trip to Eagle Lake, 
 when I became aware of unusual sounds outside. 
 Miss Luppy looked round sharply. 
 
 "What s that?" she asked. "That ain t Hackett 
 back again, is it?" 
 
 Something like the hum and rumble of a car 
 there certainly had been. I was hastening to inves 
 tigate, when at the top of the stairs I met Kit, 
 breathless and round-eyed. 
 
 "Say, who do you think has just blown in?" he 
 panted. "Who do you guess is down-stairs waiting 
 for you right now?" 
 
 "Mr. Hackett? Joe?" 
 
198 FpRTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Say, you re a rotten guesser! Nope! Take 
 another try." 
 
 I think some prevision of the appalling truth 
 came to me even then. I seized Kit and shook him 
 violently. "Tell me! * I hissed. 
 
 "Leggo first!" I let go, and he darted to a safe 
 distance. "It s Jimmie Halliday!" he chortled, 
 enjoying himself fiendishly. "Say, won t he and 
 Joe get on together something grand? Say, aren t 
 you glad to bid him welcome to our city ?" 
 
 It was Jimmie, sure enough, though all the way 
 down-stairs I had hoped against hope that by some 
 special miracle it would turn out to have been his 
 mere wraith or double, which would have vanished 
 before I got there. But it was Jimmie, of course, 
 in clothes of the newest cut, plus silk shirt, amazing 
 tie, and hair trained with prayer and fasting to 
 the latest chrysanthemum effect. 
 
 "Oh, Jimmie, how nice of you to stop! You re 
 just passing through to somewhere, I suppose?" I 
 greeted him optimistically. 
 
 "Passing through? Not on your life!" he 
 assured me, clasping my hand with fervor. "This 
 is where I get off, all right! Say, Sally, I guess 
 you took me too seriously when I sent back your 
 photo. I sure was peeved for fair at the time, but 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 199 
 
 as to meaning it was all off say, you didn t take 
 it that hard, did you, Sally? Well, anyway, here I 
 am again, all ready to be a good dog roll over and 
 play dead or anything you say. I ve got my car 
 here, and I ve put up at that queer little joint down 
 the street they call the Bonanza House or some 
 thing, and say, we ll have some good time, won t we, 
 Sally?" 
 
 Why hadn t I realized a year ago how absurd, 
 and incongruous, and all but revolting were a round 
 smooth face and a dimpled chin and a peaches-and- 
 cream complexion on a man or was it a boy? 
 Jimmie was precisely at the stage where to call him 
 either left a lot of him unexplained. Where was 
 the Sally who had shared the general view that 
 Jimmie was handsome, and admired his tight- 
 waisted coats and chrysanthemum hair? Extinct, 
 dead, buried, and this Sally was an entirely new 
 creature who had risen from her ashes. But the 
 tragedy of it was that Jimmie couldn t know this, 
 and sat beaming on the horsehair sofa with a seren 
 ity quite maddening unless you saw it as pathetic. 
 
 "Say, Sally," he resumed, "I expected to find you 
 pretty well buried alive up here, but honest, I never 
 realized what you were up against till I struck this 
 hole to-day. Talk about the backwoods good 
 
200 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 night! Say, Sally, how in the world have you 
 stood it, honest?" 
 
 "I like it," I said coldly. 
 
 "Like it?" He stared, then laughed. "Oh, yes, 
 starting right in to kid me, aren t you? You like 
 it a lot just about as much as I m expecting to. 
 All the same, as long as you think you have to stick, 
 why, I guess I can too. I don t mind doing it 
 sticking round, you know for you, Sally!" 
 
 Sticking round of course! Sticking was Jim- 
 mie s long suit. He would stick like a plaster that 
 won t be pulled off without taking your skin along 
 with it. It seemed to me that I could feel already 
 the raw and excoriated surface that must result 
 from Jimmie s sticking. 
 
 Well, I asked him to dinner, of course. You do, 
 when a caller has come a hundred and fifty miles or 
 so. And Miss Luppy glared at him, and he insisted 
 on sharing with me, by signals intelligible to all, his 
 conviction that she was quite the most mirth-pro 
 voking object that had met his experienced eye. 
 Afterward we returned to the parlor its sepul- 
 chralness suited my mood just then until . his 
 remarks on its various adornments in the way of 
 stuffed birds and tidies caused me to take him out 
 into the garden, where he wouldn t, perhaps, insult 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 201 
 
 the flowers; and there we were when hoof-beats 
 and the click of the gate announced the arrival of 
 Joe. Ordinarily, of course, I should have run out 
 to the gate at once; there were a hundred things I 
 wanted to ask and tell about the projected trip. 
 But now I sat breathlessly waiting, while Jimmie s 
 words fell as meaninglessly on my ears as the drip 
 of the fountain, until I heard a man s firm footfall 
 coming quickly down the walk. 
 
 Jimmie and I were sitting in the honeysuckle 
 arbor. And Jimmie was smoking not a brier- 
 wood pipe, but a silly little cigarette from a mono- 
 g rammed gold case. Joe came round the corner of 
 the arbor, which you were obliged to do before you 
 could see who was in it, and stopped. For the space 
 of a held breath he stood quite still, taking in Jim 
 mie and me. I saw his face change age and 
 harden, somehow and then I seemed to stand out 
 side myself, watching the automaton that was I 
 go forward with outstretched hand. 
 
 He took it, and dropped it instantly. His eyes 
 were on Jimmie. 
 
 "This is Mr. Halliday, Mr. Lambert," I found 
 myself saying, and the two shook hands, Joe with 
 that grim quiet which had come upon him suddenly, 
 Jimmie with ostentatious heartiness. He had taken 
 
202 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Joe in at a glance, you saw, and relegated him to 
 the pigeonhole marked Unimportant. Even to me, 
 the contrast of Jimmie s dazzling presence made Joe 
 seem bulkier, browner, shabbier in his worn cordu 
 roy and dingy mountain boots. Jimmie in his 
 tight-waisted coat, his neat oxfords, his silk shirt, 
 looked in his own eyes, I am sure a perfect 
 example of the Man About Town speaking kindly 
 to an uncouth denizen of the wilds. For, being 
 good-natured, he made his manner immensely 
 encouraging and kind. Joe s manner, I regret to 
 say, was neither. It was brusk, it was gloomy, it 
 was everything that, under the circumstances, it 
 should not have been. It infuriated me, because I 
 knew Jimmie would become still more encouraging, 
 believing, naturally enough, that this yokel was 
 quelled by his magnificence. 
 
 "I ve been telling Mr. Halliday about our trip," 
 I said desperately. I had, but in such fashion, it 
 afterward transpired, as to give him the impression 
 that Miss Luppy, Kit, and I, and a fellow to look 
 after the horses were somewhat unaccountably 
 about to sally forth into the wilderness. Because 
 when it came to talking of Joe to Jimmie, it was 
 somehow so difficut that I nearly suppressed him 
 altogether, with the result that he became and per- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 203 
 
 sistently remained a wholly subordinate figure in 
 Jimmie s mind. 
 
 "Ah you still think of going?" remarked 
 Joe frigidly. 
 
 "Naturally, unless other people would prefer 
 not/ I flung at him with indignant emphasis. 
 Because really he was being too disagreeable. 
 
 "Oh, she ll go all right!" interposed Jimmie, 
 blandly proprietory. "Of course it would suit me 
 better if she gave up the horseback part of it 
 stringy little runts, these mountain horses, anyhow 
 and let me take her somewhere in the car kid 
 brother and the Dragon too, of course." Jimmie, 
 in his airy way, had named Lavinia the Dragon. 
 "But since she s set on going horseback so she can 
 go back to town and brag of it, I fancy it s all 
 right. I ll go along too, of course." 
 
 At this announcement I gasped quite audibly. 
 But Joe did not even look at me. 
 
 "Ah very nice, I m sure. No, thanks, I won t 
 
 stop" this with an air which included me as 
 
 the mere appendage of Jimmie "there are 
 
 matters I have to arrange with Miss Luppiy, I 
 imagine." 
 
 Supper that evening was a difficult meal for me. 
 Jimmie stayed, and talked airily to me about people 
 
204 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 and things in town. Town ! It was a million miles, 
 a million eons, away. Had I ever really cared 
 about it, and the sub-debutante dances, and the 
 doings and prattlings and little make-believe emo 
 tions of people like Jimmie ? I wondered this while 
 I gave my eyes to Jimmie and my ears to what the 
 rest were saying. Sitting with Jimmie in outer 
 darkness I listened avidly to their talk of pack- 
 saddles, blankets, frying-pans, "grub," and all the 
 delightful paraphernalia of camping-out. Now and 
 then I put in a word, at which Jimmie looked injured 
 and Miss Luppy, Joe and Kit regarded me with a 
 distant, bored politeness, as if this were no affair of 
 
 mine at all. I belonged with Jimmie and his world. 
 
 their manner said; why try to mix myself with 
 
 theirs? 
 
 Bitterness seized on me at last. I rose from 
 
 the table with an air of eagerness. 
 
 "Come on, Jimmie," I cried. "I m going to take 
 
 you down to Sam Davis and help you get an outfit. 
 
 You know you must manage to look as much as 
 
 possible like a Wild West show to match the rest 
 
 of us." And Jimmie and I departed joyously, with 
 
 every appearance of intense preoccupation with 
 
 each other. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE morning sun shone down on a procession of 
 five riders and a pack-horse, which filed down 
 the village street en route to Eagle Lake. Kit led 
 the van, armed to his own great satisfaction with a 
 small bird-gun lent by Joe from which Miss Luppy 
 had unostentatiously withdrawn the ammunition. 
 Jimmie followed, on a hard-stepping beast which 
 had been procured for him at the last moment 
 through the exertions of Asa Cobb. Sam Davis 
 had supplied Jimmie with an outfit consisting of 
 blue overalls, check shirt, cowhide boots and a wide- 
 brimmed straw hat. The effect was bizarre, and 
 Jimmie evidently felt it so. He had a wilted look, 
 and sat on his horse as if he had dropped on it by 
 accident, perhaps out of a Kansas cyclone. 
 
 Miss Luppy s riding-gear was unique but prac 
 tical, consisting of an ancient mackintosh worn over 
 full black bloomers gathered at the ankle. Thus 
 attired she rode her dogged little pinto hired for 
 the occasion of Mr. Davis as upright as a dragoon 
 
 205 
 
206 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 and with a certain angular ease reminiscent of her 
 girlhood on a farm. 
 
 Joe brought up the rear, pipe in mouth, leading 
 the pack-horse, which looked like a diminutive 
 camel with a disproportionate hump. 
 
 Early as it was, there were numerous spectators 
 of our progress as we filed through the village, and 
 I sensed an amusedness, a scornful jocularity at the 
 doings of "city-folks" which made me glad when 
 we had left Bandy s Flat behind. We were a rather 
 silent company as we rode through the white glare 
 of the mine and climbed the long ascent of Gantry s 
 Hill. Even the loquacity of Jimmie was quenched 
 by the necessity of adjusting himself to Piker, who 
 possessed a backbone impossible to ignore and a 
 gait in which each leg seemed to achieve a glorious 
 independence of the rest. The sun was high and 
 hot when we reached the spring beside the trail 
 near Little York. By general consent we paused, 
 and Joe remarked to Miss Luppy that she might 
 as well dismount and rest a bit, for the pack was 
 slipping and required attention. Although dis 
 tinctly not included in the suggestion I dismounted 
 too, and we seated ourselves in the shade about the 
 spring. Moved by the appalling silence it had 
 grown thick and stifling as a London fog to an 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 207 
 
 unnatural animation, I related for Jimmie s benefit * 
 very pointedly for Jimmie s benefit the history 
 of the defunct settlement of Little York, above the 
 site of which the bleached column of the dead pine 
 rose like a white shaft above a grave. 
 
 But I couldn t go on talking forever, and with 
 the ending of my story silence fell again, so blankly 
 that I got up suddenly and proposed to Jimmie that 
 he accompany me to the scene of the last lone Little 
 Yorker s grisly deed which I had described with 
 particularity and a new sympathy with persons who 
 chose to quit a world so after all unsatisfactory. 
 We strolled away together, Jimmie puffing at a 
 cigarette with the wearied air of one who has 
 drained life to the dregs an air so recently adopted 
 that he forgot it rather often, suffering deplorable 
 lapses into crude and juvenile vivacity. But just 
 now he was all the weary worldling, and when we 
 had made our way through the brush to the little 
 open space among the cabins he glanced about him 
 in a bored and sated fashion, then moved on down 
 the path to inspect a wood-rat s nest that caught his 
 eye. Not liking rats of any kind I did not follow, 
 but lingered in the little path before the threshold 
 of the first cabin of the group. Here it was that 
 Kit and I had found the stub of the cigarette, and 
 
208 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 with the recollection the whole experience of that 
 day returned upon me vividly. How strangely 
 intense it had been, that sense that I was watched 
 how still more strange it was that not the memory 
 but the very feeling itself was coming over me 
 again that again I was aware of eyes eyes that 
 peered 
 
 And then quite suddenly I saw them, eyes in a 
 face that stared through the dim dusty glass of the 
 cabin window. 
 
 The blood fled back sickeningly to my heart. I 
 grew cold, and the landscape reeled round me drunk- 
 enly. Yet the cry that rose to my lips I somehow in 
 stinctively repressed before it passed them. Then the 
 face, which had melted quickly back into the dark 
 ness of the cabin, reappeared. It looked at me 
 steadily, and my terror gave way to an astonish 
 ment almost as overwhelming. A finger touched 
 the lips significantly, and in silent assent I nodded. 
 The face vanished, and Jimmie, having done with 
 the wood-rat s nest, sauntered toward me. Without 
 speaking I was quite beyond it I led the way 
 through the brush back to the spring where our 
 companions waited. 
 
 They looked up at our approach and I saw in 
 their faces that my own had betrayed me. Betrayed, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 209 
 
 at least, that something had immensely shaken and 
 upset me. Miss Luppy glanced at me sharply, 
 opened her lips on a question, then significantly 
 closed them. Joe gave me a quick look and turned 
 his eyes away. It remained for Kit, with fraternal 
 candor, to remark : 
 
 "Gee, Sally looks like she might have met the 
 guy that cut his throat down there! What s up, 
 Sis, anyway?" 
 
 Of course I knew what Joe, and Miss Luppy too 
 for that matter, thought was up, and all the more 
 because at Kit s unlucky question the color came 
 burning to my cheeks. Jimmie and I, it was a 
 reasonable inference, had had a palpitating love- 
 scene in the little while that we had been away, and 
 as Jimmie was entirely cheerful the outcome of the 
 scene might also be inferred. I knew that in the 
 eyes of my companions I was as good as engaged. 
 
 As I got into my saddle unassisted, for Joe s 
 broad back was turned uncompromisingly, and 
 Jimmie was having troubles of his own with Piker, 
 who disliked being ridden and took nips at Jimmie s 
 calves I earnestly wished that Mr. Hackett had 
 not seen fit to turn up at this unlikely place. 
 
 For it was E. Nestor Hackett and no other whom 
 I had seen at the window of the cabin. 
 
2io FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 What was he doing there? How had he got 
 there? No longer ago than Wednesday evening 
 he had parted from Miss Luppy two miles below 
 the town and when last seen by her had been mak 
 ing good time toward Golconda. Yet this morning 
 he was peering through the dusty pane of a deserted 
 cabin here at Little York. That he was in hiding 
 was clear; I knew by the way he had dodged back 
 from the pane that he had not meant me to see 
 him, and by the finger laid to his lip that he earn 
 estly entreated silence. And to silence I had, I 
 felt, committed myself by my answering gesture. 
 I had not forgotten my indebtedness to Mr. Hackett 
 for his well-timed arrival that day on the trail, and 
 it was now borne in on me suddenly that it was 
 perhaps well-timed in a sense that I hadn t sus 
 pected. Suppose, after all, Mr. Hackett had not 
 been there by chance? Suppose, for reasons of his 
 own, while Brett Morgan had been following me 
 he had been following Brett Morgan? Was it then 
 because of Brett Morgan that he was hiding in the 
 cabin now? But why look for Brett Morgan at 
 Little York? And what did he want of Brett Mor 
 gan? The puzzle of it seemed hopeless, but what 
 more concerned me was that I had got myself 
 involved in it. So long as I kept the promise T had 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 211 
 
 given Mr. Hackett, so long in the eyes of my com 
 panions I remained engaged to Jimmie Halliday. 
 How long would I have to keep it, how know 
 when the need of keeping it was past? And I won 
 dered, while the vindictive gaze with which I was 
 stabbing Jimmie s unconscious back grew somewhat 
 blurred, whether I must live a spinster all my days 
 because Mr. E. Nestor Hackett had peered for an 
 instant through the window of the cabin at Little 
 York. 
 
 On and on wound the trail, leaving Gantry s 
 Hill behind, descending into the canons of swift 
 bright streams, climbing out again by sinuous 
 ascents of long steep slopes. Through dim still 
 woods, through meadows gemmed gorgeously with 
 flowers, through hot stretches of chaparral, we rode 
 on. And always before us ran the track of horses, in 
 itself no extraordinary phenomenon on a mountain 
 trail, puzzling to me only because of its beginning 
 there under the cliff at Bandy s. And just now I 
 did not puzzle, did not think of it at all. As the 
 supposed betrothed of Jimmie Halliday I had other 
 food for thought. 
 
 An hour beyond the midday halt a dreadful 
 interval, pervaded, in my recollection, by inextri 
 cably mingled food and gloom came a fork in 
 
212 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the trail. On the one hand, still marked by the 
 horse-tracks, it ran on through the forest, a straight 
 tawny line athwart the green of the bear-clover. 
 On the other it turned steeply up a shadowy defile, 
 through which a shouting, tumbling stream came 
 foaming down. This was Eagle River, which we 
 were to follow to its source in Eagle Lake. We 
 had ridden perhaps a mile, on a trail which hung 
 like the merest thread on the precipitous canon 
 wall, when our progress came suddenly to an end. 
 For here the trail, compelled by the beetling out- 
 thrust of a cliff, switched to the farther bank. And 
 the half of a split pine which once had bridged the 
 stream had been torn from its place by some wild 
 spring freshet and lay with one end pointing sky 
 ward and the other buried under green roaring 
 water. 
 
 The conclusion was so obvious that it hardly 
 needed Joe s call from the rear of the cavalcade to 
 Kit in the van to set us gingerly turning our horses 
 on the narrow shelf to head them down the trail. 
 Back again at the forks by general consent we 
 halted. 
 
 "Well, it looks like no Eagle Lake for us this 
 trip, Miss Luppy," remarked Joe, addressing her 
 to the complete exclusion of the rest, and with an 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 213 
 
 air of being more than reconciled to this abrupt 
 termination of the adventure. 
 
 "Mebbe it s as well," returned Miss Luppy 
 grimly. "It s an awful deep lake, I hear, and them 
 that jest natcherally ain t got sense enough not to 
 fall in would mebbe be riskin val able lives to pull 
 em out." Her bleak eye left you not at all in doubt 
 of the person indicated. 
 
 "But we re not going home?" exploded Kit, in a 
 sudden roar of anguish. Kit, alone of all the party, 
 had been profoundly and thoroughly enjoying him 
 self. He had wasted no worry on the petty frets 
 and disagreements of his elders; his companions on 
 this jaunt were Hawkeye and Uncas, Tom Sawyer 
 and Huck Finn. And over the day the crowning 
 glory of a night in the forest had spread its antici 
 pated magic. 
 
 So Kit burst out in protest at the danger he felt 
 in the air to his cherished dreams. 
 
 But the protest would have gone unheeded, had 
 he not been reinforced just then by an altogether 
 unintending ally. This was Jimmie, who com 
 placently announced that he had always thought the 
 whole affair absurd, which it was now quite con 
 clusively shown to be. Of course there was nothing 
 to do but go home. 
 
214 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "And I ll take the whole crowd somewhere in my 
 car to-morrow," he magnificently promised. "Yes, 
 the whole bunch," he added reassuringly, as realiz 
 ing there were those present who could hardly 
 expect to be included. 
 
 That settled it, of course. 
 
 "We could keep on along this other trail a while 
 and camp wherever we felt inclined," said Joe, 
 still addressing Miss Luppy, and without seeming 
 to have heard Jimmie s remarks at all. 
 
 "Well, it would kind of go ag in me to V packed 
 up all them victuals and then not get paid anyway 
 for my trouble," agreed Miss Luppy at once. 
 
 And Kit with a joyous whoop wheeled his pony 
 and rode on again into the mountains. 
 
 On and on through beauty ever changing, ever 
 newly beautiful we rode. Now through forests 
 deep and dim and greenly cool as sea depths, now 
 by sunny slopes where the pines grew wide apart, 
 each great taw r ny bole uprearing in a separate 
 majesty and washed by floods of yellow light. Now 
 the mountains crowded in upon us, immuring us in 
 solemn dark defiles, now from some sun-bathed 
 crest we looked out on other crests, green near by, 
 purple beyond, and still beyond snowy and gleam 
 ing, unspeakably remote, austere and awful. But 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 215 
 
 with all this glory my heavy heart was out of tune. 
 Once it would have risen exultantly, till my delight 
 burst from my lips. Now I didn t even second 
 Miss Luppy s opinion that it was all real pretty- 
 lookin . This remark was almost the only one that 
 broke the silence of our progress. Kit was silent 
 with the silence of the scout who sees an ambushed 
 foe in every thicket. Jimmie s had a quality of 
 melancholy endurance Piker really had a racking 
 gait. Miss Luppy s indicated disapproval of several 
 things, particularly of me. As for Joe s, it was 
 monumental, and for me at least pervaded every 
 thing. 
 
 Late that afternoon we came again to a fork in 
 the trail. Kit halted and shouted back to Joe, who 
 rode forward. 
 
 "Looks like a toss-up to me," he declared. "I 
 suspect we can t go far wrong whichever way we 
 take." 
 
 "Whoever s been over the trail lately went this 
 way," Kit pointed out, indicating the right-hand 
 fork. "Wonder who it was ?" he added. 
 
 "Fellows from the Flat, most likely," suggested 
 Joe indifferently. 
 
 "Well, there hasn t any one that I ve heard of 
 been up this way," said Kit, with the authority of 
 
216 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 one well versed in local gossip. "Anyway, what 
 would they come up for?" 
 
 "Then I suppose they were from Lone Pine, 
 after deer or what not," Joe answered, still indiffer 
 ently. I, who knew better on the first point at least, 
 was not on terms with Joe to permit discussion of 
 it. Besides, what did it matter, what did anything 
 matter, except the blight that had fallen on the day 
 which was to have been so happy? 
 
 "Whoever went in may be around here still, 
 though/ Joe went on, "so I suspect we may as well 
 not take chances on getting mixed up with another 
 camp. Let s turn off to the left." 
 
 To the left, then, we turned off, through a 
 shallow notch or trough in the ridge we had been 
 following. It brought us out presently into an 
 extensive flat, filled at this end, except for one or 
 two small meadow-patches, with a thick wood of 
 second-growth pine and spruce. To the right the 
 flat stretched away for a mile or more, the dark of 
 the timber giving place finally to another larger 
 stretch of meadow-grass. 
 
 "I suspect the other trail conies in at the lower 
 end of the flat," said Joe, nodding toward it. 
 "Well, it looks as if we might strike pretty good 
 camping right below here. Hit the trail, son." 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 217 
 
 And Kit, in his proud role of leader, hit it. 
 
 How I should have loved it, once, all that bustle 
 of making camp there at the edge of the little 
 meadow ! How I should have enjoyed the spectacle 
 of Miss Luppy, who all day had sat up stiff and 
 grim on horseback, still sitting there when the day s 
 long trek was done, because unable to do otherwise, 
 and only brought down at last by main force of 
 Joe and gravity! Jimmie, .though quite equally in 
 need of aid, didn t get it, and had to clamber down 
 alone, smothering moans, and treating himself very 
 gently, as though a sudden jar might crack him. 
 Very, very gently he sat down, and very soft and 
 mossy was the spot he chose to sit on. Joe and 
 Kit and I took the saddles from the horses and with 
 slaps at their sweaty sides sent them to roll blissfully 
 in the cool lush grass. And Miss Luppy, having by 
 sheer force of character recovered her motility, took 
 command of everything and everybody as by inborn 
 and inalienable right, which she would have done 
 with equal certainty had she just been washed up, a 
 castaway, on the shores of a desert island. 
 
 Very soon camp was made, the firewood piled in 
 readiness for use, spruce boughs cut for beds, the 
 butter set to cool in the spring that bubbled up at the 
 meadow s edge, and Miss Luppy had sat down to 
 
218 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 her crocheting as tranquilly as though the walls of 
 her own sitting-room, instead of the shades of a 
 Sierra forest, had enclosed her. Joe and Kit went 
 off to fish, Jimmie, after feebly feigning a desire 
 to take a stroll with me, lay down on his blankets 
 and fell asleep, and I was left to entertain myself. 
 Again how different from all that I had dreamed! 
 But to escape from the censorious, if silent, presence 
 of Miss Luppy, and still more from that of Jimmie 
 when he should awaken, I slipped from camp and 
 took the trail which went on through the wood 
 toward the lower end of the flat. 
 
 It was much denser, this young wood, than the 
 ancient forest from which the weaklings have long 
 since been crowded out. Almost at once I lost sight 
 of camp and the silent upright figure of Miss 
 Luppy, and was alone in a shadowy green stillness 
 which fell soothingly on my vexed spirit. Only the 
 soft babble of an unseen stream accompanied me, 
 like the voice of the wood-spirit singing to itself. I 
 wandered on, until the wood ahead grew lighter, 
 and presently I had emerged from it into the wide 
 meadow we had seen from far off. I suppose that 
 like other green Sierra meadows it had once in 
 remote ages been a lake, and the forest halted at 
 its margin as though it were still a strip of glistening 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 219 
 
 sand dividing the wood from the softly rippling 
 water. 
 
 Rather hesitatingly I looked about me, half 
 expecting to see horses grazing in the meadow and 
 signs somewhere of a camp. But the wide green 
 stretch was deserted ; neither man nor beast was vis 
 ible on its sunny, quiet expanse. At the edge of the 
 timber, a little way from where I stood, was a small 
 cabin. Taking courage from the forsaken look of 
 things I strolled toward it. It looked weather- 
 beaten and dilapidated, and the shakes that covered 
 its log frame were gray with age. Probably it dated 
 from the time, as many years ago as the young 
 forest was old, when the virgin timber had been cut. 
 The floor of the cabin was raised a foot or 
 two, bringing the sill of the unglazed window 
 above my head. That it was unglazed somehow 
 gave me courage; no eyes could peer at me here 
 through dusty glass! And the whole place was 
 open and sunny and cheerful, not shut in by chapar 
 ral and trees like the cabins at Little York. Besides, 
 I was unhappy, and unhappiness has a queer way 
 of making you forget timidity. Prompted by the 
 vaguely melancholy interest which surrounds for 
 saken habitations I stepped upon the squared log 
 which formed the step and pushed open the door. 
 
220 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 At once I uttered a quickly stifled exclamation. 
 For the cabin was inhabited. Not the inhabitant, 
 indeed, but his various possessions were there to 
 prove it provisions ranged on a shelf, tin dishes 
 on the table, a kettle on the rusty little stove. There 
 was even a vest hanging on a nail and a pair of 
 worn old shoes standing by the bunk, in which lay 
 a huddle of gray blankets. 
 
 Without delay I pulled to the door and made like 
 a frightened wild thing for the cover of the wood. 
 Whoever the recluse might be, or rather until I 
 knew, I had no wish for a solitary encounter with 
 him here. But in the shelter of the trees I felt 
 safer, until taking a few cautious steps I found 
 myself in a path with another building of some kind 
 at the end of it. This startled me afresh, as sug 
 gesting other dubious inhabitants. Nevertheless I 
 went a little way along the path, which proved to 
 lead to a building larger than the cabin in the 
 meadow, and which might have been a small bunk- 
 house. It was half-ruinous now, with sagging roof 
 and brush growing thickly about its w r alls. The 
 door to which the path led was closed. 
 
 Still cautiously, with an eye out for the unknown 
 solitary, I made my way through the wood till T 
 struck the trail once more. But before I returned 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 221 
 
 to camp a half-fearful curiosity drove me to take a 
 last look at the cabin. It was nearly sundown 
 wouldn t the hermit be coming home? He was. 
 Across the meadow long level rays of light were 
 washing. They revealed, among the cliffs which 
 walled it in upon the east, the narrow mouth of a 
 defile. From it was issuing a string of horses 
 four, I counted of which the first bore a rider and 
 the others empty pack-saddles. They crossed the 
 meadow, moving like tired creatures that had seen 
 hard traveling, and halted before the cabin. The 
 rider dismounted, stretched himself wearily, and set 
 about unsaddling his horse. He was a man of 
 middle height, gaunt and rather stiff of move 
 ment, and dressed in the usual mountain fashion, 
 which all but invariably includes, at least with the 
 older men, a vest hanging unbuttoned over a dingy 
 colored shirt. Having lifted the saddle from his 
 horse he turned to fling it on the ground. The 
 move brought him round until he faced me, and 
 what I had already with astonishment suspected 
 proved to be the truth. It was Eben Gregg. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 S I WENT slowly back to camp I tried in vain 
 ^l^s to fathom the exact significance of this discov 
 ery. Were these the horses that had waited under 
 the cliff at Bandy s? What was the freight they 
 had carried thence all the long way to this cabin 
 and on beyond for if they had come down the trail 
 just now with empty pack-saddles they had doubt 
 less ascended it with full ones? What was their 
 destination up there in the wilderness, where there 
 was nothing at all but forest and snow and solitary 
 peaks until you dropped down again into Nevada? 
 And where did Mr. Hackett, lurking there at Little 
 York upon the line of march, come in if indeed 
 he came in anywhere and didn t constitute an 
 entirely separate puzzle? Was there really some 
 extraordinary, unimaginable connection between 
 these things ? It was as though, stumbling along in 
 the dark, I felt now and again within my grasp an 
 invisible, tenuous thread which would guide me t 
 could I only follow it, to an end I immensely wanted 
 
 222 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 223 
 
 to reach. Yes, immensely, for the urge I felt was 
 beyond mere curiosity; obscurely, inexplicably, the 
 conviction stirred in me that something which 
 mattered a great deal, mattered somehow even to 
 me, was here involved. How, I didn t know, for 
 when I tried to grasp it the shadowdy something 
 slipped through my fingers and was gone. Yet in a 
 moment there it was again, teasing and elusive, 
 hovering on the periphery of consciousness like a 
 ghost that couldn t bear the light. 
 
 When I reached camp where I strolled in with 
 an elaborate air of unconcern the fire was blazing 
 and supper under way. No one had anything to 
 say about my absence except Jimmie, who had wak 
 ened quite refreshed and was reproachful because I 
 had gone for a walk without him. He said he had 
 just lain down a moment with his hat over his eyes 
 on account of the sun to wait till I was ready, and 
 when he looked round I was gone. I said naturally, 
 when he hadn t looked round for an hour or so, on 
 which he was seized with that bitterness of indigna 
 tion customary with persons accused to taking naps, 
 and wanted to prove by Miss Luppy that he had sat 
 up and said "Where s Sally?" within five minutes 
 of my departure. 
 
 "As to the settin up I can t say," replied Miss 
 
224 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Luppy when appealed to by Jimmie in his rashness, 
 "account of my back bein to you. As to what you 
 said, all I heard from you sounded to me like jest 
 plain snorin , and if twas otherwise, why I guess 
 I m growin* a mite deaf. Cause I remember of 
 thinkin to myself it warn t often you heard a young 
 person doin it that loud and long, like a pig that s 
 et too much and got kind o short-winded after 
 wards." 
 
 This disposed of Jimmie and also of my faint 
 hope that a truce might be declared for this my 
 first evening by a camp-fire. On the contrary, I 
 found myself set apart with Jimmie as an outsider 
 and a tenderfoot, rebuffed by Miss Luppy when I 
 tried to help with supper, and alienated even from 
 my own brother, who approved of Joe, not of 
 course as rivaling the unique merits of Asa Cobb, 
 but still as a not unworthy comrade for Asa Cobb s 
 admirer. Joe having apparently cast off the obses 
 sion which had made a mere girl important in his 
 eyes, Kit likewise frankly abandoned me and 
 attached himself to Joe as squire and understudy, 
 tagging him about and imitating his every move, 
 leaping to execute an order, zealous with unasked 
 aid, and condescending to me as to a person at last 
 properly put in her place and to be kept there. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 225 
 
 Well, I had one comfort in all this, and I hugged it 
 close to my sore heart I knew, and Kit didn t, the 
 whereabouts of the missing Eben Gregg. What 
 wouldn t he have given to know it what would he 
 say when, home again at Bandy s Flat, I took my 
 revenge by imparting the belated information! It 
 was true I would much have preferred to impart it 
 now, to know what Joe would think of the whole 
 queer business, to seize perhaps this chance of 
 sifting it to the very bottom. But not from me, 
 snubbed and relegated to companionship with Jim- 
 mie, should they hear of my afternoon s adventure. 
 As to my experience of the morning, even could I 
 have felt free of my vow of silence, I was too embit 
 tered to vouchsafe so much of an explanation to 
 those who should have trusted me without it. No, 
 they should know nothing, nothing at all from me, 
 and then whatever the developments, whatever it 
 might all turn out to mean, I would at least enjoy 
 the superiority of my foreknowledge. And if they 
 marveled at my silence, well, there were a dozen 
 ways in which I might remind them of the reason 
 So I brooded, while Miss Luppy and Joe cooked 
 supper, and Kit brought in vast stores of wood, and 
 Jimmie and I sat around in dreary idleness. Oh, 
 how I wanted a share in the delightful play work 
 
226 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 of the camp ! I wanted to help with the frying-pan 
 bread, and to turn those sizzling little trout I 
 shouldn t have got all red and boiled-looking like 
 Miss Luppy now. And I wanted all the laughter, 
 and the petting, and the happiness that were to have 
 
 been mine to-night 
 
 All this being denied me, I took the only course 
 my pride left open. They shouldn t have offered 
 them, at least, the spectacle of a sad and chastened 
 Sally sitting meekly by accepting punishment! 
 And presently Jimmie and I, cozily established with 
 our backs against a log to windward of the fire, 
 were so gay that Miss Luppy cast blighting looks 
 our way, and hard lines began to show about Joe s 
 mouth I hadn t dreamed it could look so hard! I 
 had leisure for noting these effects, for it was 
 extremely easy to converse with Jimmie. You had 
 only to wind him up and stSrt him, so to speak. If 
 he showed symptoms of running down, you joggled 
 him slightly and he went again. The most 
 efficacious joggle was, simply, to offer him Jimmie 
 as a theme. This kept him going like some magic 
 lubricating oil. Meanwhile I wondered whom I 
 should pick out, finally, to take him off my hands. 
 I began running over the possibilities in my mind 
 of course I intended to be conscientious and not 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 227 
 
 hand him over to just anybody. No, I would live 
 up to my responsibilities and see that I passed Jim- 
 mie on, a wiser if not a sadder boy, to exactly the 
 right person to take charge of him and his Uncle 
 Jim s money. As for myself I thought I would 
 probably go in for relief work in Armenia, where I 
 should have my throat cut by a Turk or else die of 
 something catching very soon. 
 
 But if there was one Sally very busy being gay 
 and entertaining Jimmie and letting people see that 
 she didn t in the least mind their rudeness, there 
 was another who found her own secret bliss in the 
 beauty and wonder all about her. How lovely, how 
 mysterious, how awesome it was there in the woods 
 as twilight began to fall ! To creep up on us, rather, 
 a silent tide of shadow, from beneath the still and 
 solemn pines. Birds and squirrels, after much noisy 
 chattering, went to bed. Pale moths began to slide 
 through the air silently as dreams. How the 
 crackle of the fire, the clear ascending flame, the 
 fragrance of the wood-smoke, stirred in one a 
 vague, deep something, perhaps an old, old ancestral 
 memory of the time when the folk from whom we 
 come built fires like this in the open, before they 
 had got them a roof-tree and a home. 
 
 After supper we sat a while about the fire, and 
 
228 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Jimmie discoursed of Santa Barbara where both his 
 mother and Arabella were at present, and where 
 he would have been but for me, and where 
 I ought in reason to have been he was very ex 
 plicit about this and should have been but for the 
 freak which had taken me up here. And he was 
 extremely humorous and patronizing quite ami 
 ably, of course about the Flat, and this extraor 
 dinary aimless trip of ours, and the deplorable want 
 
 of jazz about it all 
 
 The fire waned and Kit wanted to build it up and 
 Joe wouldn t let him, but knocked the ashes from 
 his pipe and rose abruptly, saying it was bedtime. 
 And I thanked him in my heart, because it would 
 have been too bad, after playing up so well, to have 
 spoiled it all by a burst of sudden weeping. Miss 
 Luppy and I had spread our beds in a little circle 
 of young pines, not too far from the comfort of 
 the fire s red winking eye, or from the hope of 
 rescue in case the "critter" whose arrival Miss 
 Luppy now began to anticipate should give us his 
 undesired society. Thither we retired, and in a si 
 lence eloquent of mutual disapproval I really was 
 hating her rather hard performed the extremely 
 brief ceremonial of going to bed in camp. Most of 
 it is taking off your shoes. She then gave me a 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 229 
 
 grudging "Well, good night, Sally," which sounded 
 like an exhortation to repent before a righteous 
 vengeance in the shape of the critter, probably 
 should overtake me, and disposed herself, with 
 creaks and rustlings, on her bed of fragrant green 
 ery. And I reflected thankfully that the day was 
 over, and the merciful dark around me, and that I 
 needn t smile any more 
 
 I did not sleep at once, but lay pillowed on my 
 saddle, watching the fire burn out till only a red 
 spark remained. Miss Luppy, oblivious of the 
 critter, slumbered. The night was still and wind 
 less, and except for the soft bubbling of the spring 
 and the remoter murmur of the stream infinitely 
 silent. Darkness flooded over the forest like a sea. 
 
 Then somewhere in the pines an owl hooted. 
 From far off came a dreary wailing cry, perhaps 
 the hunting note of a coyote. I turned on my bed, 
 and the essential Me, satisfied that it left its body 
 comfortable and safe, began to slip its moorings for 
 its dark nightly voyage into the unknown. 
 
 And with my last drowsy speculations about Eben 
 Gregg and what he was doing up here in the cabin 
 was mingled the reflection that Joe had not spoken 
 to me once all day. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 I WAKENED suddenly and with a startled sense 
 that some sound, some call, had roused me. I 
 sat up in my blankets, my heart beating quickly, 
 every nerve keyed to an intensity of listening. The 
 darkness on which I had closed my eyes had given 
 place to a thin gray twilight, and the air was sharp 
 as frost. The hush of the dim woods had an om 
 inous, expectant quality, as though at any moment 
 some strange and fatal secret might be whispered 
 on the silence. No one stirred about the camp; 
 Miss Luppy lay slumbering profoundly, and by 
 leaning a little forward I could see the still, recum 
 bent forms of the men. What had roused me ? A 
 far-off cry, or a prowling footstep close at hand? 
 Then as I sat wondering and listening it came 
 again a thin, faint note, very distant, yet unmis 
 takably conveying to my sharpened ears the sugges 
 tion of a human whistle, that shrill, far-carrying 
 sound only to be achieved by laying the fingers to 
 the lips, and by woman not to be achieved at all - 
 
 230 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 231 
 
 It was so very faint and distant that even then I 
 spared a thought to wonder that it had aroused me. 
 I had fallen asleep, no doubt, unconsciously alert for 
 some such thing, with that profounder self which 
 does not sleep vigilant for the least signal that 
 events were moving. It had warned and wakened 
 me, and I did not hesitate. With a watchful eye 
 on Miss Luppy, I pulled on and hurriedly laced my 
 boots, shook my rumpled garments into order, and 
 slipped softly away among the trees. Once clear of 
 the camp I skimmed breathlessly along the trail. 
 That whistle, if I hadn t dreamed it as I half 
 doubted still meant an arrival from somewhere at 
 the cabin in the meadow. While we slept some one 
 had been riding over the mountains in the dark, on 
 some errand utterly beyond my guessing, to meet 
 Eben Gregg in his hermitage. Who it was and 
 what he did there I intended to find out it would 
 take the wind out of Kit s sails a little, anyway ! I 
 felt no fear of the dim still woods; curiosity lured 
 me too strongly, besides the anticipated glory of a 
 return to camp after the achieving of my solitary 
 adventure. If only they didn t wake too soon and 
 miss me but I had artfully huddled my blankets 
 together and left my worsted tarn my nightcap, if 
 you please sticking out at the top, so that for a 
 
232 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 little while at least Miss Ltippy would fancy me 
 still sleeping. I was nearing the end of the wood 
 trail now I was at the very brink, perhaps, of 
 discovering what Eben Gregg was doing in the 
 cabin and who it was that came to meet him 
 there. Came sounds from the meadow hoofs 
 trampling, the whinny of a horse, voices speaking 
 together. I tiptoed forward holding my breath, 
 crept from the trail into a clump of young firs, and 
 cautiously put aside the low-growing boughs. The 
 meadow was before me, faintly glistening in the 
 pearly dawn-light. 
 
 Again a riding-horse and three pack-horses 
 stood before the cabin. But the first was gray, not 
 sorrel, and the pack-saddles carried loads. Two 
 men were moving about among the animals. One 
 of them was Eben Gregg; of the other, whose back 
 was to me, I wasn t sure. The powerful build, 
 the long arms, the square shoulders, evoked a mem 
 ory which for a teasing moment remained nebulous. 
 But only for a moment ; even before at a word from 
 Gregg he turned his face to view my heart had 
 leaped into my throat with the conviction that this 
 was Brett Morgan. 
 
 Brett Morgan! This, then, explained those 
 absences that Kit and I had noticed. But his mere 
 
. FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 233 
 
 presence didn t explain, didn t even hint at, the 
 business that had brought him here. It must be 
 some queerly secret business, or why the mystery 
 with which it was surrounded? Why did Brett 
 Morgan ride by night to the rendezvous, instead of 
 openly by day? Why the stealthiness of Eben 
 Gregg s return on the night of the dance, or the 
 agitation of Lorena Pettis at its discovery? Why 
 oh, why a hundred things? I stood peering out 
 from the thicket, afraid more nearly to approach 
 the cabin, ashamed, indeed, deliberately to eaves 
 drop, yet at the same time straining my ears for an 
 articulate word in the murmur of talk that 
 reached me. I could distinguish the cracked twang 
 ing tones of Eben Gregg from the deep voice of 
 Brett Morgan, but of what they said I could make 
 nothing. Meanwhile the pair were stripping the 
 covers from the packs, revealing what the bright 
 ening daylight showed me were two small 
 barrels swung across each horse. This puzzled me 
 extremely. Of all things on earth, why barrels? 
 Why were barrels brought mysteriously by night to 
 this mountain meadow? Had it been barrels that 
 Eben Gregg had carried on into the high Sierra? 
 What did people put in barrels little ones like 
 these? I could think of nothing except nails at 
 
234 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Sam Davis s store there were nails in little barrels. 
 But did Brett Morgan make secret excursions to this 
 place with a pack-train bearing nails? It seemed 
 unlikely. Meanwhile the two men, working in uni 
 son, undid the lashings of the pack and eased the 
 barrels down upon the grass. One pair had been 
 thus disposed of and another begun upon when 
 my ear caught a faint rustling behind me. I 
 looked round quickly. Men were stealing through 
 the wood two of them, advancing in a line par- 
 rallel with the edge of the timber toward the cabin. 
 That one who walked in the rear, a rather short, 
 stocky man with a leather coat buttoned up beneath 
 his chin, was a stranger. The other ah, they did 
 belong together, then, those small mysterious hap 
 penings which had seemed to have no reasonable 
 connection ! was Mr. Hackett. A Mr. Hackett still 
 spectacled and bewhiskered, but incredibly without 
 his duster. A Mr. Hackett carrying cozily in his 
 palm a small, businesslike automatic. And still a 
 Mr. Hackett so precisely his usual thin, dry, unim 
 pressive self that I wondered involuntarily what line 
 from the poets hung unuttered on his lips. On 
 they stole through the dim w r ood like specters, 
 leaving me in my hiding-place unseen. In a mo 
 ment they had vanished. I turned back to my 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 235 
 
 peep-hole into the meadow, my knees shaking, 
 my heart beating chokingly in my throat. 
 Something was going to happen, a something which 
 bid fair to furnish thrills quite beyond my expecta 
 tion or desire. There before the cabin, all uncon 
 scious, Gregg and Brett Morgan tugged at the lash 
 ings of the mysterious little barrels, while not a 
 stone s throw away in the wood lurked unaccount 
 ably Mr. Hackett and his comrade. What did it 
 mean? What astounding, even tragic scene might 
 I be about to witness? Why, why had I left my 
 safe warm blankets, where with all my cowardly 
 soul I wished myself that moment at the same 
 time knowing that no power could move me from 
 that spot until I had seen the climax, however 
 strange or dreadful, of this extraordinary drama. 
 
 The second pair of barrels, then the third, joined 
 the first upon the grass. All this while I watched, 
 breathlessly expectant, torn between alarm and 
 a fearful curiosity. Having freed the horses of 
 their burdens, Gregg and Morgan next relieved 
 them of their saddles and allowed them to 
 stray away into the meadow. Then each man 
 shouldered a barrel and turned toward the timber. 
 A thrill raced along my nerves now the encounter 
 must surely come! But neither shot nor outcry 
 
236 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 greeted their entrance into the wood. Only, as they 
 passed from view, two figures stole softly 
 forth and vanished around the corner of the cabin. 
 Minutes elapsed, then, their voices mingling in 
 careless talk, Gregg and Morgan reappeared, 
 shouldered each another load, and once more faced 
 toward the wood. At that moment Hackett and 
 the other stepped from their concealment, revolvers 
 leveled, and a sharp "Halt!" rang out on the still 
 air. Morgan and Gregg wheeled and stood trans 
 fixed under the threat of those slender cylinders of 
 steel. Then with a deep oath Morgan let fall his 
 burden, at the same time reaching for his hip. 
 
 "Quit that ! I ve got you covered !" snapped 
 Hackett, his thin voice explosive as a fire-cracker. 
 Under the menace of the automatic Morgan s hands 
 went up. Gregg meanwhile stood with dropped 
 jaw, like the mere effigy of empty, foolish wonder. 
 Perhaps this was why Hackett s comrade, who 
 should have kept his attention upon Gregg, let it 
 wander instead to Morgan, who, his face dark with 
 passion, his massive frame tense as a panther s 
 poised to spring, looked formidable even as he stood 
 with lifted ha^nds under the muzzle of Hackett s gun. 
 
 Instantly and surprisingly Gregg snatched his 
 opportunity. With both hands he grasped the bar- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 237 
 
 rel on his shoulder, heaved it above his head, and 
 launched it straight at Hackett. The flight of this 
 strange missile weapon was necessarily brief, and 
 to this Hackett probably owed his life. For the 
 barrel being already in its descending arc before it 
 reached him, he received it not upon his skull but 
 in the more elastic region of the diaphragm. Like a 
 ninepin Mr. Hackett went down on the grass. At 
 the same instant Morgan leaped upon the remaining 
 enemy, knocked up his gun, and planted a heavy fist 
 full on his jaw. The man dropped limply. The 
 fight was over. Attack, seeming victory, and the 
 turning of the tide of battle had occupied, it 
 seemed to me, the space between two breaths. And 
 Hackett and the other, disarmed and prostrate on 
 the grass, lay helplessly at the mercy of their cap 
 tors. 
 
 What would become of them? What was the 
 meaning of the whole amazing scene ? I wanted to 
 know so intensely that not even the fear that dragged 
 at my feet could hold them back. Trembling, 
 appalled at my own rashness, I stole through the 
 wood, until I had diminished by half the distance 
 between me and the cabin. Then crouched in 
 a shelter of tangled greenery I looked out again into 
 the meadow. 
 
238 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 The victors were making victory secure by bind 
 ing the vanquished with the lashings from the packs, 
 Gregg swearing during the process with a kind of 
 solemn fluency, Morgan grimly silent. I felt again, 
 as I peered out tremblingly from my hiding-place, 
 the force and power that his strong lithe form, his 
 sternly handsome face expressed. It was not the 
 voluble Gregg, devoting with minuteness and partic 
 ularity their various members to eternal condemna 
 tion, whom the prisoners had to fear. The silence 
 of Morgan was infinitely more threatening. 
 
 "Well, they re fixed so they can t do no mischief 
 for a while," remarked Gregg, concluding his work 
 by prodding Hackett s companion in the back with 
 his heavy boot. "What s the next move, Brett?" 
 
 "To herd em into the bunk-house, o course," 
 announced Morgan tersely, possessing himself of 
 Hackett s gun. 
 
 "Oh, hell, why not leave em here while we git 
 breakfast ?" complained Gregg. "The kittle s b ilin 
 away like sin, and I m holler as a drum inside." 
 
 " Cause the other way s a long sight safer, that s 
 why," replied Morgan with decision. "There ain t 
 a chance in a million of any one happenin by, but 
 still you can t never tell. Mebbe it might be a pros 
 pector, mebbe a couple o city guys moseyin round 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 239 
 
 with a burro like they do. Anyway you and me got 
 to talk things over, ain t we? And o course we 
 don t want to hurt these here gents feelin s none by 
 lettin on what w r e re a-goin to do with em 
 before we do it." He smiled wickedly, his lips 
 parting over his strong white teeth. 
 
 "Wisht I knowed what we was goin to do with 
 em," grumbled Gregg, with an uneasy air. 
 "Well, anyway, let s git em out o the way some 
 how, cause that ere kettle ll be b iled dry if we 
 don t see to it. And I m holler " 
 
 "Can it !" cut in Morgan impatiently. "Ain t you 
 got nothin bigger to worry about than gittin your 
 breakfast inside you? Cause it sure looks to me 
 like you had. Anyway, we don t want these here 
 guys layin round in plain sight, nor them kegs 
 neither. Come, vamoose, you there!" 
 
 Having cursed and kicked the captives to their 
 feet, Gregg and Morgan drove them before them 
 along the path to the bunk-house. Came a sound 
 of voices, muffled as if from the interior of a build 
 ing, then the jar of a closing door. Morgan and 
 Gregg emerged again into the open, talking in low 
 tones. I caught a phrase or two: "damned bad 
 fix git this lot over the line, anyway run out o 
 town the middle o last week -" Gregg entered 
 
240 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the cabin, while Morgan unsaddled his horse and 
 threw the canvas pack-covers over the remaining 
 kegs. While so employed he burst into sudden 
 laughter. 
 
 "Say, Eben," he called through the cabin door, 
 "you sure missed it, not bein around town to see 
 Miss Luppy start out a-hossback yesterday ! Say, it 
 was some show! And a little dude from down 
 below say, he could ride! Enjoyin himself, he 
 was, like a cat on a red-hot stove! Coin to camp 
 out at Eagle Lake lucky they didn t change their 
 minds and come up this here way instead !" 
 
 Gregg s head appeared in the door. 
 
 "How do you know they didn t that they ain t 
 around here somewheres?" he asked uneasily. 
 
 "Rot they was goin to Eagle Lake to see the 
 scenery, wasn t they, and why should they want to 
 come up here where there ain t none?" returned 
 Morgan carelessly. "Besides, you ain t seen nothin 
 of em, have you ? But say, if you d a got a squint 
 at the old girl !" He exploded again into laughter. 
 
 "Did the whole bunch go little Sally and all?" 
 
 "Sure, she went," replied Morgan with a certain 
 dry brevity. The smile left his face. 
 
 "Say, ain t she the peach! Sugar-candy! Um, 
 ah ! Them eyes, that pretty dimplin smile !" Gregg 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 241 
 
 stood grinning fatuously. But if I listened without 
 pleasure to this catalogue of my charms Brett 
 Morgan seemed to enjoy it even less. He turned 
 on Gregg a darkly lowering look, but said nothing. 
 
 "And that feller that s sparkin her, that engineer, 
 Vvas he along too?" pursued Gregg, unnoticing. 
 
 If Morgan s face had been dark before it was 
 threatening as a storm-cloud now. He frowned 
 blackly. 
 
 "Yes, he was along too, curse him ! He wouldn t 
 a been, though, if he knew what was good for him. 
 I been layin low, I have, account o this business 
 here too much good money in it to throw away, 
 even for the fun o spoilin his good looks. But 
 I ll git him, I ll settle with him yet, and mebbe not 
 so very long ahead, either. He ll wish good and 
 plenty he hadn t never tried to set in no game with 
 mef 
 
 "Do tell!" remarked Gregg with mild interest. 
 "I never knowed he done you any dirt." He 
 glanced curiously at the other s lowering face. "It 
 ain t mebbe on account o little Sally ?" he hazarded. 
 
 "Dry up!" responded Morgan uncompromisingly. 
 "I ain t askin you nor no one to git pryin into my 
 affairs. Well, is that feed you was hollerm about 
 ready?" 
 
242 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Gregg nodded and withdrew into the cabin. 
 Morgan followed. There was a sound of stools 
 scraping the floor, of dishes rattling, of an occa 
 sional spoken word. But my concern was no longer 
 with the cabin, except to be certain that the meal 
 had begun. That would keep the pair employed, I 
 felt safe in reckoning, some fifteen minutes any 
 way. It was time infinitely precious, for Morgan s 
 words to Gregg just now had hardened a wavering 
 impulse into resolution. At any moment, by the 
 smoke of our fire or in some other fashion, our 
 camp might be discovered. Before that happened 
 Mr. Hackett and the other must be free, must 
 supplement our slender forces, which, when you 
 considered it, consisted of Joe alone. Joe, I knew, 
 carried a revolver, which except for Kit s bird-gun 
 was the sole firearm we possessed. In case of an 
 encounter Jimmie, unarmed, uncomprehending, 
 and at any time unwarlike, would be outmatched a 
 dozen times by Eben Gregg. That left Joe alone 
 against Morgan Joe who had no idea that Morgan 
 was in any serious sense his enemy, against Morgan 
 embittered, vindictive, conscienceless. No, I needed 
 the help of Hackett and his fellow-prisoner as much 
 as they needed mine and I feared that this was 
 direly. These minutes, so few, so fugitive, were all 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 243 
 
 I had, and they were minutes too priceless to be lost. 
 Leaving- the shelter of the thicket I stole toward the 
 bunk-house. Once in the little path I cast one swift 
 glance of fear behind me, sped light-footed to the 
 door, lifted the old-fashioned latch and gave a cau 
 tious shove. If ever soulless matter showed deprav 
 ity, it was that door. Rust stiffened its hinges, its 
 warped edge clung resisting to the floor, cracks and 
 groans arose from the straining wood. My knees 
 shook, cold beads stood on my forehead, the breath 
 rattled dryly in my throat. Time crept by laggingly, 
 ages and ages of it, and still, like a condemned soul 
 doomed to an endless, hopeless task, I struggled with 
 that door. Then quite suddenly it swung open, and 
 a stream of yellow sunlight poured into the bunk- 
 house upon the two men who sat propped against the 
 farther wall, watching me with burning eyes. In Mr. 
 Hackett s were recognition and profound surprise, 
 in his companion s, whose face was swollen and 
 bloody from Morgan s fist, mere groggy bewilder 
 ment. Before I could reach Mr. Hackett, by a 
 series of uncouth writhings he had risen to his 
 knees. I dragged him to his feet, and was turning 
 to render the same service to the other, when Mr. 
 Hackett gave a sudden exclamation. I looked round 
 to find Brett Morgan standing in the open door. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IT WAS like the washing of a great wave over 
 me, that drowning, suffocating terror that 
 seemed to beat me down and stifle me when I saw 
 Brett Morgan there in the doorway of the bunk- 
 house. For a long, an interminable moment he did 
 not move or speak, but stood with his eyes on mine, 
 holding them with that power, that sinister fascina 
 tion, I had always felt in him. Then a slow smile 
 parted his lips. 
 
 "So it s you, Sally ?" he said softly. "You and 
 me are meetin again away up here?" There was a 
 caressing warmth in his deep voice, a note of 
 restrained exultation. All at once his face changed. 
 In a stride he had crossed the floor and caught my 
 wrist. "Where s the rest of your crowd?" he 
 demanded sternly. "Whereabouts is your camp?" 
 
 At this my courage somehow illogically returned. 
 It wasn t his bullying that I feared ! 
 
 "I shan t tell you," I said boldly. As I met his 
 heavy frown my chin went up, and my eyes flashed 
 defiantly into his. 
 
 244 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 245 
 
 "You won t tell?" His grasp tightened on my 
 wrist. "You will I ll make you !" 
 
 "Look here, Morgan, better keep your hands off 
 the girl!" interposed Mr. Hackett sharply. "This 
 game ain t played out yet, you know, and if you 
 show yourself a white man now maybe it ll count for 
 you in the end." 
 
 "Don t worry, Mr. Hackett," I said evenly. "Let 
 him break my wrist if he likes. He can t get a word 
 from me." I looked tauntingly at the man who 
 with one movement could have crushed my hand 
 to pulp, defying him, daring him to hurt me. "Why 
 don t you ?" I challenged him. "Why don t you ?" 
 And I laughed, taught by some suddenly awakened 
 instinct the sure and simple way to master this 
 fierce primitive male creature. It needed no cour 
 age; for all his strength he couldn t bring himself 
 to hurt me and I knew it well the very pressure of 
 his fingers told me. I met his frown fearlessly, and 
 countered with the daring of my smile. 
 
 "Why don t you?" I taunted him again. 
 
 It worked, this suddenly discovered formula 
 old as Mother Eve, yet new to me. The frown in 
 his eyes changed to a sultry tenderness. 
 
 "You got my number, Sally," he said in a low 
 voice. "I ain t goin to hurt you you know it 
 
246 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 all right, I guess. Don t you go buttin in though, 
 damn you!" He turned on Hackett savagely. 
 "And anything you know you better come through 
 with quick, that s all !" 
 
 "Mr. Hackett knows nothing at all about how I 
 came here," I interrupted, maintaining my defiant 
 air. "If you touch him, you are a coward. Only 
 a coward would hurt a man whose hands are tied." 
 
 He laughed. "I never see a scratchier little kitten 
 than what you are, Sally. There ain t no makin 
 you behave, is there? Not unless I had you all to 
 myself for a while then mebbe I d git you gentled ! 
 Well, mebbe I will, too Hello, Gregg, this here s a 
 pretty mess, ain t it? I guess this mixes things up 
 some, hey?" 
 
 The astounded face of Eben Gregg had appeared 
 in the doorway. With open mouth he contemplated 
 the scene. "Well, do tell!" he finally ejaculated. 
 
 "If it ain t little Sally " At this point he 
 
 became speechless. 
 
 "It sure is," returned Morgan incisively, "and 
 that means the whole damn bunch is round .here 
 somewhere, too. What we got to do is light out, 
 and light out quick. Here, I want to speak to you. 
 And don t you guys holler or nothin , or I ll kick 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 247 
 
 your slats loose. Nor you neither, Sally there s 
 some ways you can t fool with me." 
 
 He went out, closing the door on himself and 
 Gregg, with whom he held a whispered conversa 
 tion. I looked hurriedly and hopefully about, but 
 the windows, partly boarded over, and blocked 
 by the tangled growth outside, offered no escape. 
 Moving close to Mr. Hackett, I hurriedly explained 
 my presence there. He heard me with a soberness 
 from which I drew small comfort. It was pain 
 fully clear that instead of helping I had not only 
 run my own head into a noose but increased the 
 peril of the two prisoners as well. Their captors 
 would deal with them only the more drastically, 
 very likely, because their rescue was now a possi 
 bility. What the business was in which Gregg 
 and Morgan were engaged was still a mystery to 
 me, but that the essence of it was secrecy I real 
 ized. And the prisoners knew the secret there 
 fore it followed, didn t it, that they must somehow 
 be disposed of? I, too, had stumbled on enough to 
 make me dangerous what would be done with me ? 
 Overwhelmed by these reflections I began to sob. 
 
 "Forgive me!" I begged. "I meant to help 
 and I ve only made things worse !" 
 
 "There, don t cry, little Sally," he comforted me 
 
248 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 in a queer cracked whisper. "You re a right brave 
 girl, and you did your best. It s you I m worrying 
 about running risks is my business. Try your 
 best to hold back and delay things it s pretty near 
 time somebody was coming down from camp to 
 look for you." 
 
 The sun had now risen, and I knew the camp 
 must be astir. But even if they had found that I 
 was missing I was not sure they would look for me 
 at once. Miss Luppy, for instance, knew that I con 
 templated a morning bath in the river, and for a 
 while at least my absence might be attributed to 
 this. 
 
 Eben Gregg now entered and closed the door. 
 He said nothing, but proceeded in a businesslike 
 fashion to tie my hands with an end of rope. I 
 began to speak, hoping to move him the man who 
 cared about a little gray cat must have some soft 
 ness in him somewhere but he checked me sourly, 
 
 "Now look a-here, Sally," he said with decision, 
 "I ain t one that likes to use a woman rough, nor 
 yet to see em used that way. If you d V minded 
 your own little business, like you d ought to, you 
 wouldn t a been in his fix and neither d us. Me 
 and Brett has got our rights like other folks, and 
 them what comes away up here to interfere has 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 249 
 
 got to take what s comin to em." Mr. Gregg 
 paused to scowl at the prisoners. "I guess you ain t 
 goin to git hurt any, so long as you re a good girl 
 and behave and mind what you re told, but you ll 
 jest natcherally have to put up with a little incon 
 venience on account of causin us a damned big lot 
 of it. There, I got you tied, and it don t hurt you 
 none, does it? I expect, though, you won t like 
 
 this so well " Here he whipped out a bandanna 
 
 and by a sudden movement got it over my mouth 
 and bound firmly behind my ears. "Now don t 
 you take on nor nothin folks have been knowed 
 to bust a blood-vessel takin on when there warn t 
 no reason. Brett ll have the horses ready in a 
 minute, and then we ll mosey long." 
 
 Mr. Hackett had twice attempted to interrupt the 
 flow of this discourse, but had been silenced by a 
 glimpse of Gregg s revolver. Now he tried again. 
 
 "Gregg, you don t know what you re letting 
 yourself in for," he broke in. "It ain t you we re 
 after " 
 
 "Now look a-here," threatened Gregg, again pro 
 ducing the gun and toying with it ominously. 
 "You re a great one to argufy, I guess, from what I 
 hear, but before a party argufies he d a heap better 
 find out if his argufyin is agreeable to them that s 
 
250 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 listenin . Well, jest now it ain t. I ain t got the 
 time nor I ain t got the attention to give to argu- 
 fyin . I m a mighty busy individgil this bright 
 mornin , and argufying ain t one o the things I 
 got laid out on my schedgil a-tall, see?" 
 
 "But I want to put you wise, Gregg," said Hack- 
 ett in a quick whisper, "I " 
 
 "Dry up !" commanded Gregg, in a muffled roar. 
 "You let out one more word and " 
 
 The entrance of Morgan interrupted him. 
 
 "Well, you got the horses ready?" demanded 
 Gregg eagerly. "If you have, me and Sally " 
 
 "I ve changed my mind, Eben," said Morgan 
 calmly. "It ll be me and Sally. You can come 
 along when you ve fixed these fellows here. We ll 
 wait for you on the trail like it was agreed. Come, 
 don t waste time gittin excited; I got my mind 
 made up and the quicker you git down to business 
 and settle things here the quicker you can hit the 
 trail yourself." 
 
 Gregg swore and grumbled, but the hard ruthless 
 force of the other beat him down. Morgan tossed 
 him some strips of sacking. 
 
 "Make a good job o the gags," he enjoined. 
 "There mustn t be a peep out o them guys, not if 
 they choke to death tryin ." He turned to me, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 251 
 
 where I stood trembling but of necessity dumb, and 
 took me by the arm. 
 
 "Come along, Sally." I made no effort at resist 
 ance it was too obviously vain and together we 
 left the bunk-house and went swiftly along the path 
 to the cabin. 
 
 Before the cabin two horses, one of them 
 Morgan s own gray, stood ready saddled. A third, 
 with a folded blanket on its back, was hitched to a 
 staple in the wall, waiting, I assumed, for Gregg. 
 Without speech, Morgan lifted me upon one of the 
 saddled horses, mounted his own, and taking mine 
 by the bridle rode rapidly across the meadow. The 
 mouth of the defile from which I had last night seen 
 Eben Gregg and the pack-train issuing was all but 
 invisible in the morning light. But it opened 
 before us as we approached, and we began to ascend 
 a steep trail beside a thinly trickling watercourse. 
 Morgan said nothing, and for myself the gag com 
 pelled silence. As to what I felt, I recall only a 
 curious calm, a blankness of bewilderment, or per 
 haps of insensibility, as though the shocks of this 
 extraordinary morning had benumbed my stricken 
 mind. 
 
 In this queer abstraction I took note of 
 the most trivial and irrelevant details of a 
 
252 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 flight of tiny yellow butterflies, of a huge and hide 
 ous lizard basking on a stone, of the fragrance of 
 the wild sage that showed its dull gray-green 
 against the brown of the canon wall. I thought of 
 Arabella, and a faint flicker of amusement stirred 
 my stagnant mind what would Arabella say if she 
 could see me now ? I thought of those whom I had 
 left peacefully asleep in camp when I set out on my 
 adventure, and wondered calmly, and as though 
 across infinities of time and space, what they were 
 doing whether they knew that I was missing, and 
 what Kit had said, and what Jimmie, and what 
 Miss Luppy. As to Joe, he wouldn t care, would 
 he? No, Joe didn t care about me any more, he 
 thought me false and trivial and capable of loving 
 Jimmie Halliday or worse though less incredible, 
 Jimmie s uncle s money. This made me very sorry 
 for myself, and my eyes grew wet and my throat 
 ached. Yet it w r as a dim, far-off kind of feeling, 
 too, as if the person I was sorry for were some one 
 else, a Sally not at all identical with this bound and 
 muffled figure on the horse. 
 
 Up and up we climbed, Morgan mercilessly urg 
 ing on the horses. Now and then, warned by their 
 laboring breath, he paused briefly. During these 
 intervals he did not speak, but employed them in 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 253 
 
 rolling cigarettes with deft brown fingers. I 
 remembered the stub I had found on the path down 
 into the mine and the other that day at Little 
 York. The first, of course, had been dropped there 
 by Brett Morgan s hand, but how about the second ? 
 What had he been doing at Little York it was 
 the evening of that day, I recollected, that he 
 had appeared unexpectedly, a dusty returning 
 traveler, at his mother s house ? Well, I gave it up ; 
 it was one of the bits I couldn t yet fit in to the 
 faintly distinguishable pattern into which the puzzle 
 was resolving. And besides you can t think very 
 consecutively or logically in dreams, and it was in a 
 dream that I seemed moving. 
 
 We issued at last from between the dry scarred 
 walls of the ravine upon a wide slope, green and 
 forested, and ascending in a broad magnificent 
 sweep beyond my view. Here Morgan halted, dis 
 mounted and lifted me carefully from my saddle. 
 He secured the horses, then led me to a seat on the 
 moss and needles at the foot of a great pine. All 
 this time he had not spoken, and his face, as I 
 searched it with my frightened eyes, was unreveal- 
 ing. Kneeling beside me he freed my hands, then 
 untied the stifling bandanna. Between the relief of 
 this and the terror of his presence I began to weep, 
 
254 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 hiding my face in hands swollen and discolored 
 from their bonds. There was no spirit left in me 
 now I was broken and weary and utterly, help 
 lessly terrified. I wondered by what possible feint 
 I could possess myself of Morgan s gun and 
 where a bullet was most quickly fatal, and whether 
 it hurt much I didn t want to be hurt 
 
 Morgan had moved away. He returned an d 
 seated himself beside me. 
 
 "Sally!" He attempted, but without roughness, 
 to draw my hands from before my face. 
 
 "Sally, here s water. Please drink it." He held 
 the cup to my lips, and I drank obediently. It was 
 icy cold spring water, and the draught revived me. 
 I stopped crying, and leaned back in exhausted quiet 
 against the great tawny bole of the pine. Again, 
 with that strange preoccupation with trifles which 
 in moments of crisis seems to relieve the intoler 
 able tension of the mind, I d\velt in a dreamy fash 
 ion on various small happenings in the world about 
 me the flicker of light and shade on the forest 
 floor, the excited chatter of a squirrel, the flash of a 
 darting blue jay s wing. Ah, if I could escape from 
 myself, from this tired, bruised, desperately imper 
 iled body, and be part of this beauty, this peace! 
 Again a sob caught my breath, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 255 
 
 "Sally!" His hand closed over mine and by a 
 kind of compulsion I looked up to meet his gaze. 
 
 "Sally, you ain t got no call to be so scared. 
 You re scared mighty nigh out o your senses, 
 Sally, but you ain t no call to be. I won t harm 
 you any I swear it." 
 
 I felt nothing, so I suppose I showed nothing, but 
 incredulity and dread. 
 
 "Ah, you don t believe me! You think me about 
 as low-down as they come, don t you yellow clear 
 through? Well, I ve lived pretty rough, I guess 
 a fellow ain t got much chance to do different if he 
 grows up in a place like Bandy s, and quits school 
 when he s twelve, and finds out too late there s no 
 gittin 5 anywhere without you have education or a 
 pull or something. O course, there s a lot that 
 starts out like I done, and are satisfied to never 
 git beyond herdin cows, or doin pick-and-shovel 
 work, or such as that. I wasn t. I couldn t 
 git down to slavin like them square-heads and wops 
 jest over. I wanted the same things the lucky 
 ones had, fellows no better n me, mebbe, but jest 
 havin the luck to start out different, so the snaps 
 come their way without them half tryin . I d think 
 how easy they lived, and then how I done of the 
 dirty bunk-houses, the bum eats, the roughnecks I 
 
256 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was herded with. And there was somethin in me 
 that riz ag in it all, so that though I d never had 
 anything better I ached for it all the time, jest like 
 it was somethin I d had and lost. Sally, mebbe I 
 wouldn t have fell for you like I done if I could ever 
 a been suited with the kind o girls that come my 
 way like them table-girls from the Golconda hotel 
 and such. But I couldn t there was another sort 
 in my mind all the time, and then oh, how well 
 I remember it, that first time I saw you puttin 
 back the brush and callin out in your sweet voice, 
 sweeter n any bird-note ! It was like you was some 
 thing right out of a picture, or a dream not hardly 
 real at all " 
 
 1 But the first time you saw me was in your 
 mother s kitchen !" I interrupted, yet with a sudden 
 conviction that it wasn t. 
 
 He hesitated, then went on resolutely. 
 
 "No it wasn t, Sally. I had seen you before 
 that and it was all up with me from the minute I 
 did. I says to myself, There s the girl I want out 
 of all the world ! She s like them that used to come 
 to the camp where I was trainin , wearin swell 
 clothes and gittin beaued round by the officers, only 
 a hundred times prettier n any of em. There 
 wasn t any of em had such eyes, such soft dimplin 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 257 
 
 cheeks, such ways of movin and speakin and all! 
 She s a peach, a queen! I want her, and I got to 
 have her somehow or other I got to have her/ 
 And I ain t never changed, Sally. I wanted you 
 from that first minute, and I want you now, too 
 much ever to give you up. I m in a bad hole right 
 now, mebbe, but that ain t sayin I won t pull out of 
 it. If I do when I do it s a good deal more n 
 likely I ll be right on Easy Street I ll be where I 
 can ask you what I been wantin to all along to 
 marry me, Sally. Oh, Sally, don t look at me so 
 surprised like it was somethin you couldn t never 
 think of! I ain t educated, I know, but look at 
 some of them fellows that have struck it rich in oil 
 ain t they as big roughnecks as there is, and yet 
 let em be rich and who cares? And I d make 
 myself right over, Sally, I d be wax in your little 
 hands to do what you liked with! Jest let me be 
 rich once and I got a chance, a big chance to be 
 and nobody ll ask how Morgan got his money, 
 nor what he was before he got it. Let me get 
 where I can hire lawyers to bring me off clear in 
 case of in case of any trouble, like plenty of rich 
 men has to, and I won t worry no more. I ll be 
 
 right on velvet, and then, then, Sally " 
 
 His eyes said the rest. He leaned nearer, his 
 
258 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT. 
 
 hand closing crushingly on mine. His hard, 
 swarthy, handsome face had softened as he spoke 
 or was it that as I listened I had seen in it for 
 the first time a troubled, striving, hungry human 
 spirit, a spirit like my own, passionately craving 
 joy, fiercely rebelling against pain, seeking what 
 seemed its good by means too often devious and 
 self-frustrating? And suddenly I knew that what 
 ever my fate at his hands, in whatever catastrophe he 
 might involve me, I could never hate him, that in 
 spite of myself I should pity and forgive. 
 
 "Sally!" he said again, and at the thrill in his 
 voice my fear returned. It was like the first sound 
 of breaking in a dam that confined a terrible dark 
 flood. 
 
 "No, no!" I implored, trying to shrink back 
 from his approach. He paused, a sullen shadow on 
 his face. 
 
 "I said you didn t need to be scared of me, Sally." 
 "Then let me go you re hurting me please!" 
 Slowly his grip relaxed and I drew my hand from 
 his. But I couldn t escape the intense, somber, 
 brooding eyes that dwelt on mine and held them, 
 wide and frightened, upturned to his own. 
 
 "I m sorry I hurt you, Sally," he said gloomily, 
 "and yet there s times when I think how you put 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 259 
 
 me off, and kind of mix me up and make a fool of 
 me with your soft pretty ways and all, when I 
 v;hen I almost feel like I could hurt you, Sally, yes, 
 like I could take your little white throat in my two 
 hands and choke the breath out of you. You you 
 keep me in torment all the time, and then you blame 
 me because I hold your hand too tight you look 
 at me with those big, scared eyes and make me feel 
 a brute for jest nothin at all. Yes, it s seemed to 
 me before now that I could hurt you and be glad of 
 it 
 
 "But I m sorry, honest!" he added with a swift 
 change of tone, "I m sorry I hurt your hand, your 
 little soft hand !" He caught it up and put it to his 
 lips. "Oh, Sally" passion leaped in him again 
 like a flame "I love you ! Don t you understand ? 
 I love you! It wouldn t matter if after to-day I 
 wasn t never to see you no more the thought of 
 you would keep me hungry all my life. There 
 wouldn t be nothin that could make up to me for 
 losin you, not booze, nor women, nor racin cars, 
 nor all the things I thought worth havin , once. 
 There s jest the one thing I care for now, one thing 
 worth runnin all the risk to git, and that s you, 
 you, Sally!" 
 
 "But you mustn t think of me like that!" I 
 
260 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 faltered, compelled by his terrible sincerity to be sin 
 cere. "There can never, never be anything " 
 
 "Don t say it," he broke in harshly. "Don t 
 rouse the devil in me, Sally ! Let me go on hopin, 
 dreamin of you bein mine some day. Because then 
 I got a reason for not givin way to all the devil 
 ment that s in me. But if you go to talkin that 
 way, like you wanted for me to give you up 
 mebbe to that damn Lambert then I ll " 
 
 But with sudden unreasoning boldness I inter 
 rupted. 
 
 "What makes you hate Joe Lambert so ? Isn t it 
 natural he should come to Miss Luppy s sometimes 
 when he s a kind of relation of hers at least his 
 father was old Mr. Bates s nephew ?" For a second, 
 no more, Brett Morgan s eyes contracted oddly, or 
 so it seemed to me. An instant afterward I doubted 
 it, the look had vanished so completely. I went on : 
 
 "He has done you no injury, you have barely met 
 him, you don t know him at all, really. And yet 
 you never speak of him without saying ugly words 
 about him, as if he were your enemy." 
 
 He hesitated, then, "He is my enemy," he said 
 sullenly. "Any man that s after you is that, Sally." 
 The smoldering dark eyes searched my face. "Tell 
 me straight how are things between you?" 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 261 
 
 "There s nothing between us. We re not even 
 good friends, now." I tried to keep my tone quite 
 level. 
 
 He considered this gloomily. "Well, I guess that 
 don t count for much," he declared. "Two that s 
 keepin company is pretty sure to scrap now and 
 then. What I want to know and I got to know 
 it, Sally is whether you and him have got it fixed 
 up to marry/ His look met mine with a stern 
 insistence. The blood rose in my cheeks, and my 
 eyes fell. 
 
 "But there s nothing between us, nothing at all," 
 I faltered. "I don t think Joe means to marry any 
 one. He will probably go away very soon to 
 South America." Ah, how dreary it sounded 
 and how inevitably, inescapably true! 
 
 He drew a deep breath. "Ah, if that s really the 
 way of it ! But I ain t sure, I ain t sure ! No, Sally, 
 you don t look me in the eye. There s more to it 
 than you let on you care for the fellow, Sally. 
 You re sore right now cause he ain t asked you to 
 go with him!" 
 
 The stab of it brought a cry from me. 
 
 "How dare you say that of me? As if I d want 
 to go with any one who didn t ask me," I con 
 cluded lamely. 
 
262 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 He gave a bitter laugh. "That ain t got nothin 
 to do with it love don t work that way. And as to 
 his not askin you, with the chances he s had oh, 
 Sally, Sally, he don t love you like I do, he ain t got 
 it in him to love you like I do don t you see it? 
 If I d been in his shoes, let to ride with you, and 
 set with you, and all, like he s been, instead of a 
 low-down roughneck that couldn t hardly git to 
 speak to you only now and then, do you think I d 
 V waited all this while to ask you? I d V told 
 you over n over how I loved you, I d a had you in 
 my arms, my lips on yours, makin you say yes, not 
 lettin you go till you did. The poor, shilly- 
 shallyin , white-livered fish! What does he know 
 of lovin ? It ain t in him, that s all ! Let him go, 
 Sally, to South America or wherever, and give me 
 jest a chance. Ah, I could make you love me, if I 
 had you all my own for a little w r hile !" 
 
 Of a sudden his arms were around me. "Sally, 
 Sally," he whispered, "kiss me, kiss me once! 
 You ll know then what it is to be loved like 
 I love you you won t think no more of a fellow 
 that can put off, and wait, and give you a chance 
 to slip away from him after all. Oh, Sally, jest 
 once I love you so!" 
 
 I shrank from him, hiding my face. "No, no!" 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 263 
 
 I cried. But he drew me closer, and his deep soft 
 voice was at my ear. 
 
 "I could take your kisses easy, honey, if I wanted 
 to you ain t got no more power to hold me off 
 than a cottontail could a kyote. But I don t want 
 to I want you to give em of your own free will. 
 Oh, Sally, give me one, jest one I d sell my soul 
 for it! Give me jest one, and I swear I ll let you 
 go! Don t madden me till I forget everything!" 
 
 "Wait, listen!" I snatched desperately at the 
 moment s respite. "Horses are coming up the 
 canon don t you hear them?" 
 
 "It s only Gregg," he said impatiently. "Come, 
 Sally, one, jest one, before he gits here! Don t 
 shrink away so what ll a kiss cost you ? It ll mean 
 a taste of heaven to me somethin to think of and 
 live over and over when I m lyin out in the moun 
 tains, hunted, likely, like a wild beast, not knowin 
 if I m ever to see you again! Sally, Sally darling, 
 please !" 
 
 My head was on his breast, his cheek against my 
 hair. Gently but with strength irresistible he drew 
 my hands from before my face. Then his lips 
 sought mine, and mine how can I write it ? I only 
 know that all my life it will keep me humble, and 
 silent when sinners are condemned, and bewil- 
 
264 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 deredly aware of the dark unsounded deeps that are 
 in all of us. For somehow I did not turn away, 
 but in a strange dreamy acquiescence let my lips 
 meet his. Yes, to Brett Morgan, that wild, bad, 
 dangerous man, all unresisting, unrefusing, I 
 yielded up my lips. Strange moment! differing 
 from all other moments of my life in that I was not 
 Sally, but mere generic Woman, vanquished by the 
 passion of this strong, splendid, lawless male crea 
 ture. A moment before I had shrunk from him in 
 terror; a moment after 
 
 But what I would have done the moment after, 
 supposing it to have brought no interruption, I 
 shall never know. For suddenly Brett Morgan 
 started, raised his head, and listened. Again the 
 sound of hoofs from the ravine and of voices in 
 low-pitched speech. 
 
 "By God, there s more than one!" He sprang 
 to his feet, ran to his horse, freed it and was at my 
 side again. He caught me in his arms. 
 
 "Good-by, Sally darling! What I got ahead is 
 too rough and hard for you. Don t forget I love 
 you, and won t never give you up, never!" 
 
 He turned to spring into the saddle. But already 
 they were upon us mounted men scrambling up 
 swiftly out of the ravine. I saw Joe, and Mr, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 265 
 
 Hackett, and Jimmie. I saw them come riding at 
 us, shouting and I saw Brett Morgan snatch his 
 revolver from his hip. I saw him aim it at the first 
 of the advancing men, and I saw that the man was 
 Joe. I leaped at him and caught his arm, and the 
 revolver swerved in the instant of discharge. Some 
 one shrieked, some one tumbled from his horse. I 
 only knew it was not Joe and then I suddenly went 
 out. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 I CAME to myself to find my hair and collar very 
 soppy with cold water, which was being freely 
 used as a restorative for both Jimmie and myself. 
 Jimmie it was who had fallen before Brett Morgan s 
 bullet because I had struck up the revolver to save 
 Joe. His injuries were not desperate, for the bullet, 
 flying wild, had no more than nicked the skin from 
 his upper arm. But of course all I could think of 
 then was how pale he looked, and how bloody, and 
 how entirely my fault it was that he was hurt. I 
 got to my feet unsteadily and tottered to him and 
 sat down, taking his head into my lap. 
 
 "Oh, Jimmie, don t die, please don t !" I begged. 
 "What will your mother say?" And being some 
 what shaken on my own account, as well as bowed 
 down with self-reproach because of Jimmie, I 
 began to weep. 
 
 "That s a ri , Sally/ he murmured weakly, and 
 in the full conviction, I am sure, that the words 
 were his last. "Don blame self mus n feel bad 
 
 266 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 267 
 about it too long, li le girl give my love to mother 
 
 "Oh, don t, Jimmie dear," I wailed. Because 
 Jimmie s mother is just the person to make things 
 unpleasant if her son were slaughtered and she 
 blamed you. And then of course it did seem too 
 bad about Jimmie. "Don t die, Jimmie dear! Mr. 
 Hackett, Joe, please don t let Jimmie die !" 
 
 Mr. Hackett stood by very glum and silent I 
 supposed vaguely because Brett Morgan had got 
 away. For he had got away my first swift glance 
 about had told me that. And Mr. Hackett looked 
 as though my rescue by no means atoned for the 
 escape of the man who had disposed of him so sum 
 marily earlier in the day. 
 
 But Joe came over and knelt at Jimmie s side. 
 Jimmie opened one eye a very little and closed it 
 again weakly. He has nice eyelashes and has been 
 accused of knowing it. He would have looked very 
 well with his features composed to their present 
 marble calm, if only his nose had not been sun 
 burned to the peeling point. 
 
 "Don t cry, Sally," said Joe, with a sort of sober, 
 distant kindness, "we ll pull him through for you, 
 of course. It s really only a trifling flesh-wound" 
 a faint quiver of annoyance passed over Jimmie s 
 
268 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 pallid countenance "and I have a first-aid kit 
 among my things in camp that will fix him up 
 nicely." 
 
 Here in contradiction to this light view of the 
 matter Jimmie gasped rather dreadfully and mur 
 mured, "Don t forget, Sally, my love to mother " 
 
 "Come, come, Halliday, buck up!" Joe exhorted 
 him with a vigor which in view of Jimmie s pale 
 still face and lovely eyelashes seemed positively bru 
 tal. "You can give your love to your mother your 
 self a week from now, you know. Fellows get 
 worse knock-outs at football every day." 
 
 Football ! 
 
 "As if football were anything to getting shot 
 trying to save me!" I choked. And of course I 
 knew, as they didn t, that it was practically I who 
 had shot him. 
 
 Joe gave me a long sober look. 
 
 "Of course, Sally, I forgot," he said in a dull 
 voice. "Naturally you take it hard. But please 
 believe me when I say there s no danger." 
 
 He got up and went away. Again Jimmie 
 weakly raised an eyelid. 
 
 "He don understan " he murmured in a 
 
 faint resigned voice. 
 
 "Understand? Certainly he does!" I snapped. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 269 
 
 "You are not in the least danger. Nobody dies of 
 a scratch like this!" Jimmie s eyes both eyes 
 flew wide open and he stared up at me like an 
 injured baby. I did not care. I would hold his 
 head and let people draw what inferences they 
 pleased, but I wouldn t listen to his nonsense any 
 longer. And after all if I had not caught Brett 
 Morgan s arm it might have been, not Jimmie that 
 was scratched, but Joe that was killed. For I knew 
 that Brett would have fired with deadly aim. 
 
 As we rode back to camp Mr. Hackett cross- 
 examined me at length about Brett Morgan. My 
 story, reduced to essentials, could be told in a few 
 words. I knew nothing of what Eben Gregg had 
 been doing in the cabin, or why Brett Morgan had 
 come to meet him there.- I knew nothing of their 
 plans beyond what Mr. Hackett himself knew, that 
 Morgan had expected Gregg to join him at the 
 place where we had waited, and that they were pre 
 sumably going on deeper into the mountains. 
 These few peaks of fact were all that emerged from 
 the fog of bewilderment and mystery in w r hich, for 
 me, the affair was obscured. The history of those 
 events which had brought Joe and Jimmie and Mr. 
 Hackett, instead of Eben Gregg, to the rendezvous 
 I did not hear until we were back in camp where 
 
270 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FEAT 
 
 Miss LAippy had been left in charge of the bruised 
 and battered comrade of Mr. Hackett, and Kit, 
 to console him for not joining in the man-hunt, 
 had been left in charge of both. But already he had 
 acquired glory enough for any mortal boy, and was 
 in a blissfully puffed-up and self-complacent state 
 in consequence. The tale as it came from his own 
 proud lips rang like a saga. To give only its out 
 line, Miss Luppy, deceived at first by the artful 
 disposition of my blankets, had discovered the sub 
 terfuge by and by, but assumed, as I had expected, 
 that I had gone to bathe. But as the minutes passed 
 a certain uneasiness prevailed. It was a mild little 
 river that ran through the flat, but mild little rivers 
 have delusive depths. Kit, therefore, was des 
 patched in search of me. 
 
 "You see, Sally, I naturally got worried," cut in 
 Jimmie in a weak voice. He had been plastered 
 and bandaged by Miss Luppy, and was now doing 
 the invalid becomingly. He had moaned a little 
 under Miss Luppy s ministrations, but she had 
 exclaimed unfeelingly, "Shucks, I ve give myself 
 worse licks many s the time a-cuttin kindlin , and 
 never went on like a pig under a gate on account 
 of it, neither." So Jimmie had thenceforth borne 
 his sufferings mutely. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 271 
 
 "Huh, it was Joe sent me, though," returned Kit. 
 "Bundled me off just when the flapjacks were 
 ready as though if you were drowned it would do 
 any good for me to hurry. In fact when things like 
 that happen is the very time you ought to keep your 
 strength up by eating. Mr. Cobb says so. But Joe 
 said " 
 
 "Better get on with your story, son," remarked 
 Joe bruskly. 
 
 Kit, then, turning his back reluctantly on the 
 flapjacks, had sallied forth in search of my remains, 
 taking the path through the wood toward the 
 meadow at the other end of the flat. Personally 
 he didn t take much stock in the bathing hy 
 pothesis icy baths before sun-up didn t enter into 
 his conception of me. He decided that I had framed 
 it up to put something over thus Kit and that a 
 reversal of the process was desirable. Hence he did 
 not shout or yodel but went on silently, watching 
 the tracks which I had left in the trail. His first 
 glimpse of me was as I was stealing through the 
 wood toward the bunk-house, intent on the rescue 
 of the prisoners. Much mystified, Kit had fol 
 lowed, and on my entering the bunk-house had 
 slipped into the brush which grew beside it and 
 applied his eye to a convenient crack. Thus he 
 
272 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 beheld the astonishing spectacle of Mr. Hackett and 
 his companion in their bonds, and of myself bent evi 
 dently on restoring them to freedom. Followed the 
 sudden appearance of Brett Morgan, then, culmina 
 tion of all astonishment, that of Eben Gregg. Kit 
 had seen enough to understand that something 
 extraordinary was afoot. Slipping silently from 
 his post of observation he had made for camp at so 
 brisk a pace that he arrived there totally beyond 
 speech. What he did presently gasp out was. 
 according to Miss Luppy, altogether unintelligible, 
 but it was enough to send Joe racing to the meadow 
 for his horse. He caught it, flung himself upon it 
 bareback, and was away before Miss Luppy had 
 got beyond the catastrophe of the frying-pan left on 
 the fire and the flapjacks burning to a cinder. Then 
 Jimmie dimly understood and set out on foot down 
 the trail, followed by Miss Luppy and passed in a 
 moment by Kit galloping madly on Black Bart. 
 
 Brett Morgan and I had already disappeared 
 when Joe reached the bunk-house. He found there 
 Eben Gregg in the act of replacing some planks 
 in the floor. At a pistol s point Joe backed him into 
 a corner and disarmed him, then ordered him to 
 take up the planks. In a space beneath were, beside 
 the kegs which had been hidden there earlier in the 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 273 
 
 morning, the gagged and bound men. No sooner 
 was the gag removed from Mr. Hackett s lips than 
 he began the story of my abduction by Brett 
 Morgan. Taking advantage of the momentary 
 diversion thus created, Gregg slipped out, ran to 
 the horse waiting before the cabin, and escaped, 
 taking the trail to the west instead of the steep east 
 ward way that Morgan and I were climbing. He 
 calculated well, for no one troubled to pursue him. 
 Kit was sent back at top speed for Jimmie s mount 
 and all three saddles, then made to surrender Black 
 Bart to Mr. Hackett. This deliberateness of prep- 
 paration was by Mr. Hackett s advice. He pointed 
 out that Morgan had a good start, good horses, and 
 knew the country. The chase might be long and 
 hard, and they would gain in the end by setting 
 out properly mounted. It was Morgan s long wait 
 for Eben Gregg which had nearly betrayed him into 
 their hands. At least, thus the matter stood osten 
 sibly. In my heart I knew that his indifference to 
 the flight of time, his forgetfulness of danger, had 
 had another cause. If Joe or Mr. Hackett knew 
 this also, neither spoke of it. As for myself, the 
 name of the man whose kiss still burned on my lips 
 passed them reluctantly and seldom. 
 
 Eben Gregg had consoled Mr. Hackett and his 
 
274 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 companion, whose name was Gamble, as he interred 
 them in their living grave, by the assurance that by 
 and by I would be released and sent back to their 
 rescue. This would allow the fugitives, supposing 
 my compulsory journey to have lasted half a day, a 
 full day s start. The plan, of course, had been frus 
 trated through the agency of Kit. Would it other 
 wise have been carried out and I allowed to return ? 
 I have wondered often, but the answer I shall never 
 know. It was the secret of one heart alone. 
 
 "And Mr. Hackett says the whisky would be 
 worth a good thousand dollars a keg if they could 
 have got it over into Nevada, where the lid s been 
 on so long that folks are as dry as desiccated cod 
 fish," concluded Kit. "And he says they did 
 smuggle some over already, and have money in 
 their belts so they can get away to China or any 
 where." 
 
 Of course. I tried to look as if I had known it 
 all the while. Gregg and Brett Morgan had been 
 smuggling whisky across the line into Nevada, and 
 the cabin was a station on the way from Bandy s 
 Flat. It was all perfectly simple now, only 
 
 "But where did they get the whisky in the first 
 place, Mr. Hackett?" I asked. "Do you suppose 
 Ben Moody of the Bonanza House was in it ?" 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 275 
 
 "No, Ben s quite innocent. It was from some 
 other source entirely what source is a question 
 which might be worth looking into/ 
 
 "You mean you don t know where they got it?" 
 He looked at me consideringly. "Well," he said 
 at last, "I suspect I ought to answer you as straight 
 as I can, seeing it was you that without meaning 
 to, of course gave me my first tip. Those horse- 
 tracks in the mine that you were looking at that 
 day, wondering, naturally, how they came to be 
 there, those tracks, which I mightn t have got on to 
 right away by myself, gave me a good hunch. I 
 watched the place that night and the next, and 
 the second night I saw Morgan whom I hadn t 
 happened to see round town yet bring up 
 the string of horses and load them with the kegs 
 that he carried one by one down the path from 
 the top of the cliff. Of course I meant on the 
 next occasion to watch the top of the path instead of 
 the bottom, which might have given me a line on 
 where he got the stuff, but before he made another 
 trip I had been elected an undesirable citizen and 
 respectfully invited to leave town." Mr. Hackett 
 turned the corner of an eye on Miss Luppy, who 
 looked uncomfortable. "But if I had had the 
 chance, I rather suspect I would have trailed Mor- 
 
276 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 gan to a place about fifty feet from the top of 
 that same path." 
 
 "You mean to the old saloon?" Involuntarily I 
 glanced at Joe. He was sitting with folded arms 
 and bitten lips, his intent, half-frowning gaze on 
 Mr. Hackett. As I turned my eyes on him he made 
 a sudden move as if to speak, but Miss Luppy was 
 before him. 
 
 "Look a here, Sally Armsby, I ll thank you to 
 remember you re speaking of my property," she said 
 severely. "There ain t been a drop o liquor in that 
 buildin to my certain knowledge this twenty years 
 and more. Why, you been through the place your 
 self, ain t you, you and Joe, and poke^d round every- 
 wheres I remember you tellin me and what sign 
 o whisky did you find, I d like to know? Could 
 all them kegs, not to speak o the others Mr. Hack 
 ett here says has been took over the line already, 
 have been right there and you not seen em? Joe s 
 got a better eye, not to say nose, for whisky than 
 that comes to, I bet." She appealed to him. "Joe, 
 do you jest please put it out n Sally s head that I 
 been keepin whisky on my premises, and me a 
 White Ribboner from way back." 
 
 "There w r as certainly no whisky there when I 
 went through the building," Joe confirmed. "And 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 277 
 
 it s pretty certain that no such quantity can have 
 been smuggled in since. Kegs of whisky by the 
 half-dozen aren t carried about the country with 
 impunity these days. No, of myself I should have 
 been inclined to think Ben Moody was getting rid 
 of his unsold stock, at much better prices than he 
 could command hereabouts." 
 
 Mr. Hackett shook his head. 
 
 "No, it ain t Ben. I proved that to my own satis 
 faction right at the start. And of course, Miss 
 L uppy, I knew beforehand there wasn t any liquor 
 stored on your property that you was wise to. But 
 suppose you wasn t wise? This young Morgan s 
 father kept bar for old Bates, I understand " 
 
 Miss Luppy interrupted sharply. "I tell you, 
 I ve aired and swep that place out reg lar once a 
 year in the more/n twenty since I came to Bandy s, 
 and there couldn t any stock o liquor been layin 
 by there that I wouldn t a seen. I ll thank you to 
 turn your suspicions elsewhere, if you please, sir!" 
 
 "Well, it s likely enough I m wrong; I ain t dis~ 
 putin it," he said placably. "I guess it was just it s 
 having been a saloon once, and handy to the top of 
 the path, that made me pitch on it as a likely place 
 for the liquor to have come from. No offense 
 meant, m am, and none taken, I hope?" 
 
278 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Miss Luppy made an indefinite sound which 
 might have been interpreted as assent, though her 
 aspect remained unbending. For myself, I sighed a 
 little to think that the solution of the mystery was not 
 yet, and that to speak of the light I had seen in 
 the old building that night might be to meddle in a 
 secret that was Joe s. But as I sat pondering a 
 sudden recollection came to me. 
 
 "Mr. Hackett," I asked, "why did you say to 
 Eben Gregg, It s not you I want, it s him? Why 
 wasn t it as important to get one as the other?" 
 
 Mr. Hackett s face changed oddly, so oddly that 
 again I saw Joe look at him attentively. It was 
 only momentary. Mr. Hackett was his collected, 
 tepid self again when after the briefest possible 
 interval he replied: 
 
 "Well, Morgan s the brains of the scheme, of 
 course, not to say its bone and muscle too. There 
 ain t any doubt it was he got Gregg into this 
 Gregg d be sitting at home now peaceable enough if 
 Morgan hadn t picked on him as a good one to 
 help because Gregg ain t a drinker and could be 
 trusted with the whisky, I suppose. No, the fellow 
 to nab, while you re nabbing, is the fellow that 
 starts things to going, not the one that has to be led 
 or prodded into helping em along. Besides, I 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 279 
 
 wasn t telling my heart s secrets to Gregg just then. 
 If I could have made him think it was that way " 
 
 "And were you waiting for your prey when I 
 saw you yesterday morning at Little York?" I 
 said this with intention, and my heart stopped beat 
 ing while I paused for the result. It came in the 
 shape of exclamations from every one but Joe. 
 Joe said nothing. 
 
 "My land, Sally, why didn t you speak up?" 
 demanded Miss Luppy irritably. "You comin 
 back white as plaster and not a word out of you 
 what could a body think?" 
 
 What a body had thought I knew very well. 
 And some one was still thinking of how I had sat 
 with Jimmie s head in my lap and cried over him. 
 
 "If Miss Sally didn t speak up then she is that 
 rare ornament to her sex, a woman who can keep a 
 secret," said Mr. Hackett with approval. "I kind 
 of counted on her not doing it, to tell the truth, 
 because when I motioned to her that mum was the 
 word she nodded like she understood and meant to 
 stand by me, and I had a notion she was the sort to 
 keep a promise. Yes, Gamble and I were lying low 
 there, our horses hid in the brush higher up the hill, 
 waiting till Morgan should come by. I didn t 
 expect him till night, of course, and it was a big 
 
28o FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 surprise when we heard the trampling of horses and 
 the voices. It was getting too curious that gave me 
 away, and might have broken up the whole game if 
 Miss Sally hadn t held her tongue like the trump 
 she is." 
 
 "How did Morgan manage about his horses?" 
 asked Joe, speaking for the first time. 
 
 "After you cross the river from the Flat, if you 
 turn to the left instead of starting to climb the hill, 
 and go through a little draw and then about a 
 quarter-mile through the woods, you come to a 
 meadow that was used sometime as a corral, judg 
 ing by the broken fence around it. Morgan had 
 mended the fence and kept his horses there. Good 
 horses, too that one he rode himself was a dandy." 
 
 "Must V cost him a pretty penny for the lot of 
 em," commented Miss Luppy. "Wonder where 
 he got it?" 
 
 Mr. Hackett shrugged. "Shooting craps, may 
 be," he said lightly. "And now, young man" he 
 turned suddenly to the round-eyed Kit "you and 
 I have passed many a sportive hour in company 
 sportive at least on my part, for on yours there was 
 the gloom of one brought into enforced association 
 with a party of questionable character. But there 
 were other hours, not so sportive, when I found con- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 281 
 
 siderable difficulty in following up a certain party s 
 trail because you were camped on mine. May I, 
 under the present happy conditions of, I trust, 
 mutual confidence and allayed suspicion, ask why?" 
 
 "Because because I thought you were a slickens 
 man," stammered the confounded Kit. 
 
 Mr. Hackett looked round upon us with a gesture 
 of despair. 
 
 "And Miss Luppy runs me out of town prevent 
 ing, I don t doubt, a similar attention from parties 
 who would have been a good deal more abrupt 
 about it for the same reason. Yet neither of em 
 has so much as given me a chance to put the ques 
 tion, if I am a slickens man what am If" 
 
 "I don t know," confessed Kit, at whom he 
 pointed an inquisitorial forefinger, and whose 
 humiliation at this public acknowledgment of his 
 ignorance was obviously deep. 
 
 Mr. Hackett looked more despairing still. 
 
 "And you, m am" he turned to Miss Luppy 
 "you too will accuse a fellow-being of some deep 
 dark crime which makes him unfit for human inter 
 course oh, yes, you told me yourself that a slickens 
 man was too mean to live, and that you didn t know 
 why you should be helping one to get away, and 
 that you wished me a decent trade before I was 
 
282 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 much older, though land knew I was old enough to 
 know better now. And then you sent me off con 
 vinced I was about the lowest, orneriest specimen of 
 the human race extant upon the globe, but still won 
 dering in the depths of a stricken bosom why, oh, 
 why?" 
 
 "Nonsense!" snapped Miss Luppy, who had 
 grown very red during this recital. "O course as 
 soon as I found out you was trackin Brett and 
 Eben Gregg I knowed you warn t a slickens man. 
 I guess twas Brett that done the most to help along 
 the notion that you was one, not carin to have a 
 spyin sort of stranger round town. As to what a 
 slickens man is" she hesitated "well, I don t 
 know as I ve any call to tell you, beyond that folks 
 what has had their livin took from em by a law 
 made to suit the farmers, what have everything 
 their way these days, though twas minin made 
 California and everybody knows it well, if those 
 folks chose to do a little quiet work that didn t hurt 
 nobody, cause not enough debris went down-stream 
 to matter, and if twas the only way o livin the most 
 of em had, why, then if parties come up now and 
 then makin out their business was this or that, 
 when twarn t only to spy out and git evidence of 
 minin bein done ag in the law, why they wouldn t 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 283 
 
 be liable to be popular, would they? I seen sights 
 myself ridin on a rail, tar-and-featherin and 
 what-not that I don t ever want to see again. And 
 besides when a man has sat at your table and et 
 your salt, and has a real natural gift for sayin off 
 
 poetry " 
 
 "Say no more, Miss Luppy," said Mr. Hackett, 
 looking a quite genuine contrition. "I quite share 
 your opinion of a slickens man as a creature fit only, 
 as the poet says, for treasons, stratagems and spoils. 
 Let me thank you once more, m am, for saving me 
 from the fate such a being would deserve. As to 
 the Flat, it may pursue the even tenor of its way 
 for all of me. I detect what Fm hired to; on my 
 non-professional side Fve got an accommodatingly 
 blind eye for human frailty." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 jVTEXT morning we turned our faces toward 
 * ^ Bandy s Flat. As a result of these experiences, 
 unanimity of opinion for the first time prevailed 
 among us ; everybody wanted to go home. Jimmie 
 wanted to, with an intensity quite pathetic. Natur 
 ally as things had turned out he was glad he had 
 been here to protect me, and of course I was not to 
 blame myself, but did I think a one-armed man 
 could play polo? I said ruthlessly I didn t, and 
 turned away. Everybody now seemed to take 
 things so for granted about Jimmie and me that I 
 was continually finding myself alone with him. 
 People just sheered off and left us to each other. 
 And Miss Luppy treated Joe so tenderly that it was 
 like a death in the family. 
 
 Miss Luppy said she wanted to go home because 
 Asa Cobb might neglect the chickens. Kit wanted 
 to go home to relate these high adventures to Asa 
 Cobb. Joe Lambert wanted to go home as I 
 inferred to get off the sooner to South America. 
 
 284 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 285 
 
 And I wanted to go home for a variety of reasons, 
 but chiefly because in camp there is no place where 
 one can be miserable in solitude. 
 
 The return trip was uneventful. Mr. Hackett 
 and the battered Mr. Gamble accompanied us, and 
 rode boldly into town to the Bonanza House, where 
 they were to stay that night. As concerned with 
 the enforcement of the Dry Law, Mr. Hackett was 
 not in line to achieve the highest popularity, but was 
 still many removes from that outcast and pariah, a 
 slickens man. 
 
 Before departing for Golconda next morning Mr. 
 Hackett called to say good-by. Miss Luppy 
 received him with a good deal of ceremony, and at 
 once made him a formal tender of the key of the 
 old saloon, with the request that he make search of 
 the premises to assure himself that no whisky was 
 concealed thereon. Joe, who was present, flushed 
 suddenly. Mr. Hackett, after waving away all 
 possible suspicions of Miss Luppy or her property, 
 accepted the key, with a good deal of satisfaction, I 
 thought, and accompanied by Miss Luppy and Joe 
 went across the street to the old building. I, as 
 usual, was relegated to the society of Jimmie, and 
 submitted to staying behind because the alterna 
 tive was to take him with me. 
 
286 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 But the trio returned very soon, with the surpris 
 ing information that the key would not open the 
 door. 
 
 "And for the very good reason that it warn t 
 never made to fit it," remarked Miss Luppy, whose 
 brow was dark. "Somebody, since last that key 
 was used that day you and Sally was over there, I 
 guess it was, Joe has been and borrered that there 
 key off n the nail without ever troublin to ask leave, 
 and has kep it by J em ever since. And the owner 
 of the property, that has paid taxes on it these 
 twenty years and never got back a cent in rent, can 
 set outside a-twiddlin her thumbs, I expect." Here 
 she looked at Mr. Hackett, and if ever suspicion 
 glared from mortal eye it did from hers. But the 
 imperturbable Mr. Hackett sustained the glance 
 coolly. Joe, on the other hand, looked thoughtful 
 bothered wouldn t have been too strong a word. 
 Turning his back rather suddenly, he went out by 
 the side door into the garden, where Mr. Hackett, 
 after shaking hands all round even with Miss 
 Luppy presently joined him. For a long while 
 they talked together in a fashion seemingly confi 
 dential, and then the emissary of the law departed. 
 Having seen the last of him from the sitting-room 
 window, Miss Luppy put on her sunbonnet and 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 287 
 
 went down the road to Mrs. Morgan s, returning 
 some time later very short-tempered and red-eyed. 
 And Lorena Pettis came, also red-eyed, and was 
 closeted with Miss Luppy in the kitchen, and went 
 away more red-eyed still. 
 
 Following his interview with Mr. Hackett, Joe 
 left for the dam. Our good-bys were said before 
 the others, very lightly on my part, very quietly on 
 his. I felt Miss Luppy s eye on me, and it nerved 
 me to my part. 
 
 "Good-by, Joe." My voice had a cool, gay little 
 tinkle to it like ice on crystal. 
 
 "Good-by, Sally." It was just Joe s every-day 
 tone. His blue eyes looked straight into mine for 
 a moment, then he dropped my hand and was gone. 
 
 Shall I own it? When Joe and Grumpy got to 
 the gate I was there before them. 
 
 "Joe," I said, as he stood at the pony s head, his 
 hand on the gate, looking down on me with a quiet 
 waiting air, "Joe " 
 
 "Yes, Sally?" There was a grave, elder-brother 
 sort of kindness in his tone. If he had been rude 
 and hateful if one could have struck a spark from 
 him somehow! But just that hopeless, chilling 
 kindness ! 
 
 "Joe," I hurried on, "I m I m afraid I ve never 
 
288 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 thanked you properly for risking your life in com 
 ing to save me from Brett Morgan. I I do thank 
 you, Joe!" 
 
 He smiled. It was exactly the smile you might 
 give a child who had broken something infinitely 
 precious and utterly irreplaceable, and then came 
 offering you its doll in atonement. 
 
 "Don t think any more about it, please, Sally. I 
 had no more hand in it than Hackett and Halliday, 
 you know/ 
 
 "But Joe, it was you he hated " 
 
 "Hated? Why?" 
 
 Too late I saw my mistake. "Oh, because 
 because he thought " I stammered. 
 
 I read comprehension in his eyes. "I see," he 
 said gravely. "But then the bullet knew better it 
 got the right man. I m sorry for that, of course. 
 But he ll be well in no time, you know. Good-by." 
 
 He was going, with that for all his farewell. 
 But on a last desperate impulse I put out my hand. 
 He took it half hesitatingly almost, it seemed, 
 reluctantly. 
 
 "We shall see you again, Joe ?" Utterly flat and 
 conventional it sounded, but then somehow or other 
 I had to keep the quiver from my voice. 
 
 "I think not. I shall be through at the dam very 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 289 
 
 soon now, and then I must be off in a hurry. The 
 South American contract is waiting for me to sign. 
 I shall take the first steamer I can get." 
 
 He was gone. I stood alone at the gate, watch 
 ing him ride away. 
 
 The next departure was Jimmie s, and that too 
 was final, as final as No! many times reiterated 
 could make it. I wouldn t have believed that one 
 short decisive word could require so much repeat 
 ing. But if people will be so obtuse can it really be 
 called temper if you end by stamping your foot at 
 them ? I should describe it myself as merely adding 
 the necessary emphasis. But Jimmie said it cast a 
 new light on my disposition, and that Honora 
 Jones was at Santa Barbara and had that sweet 
 nature which really attracted a man. Of course 
 passing fancies were all very well 
 
 "Oh, I m so glad, Jimmie !" I said encouragingly. 
 "Why, I ve had Honora picked out for you for ever 
 so long! Only I was so afraid you d never happen 
 to think of her. How did you, I wonder unless it 
 was telepathy?" 
 
 Of course afterward I was horribly ashamed of 
 this, because Honora has always been decent enough 
 to me in her way. And it is true that I had thought 
 of Honora for Jimmie, because I knew she would 
 
290 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 be so grateful, poor thing. But I hadn t expected 
 him to think of her, at least not for ever so long, 
 and then with me hovering over them and helping 
 the thing along, so that they would both perfectly 
 understand how much they owed me. It seemed 
 hardly decent of Jimmie to jump so to conclusions 
 about her on his own account, and in practically the 
 same breath with proposing to me. 
 
 At any rate he departed, with a man from Gol- 
 conda to drive him, and his emotions, what with 
 Honora and me, in a state only to be described as 
 chaotic. And with these two farewells I felt that 
 I had shut the door finally and forever on my youth. 
 Life stretched before me as an arid desert of middle- 
 age, wherein I must make it my business to trudge 
 on valiantly. No more rainbows bright with prom 
 ise, only the clear gray light of a sunless day. 
 
 And now I come to the event which was to 
 dethrone Asa Cobb and cast Kit forth like a rud 
 derless boat on dreary seas of disillusionment. 
 
 Kit and I were waiting on the side porch for 
 supper when I observed Asa Cobb on his way to the 
 kitchen door. He had a soapy, shiny look about 
 him so indicative of recent scrubbing that I won 
 dered whether this were Saturday night, and then 
 knew it was not, and marveled a little at such week- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 291 
 
 day smartness. Also, he bore in his hand a bou 
 quet of the old-fashioned flowers of which he had 
 a bright bed or two in his garden, plucked with 
 stems so short that they came barely within grip of 
 his horny hand. In this festive guise Mr. Cobb 
 passed around to the back door, and from my mind. 
 I heard voices presently, his and Miss Luppy s, but 
 my thoughts were busy elsewhere. As for Kit, he 
 was reading absorbedly, all unconscious of the 
 blow that was preparing. I don t know what space 
 of time elapsed before we were roused, he from his 
 book and I from my reflections, by the suddenly 
 raised voice of Miss Luppy. 
 
 "My laws a-massy, Asa Cobb, is it me that s lost 
 my hearin or you your wits?" 
 
 "We ain t neither of us lost nothin , that I know 
 of/ replied Mr. Cobb firmly. "I made you a plain 
 proposition, that s all, which is for us two neighbors 
 to quit livin separate like we have these twenty 
 years and more and live together makin all 
 reg lar with a ceremony, o course. We ll have a 
 minister if you say so, though my vote would be for 
 the justice at Golconda, bein as a couple o dollars 
 would satisfy him, and a preacher d likely expect 
 more. But I ain t one to hold out on a small p int 
 like that, and so Martha Cobb could tell you if she 
 
292 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was here now. Whatever our fallings out about 
 religion, she would tell you, Miss Luppy, supposing 
 that is, that she was in the humor to, that I warn t 
 never one to git to arguin with a lady over feein 
 the minister to marry us. Mis Cobb, she had it all 
 her own way at the first ceremony she warn t a 
 Peculiar then and you re welcome to have it all 
 yours at the second." 
 
 "Asa Cobb," came from Miss Luppy in deadly 
 tones, "me and you has knowed one another twen 
 ty-two years this last fourth o May, bein as twas 
 you wheel-barrered my traps up from the store 
 where the hoss-stage left em, and in all that time 
 you ain t never acted before like you had an eye 
 to me otherwise than as one neighbor to another. 
 Be I changed for the better? Be I younger and 
 han somer? Or be you struck with softenin o the 
 brain?" 
 
 "None o the three, that I know of," replied Mr. 
 Cobb stoutly. "I always looked on you with 
 respect, Miss Luppy, and that you well know. But 
 up to this day a week since there ain t been a time 
 in them twenty-two years that I have set down to 
 a meal in your house, which I don t throw it up to 
 you, there not bein no call; and as a consequence 
 i.t can t be said I ever seen you at your best. There s 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 293 
 
 women shines one way, Miss Luppy, and there s 
 women shines another, and it ain t till a man sees 
 em in that light that he knows the worth of em. 
 Havin et your cookin , Miss Luppy, I can truly say 
 I ve looked at you with my eyes open for the fust 
 time. There ain t been a meal since but I ve thought 
 o the senselessness o two parties livin right clost 
 by this way and yet eatin separate. Where s the use, 
 thinks I, in her payin out money for me to do the 
 chores around the place, and in me messin with 
 victuals which you might call em sp iled compared 
 with what they d be if she had the handlin of em, 
 when we might as well be h; Ivin our troubles and 
 combinin our joys by doublin up? I m a plain man. 
 Miss Luppy, likewise as you re a plain I mean a 
 commonsensible woman. I ain t aimed to do no fancy 
 lovemakin , cause it ain t suited to the case. I jest 
 lay it plain and straight before you me to do the 
 chores and you the cookin , and help each other 
 down the declinm vale. Miss Luppy, say the 
 word!" 
 
 "Say the word? I will, and the word is, git!" 
 cried Miss Luppy furiously. "Git, Asa Cobb, and 
 don t set foot on my land again till you are rid o 
 the biggest fool notion that ever come into your 
 oJd noodle-head. Even if I d a notion to you, 
 
294 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 which I ain t, I don t hold with marryin nor givin 
 in marriage at my time o life. If you want to go 
 on doin the chores, all right, but twill be for 
 wages, same as always, and with the understandin 
 that if ever you feel like you re liable to break out 
 courtin you re to stay on your own side o the 
 fence. And now good evenin , for I smell the bis 
 cuits burnin ." 
 
 The screen-door banged, and the Departing foot 
 steps of Mr. Cobb echoed on the walk. Kit and I 
 had sat throughout this dialogue staring into each 
 other s astounded faces. Now, very red, he got up 
 suddenly, turned his back on me, and with hands 
 thrust deep into his pockets stood staring out into 
 the garden, whistling ostentatiously. I understood 
 and respected his emotion, and sat in silent sympa 
 thy until Miss Luppy, also rather warm and agi 
 tated, appeared with the plate of biscuits. The 
 meal in the nature of things was melancholy. Miss 
 Luppy and I had each a rejected suitor on our con 
 science, and Kit was contemplating an empty shrine 
 and the fragments of a shattered idol. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 * I ^HE days crept by heavily. The hope with 
 A which I had cheated myself that some day I 
 should hear from the gate the whinny of the 
 Grumpy-horse, and run out to meet some one whose 
 blue eyes greeted me as once they had died pain 
 fully but surely. I knew that the brief farewell with 
 which we had parted had been final, that Joe would 
 never come again to Bandy s Flat, but would go 
 straight from the dam, which every day brought 
 nearer to completion, to sign the contract in San 
 Francisco and take ship for South America. And 
 then I began to wonder every morning, was the 
 work finished now, and was this the day that Joe 
 would leave behind him forever the mountains, and 
 Bandy s Flat, and me? 
 
 Meanwhile in the little town time drifted on in 
 its usual slumberous fashion. Nothing, so far as I 
 could discover, had been heard of Brett Morgan, and 
 mingled with the dread which came with the thought 
 of him was a strange anxiety and apprehension on 
 
 295 
 
296 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 his account. Devoutly as I hoped never to see him 
 again, I couldn t be indifferent to his fate. He had 
 loved me, and once, in that moment never to be for 
 gotten but to stand separate forever from all other 
 moments in its utter inexplicability, my lips had 
 yielded to his kiss. No, I couldn t wish him evil, a 
 lonely death in the mountains, or the long agony of 
 imprisonment. And besides, Joe, for whom I had 
 chiefly feared, was going now, and with the ap 
 proaching end of summer Kit and I too would return 
 to civilization, where Brett Morgan troubled not. 
 The interlude would be played out, and I would take 
 up my life again where I had left it off, only forever 
 a different Sally from the Sally who had set out so 
 light-heartedly with Kit and Miss Spence not three 
 months ago. The chief business of my life, if I 
 were wise, would be forgetting but I didn t want 
 to forget! Better the never-ending hurt than that! 
 Better to live always with memories that stabbed 
 like swords than to be again the Sally who had 
 never known either pain or happiness. That little 
 soulless Sally was gone never to return, and the 
 growing pains of the new Sally I would bear as best 
 I might. 
 
 Came a day when a ripple of excitement broke 
 the dead level of monotony. Kit informed me, in 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 297 
 
 strictest confidence, that Eben Gregg had returned. 
 I pooh-poohed this, having only that morning 
 passed his house, closed and forsaken-looking as 
 ever. Only the gray cat, I now recollected, had 
 been sitting on the door-step smoothing her whis 
 kers with a contented air. However, that might 
 have been due to an extra allowance of milk from 
 Lorena Pettis, or mere feline inconstancy might 
 have reconciled her to her master s absence. But 
 Kit came back crushingly with the information 
 that ever since the eventful camping-trip he had 
 been watching the house in the expectation that 
 Gregg would finally return there, and that within 
 the last three days he had certainly done so. Kit 
 instanced a light which had showed at dusk through 
 the closed shutters, the disappearance of wood from 
 the wood-pile, the setting out of food for the cat 
 in other dishes than the cracked blue bowl into 
 which Lorena had invariably poured the daily dole 
 of milk. 
 
 On thinking it over I decided that the thing 
 might very easily be true. Why, after all, shouldn t 
 Gregg return ? Opinion here would be by no means 
 incensed against him; bootlegging didn t rank as a 
 high crime or misdemeanor in any category known 
 to Bandy s. At first, of course, he might lie low, 
 
298 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 until certain that no minion of the law was waiting 
 to pounce out and apprehend him. Perhaps he 
 would exercise a certain caution until Kit and I had 
 departed. After that he would probably resume 
 his place in the dull dreamy life of the little town, 
 with very slight probability of being interfered with 
 by any one. 
 
 Mr. Hackett, I thought, wouldn t bestir himself 
 much in the matter. I remembered his eager assur 
 ance to Gregg in the bunk-house, "It ain t you I m 
 
 after " No, certainly it had not been, or Gregg 
 
 couldn t have slipped away so easily after he was 
 caught. It was Brett Morgan that Mr. Hackett 
 wanted, and though he had given his reasons plaus 
 ibly enough, there lingered in my mind the faint 
 sense of something still obscure and unrevealed. 
 He had wanted Brett Morgan very much he had 
 hardly, it seemed, wanted Eben Gregg at all; yet 
 they had been partners in misdoing, equal in guilt 
 before the law, it seemed to me, however much 
 Morgan had been in fact the ringleader. And now 
 Eben Gregg had returned to his cottage and his cat, 
 to the knowledge, probably, of all the town, though 
 the fiction of secrecy was still maintained. Had 
 Mr. Hackett given up the chase and left the moun 
 tains, or was he still on watch somewhere near at 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 299 
 
 Hand where the news of Gregg s return would bring 
 him on the scene again? Or, if Mr. Hackett had 
 really gone away, mightn t Gregg s return presage 
 that of Brett Morgan also? And I knew if this 
 happened there was nothing left me but flight. 
 
 All day after Kit had imparted his disturbing con 
 fidence these questions occupied my mind. In the 
 evening I was restless I was very often restless 
 now and spent the hour after supper wandering 
 up and down the garden. As the dusk deepened I 
 turned several times toward the house, meaning to 
 go indoors, where now the light of the sitting-room 
 lamp shone cheerfully, revealing Kit as he pored 
 over a book, and Miss Luppy as she sat at her darn 
 ing, on opposite sides of the center-table with the 
 turkey-red cloth. But for the peace and quiet in 
 there I had no heart. I wanted space, the cool of 
 the evening air, the solemn companionship of night 
 rather than of those two tranquil figures who could 
 not know or share the goading pain that was with 
 me always. At last I paused beside the gate and 
 stood there looking out. Why not, instead of spec 
 ulating about it, find out for myself if there were 
 really signs of habitation at Eben Gregg s cottage? 
 In the darkness I ran little risk of being detected 
 in my prowling, even if he were there. I opened 
 
300 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the gate quietly and slipped out. The road was 
 deserted, and no light showed anywhere that I 
 could see, except the light in the window of Miss 
 Luppy s sitting-room. I went up the road under 
 the indifferent stars, past the white fence of the 
 cemetery, past the two tall cypresses which loomed 
 spectrally at its entrance, and in whose shadow I had 
 once met Mrs. Morgan. How bodingly her warn 
 ing words reechoed in my mind, and how my cheeks 
 flamed to recall the cause I had to know them true! 
 And I wondered for the hundredth time, and with 
 the same strange mixture of dread and unwilling 
 interest, what had become of Brett Morgan. 
 
 Eben Gregg s cottage was dark. No glimmer of 
 light such as Kit had seen or imagined was visible. 
 But as I stood in the road before the low black 
 mass of the little house a sound reached me, the 
 unmistakable sound of a human voice raised for an 
 instant and then sinking away into a murmur. 
 
 He had returned, then, after all. He was in his 
 house now, and not alone. Who was his compan 
 ion ? As a disinterested outsider, I should probably 
 have replied that this was not Sally Armsby s 
 affair; as Sally Armsby herself, I felt an instant 
 conviction that it might be very much so. Cer 
 tainly I must set the doubt at rest. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 301 
 
 Softly I opened the gate into the little yard. 
 Softly I crept around the corner of the house until 
 I stood beneath the kitchen window. The murmur 
 of voices grew louder, or rather, that of Eben Gregg 
 had become distinct enough to recognize; the other 
 had spoken but a word in reply. But it was a man s 
 voice not as I had hoped the voice of Lorena 
 Pettis. 
 
 The shutters of the window were closed, but 
 through a wide chink near the bottom came a gleam 
 of light. Treading with breathless caution I 
 approached until my eye was at the opening. I 
 looked into the kitchen, where beside a smoky, 
 dimly burning lamp sat Eben Gregg and Brett 
 Morgan. 
 
 Morgan sat facing me, darkly handsome as ever, 
 but with a lowering and sullen look. His hat was 
 pulled over his forehead, and he was rolling a cigar 
 ette with that deft twist of his brown fingers. As 
 he raised his eyes to his companion I caught the 
 gleam of them from under his black brows. 
 
 "Well, there ain t nothin special doin , so fur s I 
 make out," Gregg was saying. "It looks like Hack- 
 ett had give up and gone, anyway I be n here purty 
 nigh a week and I ain t found out to the contrary. 
 Loreny, she s watched out keerful fur me, o 
 
302 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 course, and I cal lated on gittin word in time in 
 case them prohibition sharks showed up again. But 
 say, Brett, why in thunder did you come back? 
 You had the chance to get clean off, what with that 
 hoss you rode and the whole Si-erra before you. 
 And I jest be n tellin you how Hackett he up and 
 said flat twarn t me he wanted, which makes it 
 purty plain as twas you. I don t understand it, 
 I ll allow, any more n I ever understood where that 
 whisky come from what we was doin such big busi 
 ness with. Say, Brett, loosen up, boy! I be n a 
 straight pard to you let me in on where you got 
 the stuff, anyway!" 
 
 "Nothin doin ," said Morgan shortly. "That s 
 my own affair. Seein I made a straight divvy on 
 the profits, you ain t got no kick comin , I should 
 say. As to why I come back, that s my own busi 
 ness too. I m safe in doin it all right I can lay 
 so low the whole town could hunt for me a week 
 and never find me." 
 
 "Well, mebbe I can give a guess why you come," 
 chuckled Gregg with a wink of his bleared old eye. 
 " Twas for one more peek at little Sally, hey? I 
 see her myself only this mornin a-strollin up the 
 road. Purty as ever, Brett! That s what brought 
 you back, I bet my eye !" 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 303 
 
 Morgan put his cigarette between his lips and 
 lighted it with deliberation. 
 
 "Don t you go bettin what you can t afford to 
 lose/ he advised sardonically. "I come back, 
 Gregg, since you want so bad to know, cause I 
 got a job to do. I left it hangin fire before, cause 
 there was that business of the whisky to see to and 
 and other things. I d a come back now to git it 
 done, if the chances was ninety-nine in a hundred 
 that it landed me in the pen. Yes, I d take risks 
 that I wouldn t take for any money, to be sure o 
 evenin up with a fellow that s been in my way this 
 good while a fellow that thinks he s somebody 
 account of a college education " Passion choked 
 him. He broke off suddenly, grinding his strong 
 white teeth. 
 
 "It s Lambert you re cussin out, o course," 
 surmised Gregg. "Well, I can t blame you, seein 
 how he bu sted up our little game tother day 
 though twas mostly Sally s doin . If she d a 
 kep her little nose out there wouldn t no Lambert 
 have got his in, I guess. All the same I dunno s I d 
 git into any more hot water on account o him if I 
 was you, Brett. Things ain t like they uster be in 
 this country you ain t let to settle a grudge peace 
 able no more by jest pluggin the feller you re at 
 
304 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 outs with, but are awful liable to see the inside of 
 the jug for it, yes, and to swing if he dies. I guess 
 I d kind of think things over, Brett, before I acted 
 rash." 
 
 Morgan gave a savage laugh. "Ain t nothin 
 rash about this, Gregg. It s a blow in the dark 
 he ll never know what hit him. That s what makes 
 me sore I d like for him to know, and who done 
 it, and all. But he won t he ll never know it was 
 the feller he looked at like he was dirt that day in 
 the street, and then walked off cool with the girl 
 He ll pay, though, by God, he ll pay ! I ll git that 
 job off my chest to-night and be out o the county 
 by mornin . I could a put it through sooner, o 
 course, if I hadn t a let myself be side-tracked 
 but I never could lose a chance for gittin into trou 
 ble. And there was big money in that whisky deal 
 reacly money that I wanted. Besides, I had my 
 reasons for wantin to stick round here a while " 
 
 "Better call em unreasons when they wears 
 petticoats," said Gregg unsympathetically. "O 
 course I don t know what it is you aim to spring on 
 Lambert unless blowin up his dam I hear it s 
 about finished now." 
 
 "Let it go at that if you like," returned Morgan 
 non-committally. "Yes, the dam s about finished 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 305 
 
 I took a look-in at the place last night on my way 
 down the mountain. Saw the guy himself sittin 
 in his tent with the light shinin out could a put 
 a bullet through him as he sat. But it wasn t my 
 game right then would a made it inconvenient to 
 visit the Flat like I wanted to before lightin out 
 What I aim to pull off to-night is the kind o work 
 that don t leave no trace." He laughed again. 
 
 "Well, you re too many fur me," said Gregg dis 
 contentedly. "What you ve got up your sleeve I 
 ain t able to say. But whatever it is, whether 
 blowin up the dam or pluggin Lambert or what, 
 jest remember I ain t in on it, that s all. I got a 
 mind as soon as you re gone to sneak down to 
 Loreny s, so s to have me an alibi in case they try 
 to mix me up in it." 
 
 "You won t need no alibi, Eben," Morgan 
 assured him, still with that savage amusement. 
 "Well, let s go over the figures and find out where 
 we stand on the whisky deal. You hadn t settled 
 up with me after last time, remember." 
 
 I moved from the window and made my way back 
 to the road. Once safely past the house I ran 
 swiftly, but always noiselessly, home. Not until 
 I had gained the garden did I pause, waiting in the 
 cool fragrance of the sweet blossomy old place for 
 
306 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the breath that came in hard throat-rasping gasps 
 to be quiet, for the heart that throbbed so fiercely 
 to beat evenly again. Then I went slowly into the 
 house. Miss Luppy looked up from her work, Kit 
 from his book. I stood blinking at the light quite 
 naturally, even yawning a little. 
 
 "Well, you been moonin round out there a good 
 while, ain t you?" remarked Miss Luppy, with that 
 mixture of disapproval and solicitude which had 
 characterized her manner to me lately. Her keen 
 eyes were a torment to me, for I knew they were 
 probing always for what the stake couldn t have 
 made me own to. Now more than ever I dreaded 
 that they would find me white or shaken or betray 
 ing myself somehow. So I yawned and blinked 
 again a little harder. 
 
 "Well, good night," I said sleepily. "I ll go 
 up-stairs, I think." I went out with an unhurried 
 step. 
 
 But in my room above I paused only long enough 
 to put on a sweater over my light dress, then 
 removed my shoes and taking them in my hand 
 went noiselessly down-stairs. Very gently I opened 
 the hall door, slipped out, and closed it again softly. 
 On stockinged feet I crossed the porch, descended 
 the few steps into the garden, and having put on my 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 307 
 
 shoes made my way to the gate which gave upon 
 the little path up the hill. Beyond the gate I drew 
 my first free breath. For the way was open now 
 that long lonely way to the dam, where somehow 
 or other I must be in time to w r arn Joe of the coming 
 of Brett Morgan. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 HPHE path that wound up the hill through the 
 A tall brown grass was vague as a thread of cob 
 web in the darkness, but by some instinct my feet 
 kept to it without straying. Then the woods began to 
 close about me, as though a great black-hooded cloak 
 were swathing me in its impenetrable folds. But I 
 followed blindly the path that somehow led me on, 
 until a murmur that had filled the woods became 
 the roar of water, and the breath of it was cold upon 
 my face. With hands outstretched I felt before me 
 until I touched the underpinning of the flume, 
 climbed it, and stood at last upon the narrow foot 
 way. How the water roared by the blackness, 
 how the swift rush of it seemed to clutch me by the 
 ankles and drag me down! For an instant my 
 head swam and deadly panic seized me. Oh, for 
 light, light in the all-enveloping, suffocating dark! 
 Involuntarily my hand went to the electric torch in 
 my pocket, then drew back. I could not risk it, 
 for close by was the ridge-trail over which, perhaps, 
 
 308 
 
, FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 309 
 
 Brett Morgan was already riding. The thought 
 stung me like a spur. I forgot all fears but the 
 supreme one, and sped on. If already he were on 
 the way, then how desperate was the need of haste, 
 how cruelly unequal was the race! My hope was, 
 that he would delay his arrival at the dam until that 
 blackest, stillest midnight hour when sleep is most 
 profound. If I had been sure of it, I might have; 
 made the darkling journey in the comforting coltt^ 
 panionship of Mittens instead of by the flume, but 
 I was not sure, and I had a better chance this way 
 the flume was two miles shorter than to risk being 
 overtaken on the trail. 
 
 Of that wild race against time along the flume 
 nothing now remains with me in recollection but a 
 mere blurred dream of darkness and haste and fear. 
 I perceive as by flashes a hurrying figure at first 
 stumbling along in cavernous gloom, then faintly 
 illumined by the stars that hang above the canon of 
 the Grizzly. I see it breathless, panting, faltering 
 with fatigue, yet still goading itself on, striving to 
 hurry faster. Into the obscure and shifting vision 
 come the water s steady rush, the murmur of the 
 wind along the canon, the soft rustle of tree-tops, 
 but always with a dream s fantastic unreality. Like 
 a dream, too, but of nightmare vividness and horror, 
 
310 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 is the memory of Eyes, dreadfully gleaming, that 
 approach with a soft thud of trotting pads, that 
 pause suddenly in awful token that they have dis 
 covered me transfixed there in the narrow way, and 
 glow with an angrier light. On what inspiration I 
 acted I don t know; assuredly in my benumbed 
 brain was nothing like coherent thought. But with 
 the steadiness of an automaton I draw my torch 
 from my pocket and flash it at the eyes. And they, 
 for all their fearsome gleam, are worsted instantly. 
 A snarl, a black bulk shooting through the air, a 
 crash among the tree-tops, tell the story of a wild 
 cat s shattered nerves. And the gasping, shivering 
 shadow that is Sally hurries on, to the goal that she 
 must somehow reach though Death himself rise in 
 the path. 
 
 Now the flume has left behind the wider valley 
 and plunged into the shadow of crowding cliffs. 
 The booming of the water deepens, echoing sullenly 
 along the gorge. I am nearing the dam, and with 
 the thought my haste becomes more desperate. Oh, 
 if I were still to be too late, if failure, tragedy, my 
 life s black desolation should hang on minutes, 
 seconds! If these leaden, lagging feet should prove 
 the losers in a race with death! Then all at once 
 the blackness before me takes on solidity; my grop- 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 311 
 
 ing hands encounter the walls of a little building" a 
 yard square which, as I recall, houses the screw 
 regulating the flow of water into the flume. I 
 have reached the dam. 
 
 Feeling my way, I find the narrow path which 
 climbs the cliff and ascend it slowly, a new terror 
 weighing down my heart and dragging at my tired 
 feet, the new, unthought-of terror of what Joe will 
 say, of how he will receive me! Then I have left 
 the shadow of the gorge behind and am out in the 
 starshine, with the soft grassy earth beneath my 
 tread and the breath of the night-wind in my face. 
 Dark solemn forms of pines loom here and there. 
 A little way off a light shines through the canvas of 
 a tent. 
 
 Slowly I went toward it, dreading unutterably, 
 after all my frenzied haste, the moment when I 
 must reveal myself. For that new fear was taking 
 on a mushroom growth. Involuntarily, as I neared 
 the tent, I went stealthily, until I stood unheard 
 before it, looking in through the open flap. Joe 
 was sitting on his cot with a box before him for a 
 table, writing by candle-light. Though his profile 
 was toward me I saw that he was leaner, and as he 
 bent above his work he ran his hand wearily 
 through his thick rumpled hair. 
 
312 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "Joe!" It was the merest thread of sound. 
 
 His pen stopped. He sat motionless, staring 
 before him like one who hears a whisper from 
 another world. 
 
 "Joe!" I felt a ridiculous momentary terror lest 
 I shouldn t be Sally in the flesh at all, but some 
 ghostly wisp that he couldn t see or touch. 
 
 Slowly he turned his head and looked at me. He 
 did not move, but I knew he saw me, because of the 
 utter incredulity that stared at me out of his eyes. 
 Just that. Not joy or welcome, just stark, utter 
 disbelief. 
 
 "Joe!" My voice broke. "Joe, don t you know 
 me?" 
 
 "Good God, Sally!" In a stride he was at the 
 door. "Sally!" Again he whispered it, as though 
 the sound must rouse him from a dream. 
 
 "Yes, Joe, I came I had to come " Oh, for 
 
 the right word to make him understand the dire 
 need that had brought me! 
 
 "Yes, Sally, yes but what does it mean? How 
 in the world did you get here?" He had taken my 
 hands in his. His eyes, questioning, still half unbe 
 lieving, dwelt devouringly on my face. 
 
 "Brett Morgan he s come back I heard him 
 to-night with Eben Gregg, talking of something 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 313 
 
 some injury he means to do you, Joe. I don t know 
 what exactly perhaps shoot you, or blow up the 
 dam but it was to be to-night, this very night. 
 Joe! Call your men hurry, hurry! Any minute 
 he may be here!" 
 
 "Call my men, Sally?" He spoke in an odd 
 strained voice. "I can t there s no one here to call. 
 The men made their last trip to-day, hauling out 
 the stuff the work s done now, you know too 
 late to get back. They stayed in Lone Pine 
 to-night. I am I am all alone here, Sally." 
 
 Alone! My knees gave under the blow of it. 
 Alone and Brett Morgan on the way! "Oh, the 
 light, the light !" I whispered frantically. 
 
 "The light?" Then, understanding, he stepped 
 back and extinguished the candle. Returning, he 
 took my hand and led me a little way into the 
 shadow of some trees. On the moss at their feet 
 we sat down. 
 
 "Now friend Morgan will have a job to spot us, 
 unless by our voices. Speak low, Sally, and tell me 
 everything, every word you can remember that he 
 said." 
 
 Whispering, I repeated all that I had heard 
 beneath the window. Continually fear caught my 
 breath. Every shadow, every faintest sound, meant 
 
314 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 the coming of Brett Morgan. I would break off to 
 tremble and look and listen, until with the ending 
 of the story Joe took my cold hand into his strong 
 clasp. 
 
 "Sally, don t be so frightened he won t come 
 at all, I m sure. He meant something else an 
 injury of quite another kind. He is not coming to 
 the dam." 
 
 "Not coming to the dam? Oh, Joe! Then I 
 
 " Shame swept over me in an engulfing wave. 
 
 Then why had I come? Why had I done a thing 
 so mad, so it seemed now hysterically absurd? 
 "Then I I" 
 
 But Joe had put my hand very gently to his lips. 
 
 "Then you are the very bravest woman in the 
 world. The bravest and the kindest. To come all 
 alone in the darkness to do it for me! It was 
 wonderful how can I thank you, Sally ?" 
 
 "But I don t understand?" I said bewilderedly. 
 "If he was not coming to the dam what did he 
 mean ? How did he mean to harm you ?" 
 
 "It s rather a long story. I ll tell you, of course, 
 if you are interested, but not now, because I must 
 take you home." I waited, but he did not move. 
 "Sally" he spoke in an altered, hesitant tone 
 "Sally, I ve tried to say how much I thanked you 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 315 
 
 f or for your kindness, for remembering our 
 friendship. We were rather good pals, weren t we, 
 this summer? * 
 
 "R-rather good, Joe." It was a small shaking 
 voice. My hand clung to his convulsively. 
 
 "Then do you mind telling me something? Why, 
 instead of doing this wild, brave, splendid thing 
 yourself, instead of running 1 the terrible risk you 
 thought of meeting Morgan somewhere on the 
 way, didn t you send Jimmie Halliday?" 
 
 Jimmie Halliday! At the vision of Jimmie 
 hurrying over the flume in the dark, of Jimmie 
 confronted by a wildcat, of Jimmie pitting himself 
 in any fashion against Brett Morgan, I incongru 
 ously and somewhat wildly laughed. 
 
 "Joe!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "How can you be ridiculous?" 
 
 "Ridiculous? Is it ridiculous to think that 
 instead of letting you do this Halliday should have 
 done it for you?" 
 
 "But he knew nothing at all about it." 
 
 "You mean you came off without telling him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And how will he like it when you do tell him;?" 
 
316 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 "I m afraid I can never answer that, because I 
 shall never tell him." 
 
 Silence. Then, "I think you had better tell him," 
 he said with obvious effort. 
 
 "But he d be bored, Joe." 
 
 "Bored!" 
 
 "Yes, dreadfully. Bandy s Flat is too far from 
 Santa Barbara and Honora Jones for him to take 
 the slightest interest in what happens here." 
 
 "Santa Barbara Honora Jones !! Do you 
 
 mean that Halliday is not at the Flat?" 
 
 "He left the same day you did, Joe." 
 
 Again silence, silence intense, electrical, a pause 
 upon the edge of something that caught one s 
 breath, that stopped the beating of one s heart. My 
 hand was still in his, and I felt his fingers tighten 
 in their clasp of mine, tighten till they crushed 
 them, almost. 
 
 "Why, Sally?" His voice had a queer break in 
 it, as though his breath too were undependable. 
 
 "I understood that he went to propose to Honora 
 Jones." 
 
 "Sally!" 
 
 "Oh!" I cried, turning on him suddenly. "You 
 believed, you actually believed, that it could be 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 317 
 
 Jimmie or rather Jimmie s uncle s money! You 
 believed that of me !" 
 
 "Not that, not that, Sally. I didn t believe you 
 could be bought. Only he seemed so much a part of 
 your life and I so out of it, he had so much to offer 
 you and I had nothing " 
 
 "Nothing, Joe?" It was the smallest whisper, 
 my heart was choking me so. 
 
 "Only my love, Sally darling." 
 
 "It s all I ever wanted, Joe." There was a 
 muffled effect to this remark, and those which 
 succeeded it were quite inaudible, except to the ear 
 for which they were intended. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 JOE Had said farewell to me in Miss Luppy s 
 garden under the morning stars and returned 
 to the dam, to be there when the men came to haul 
 out the last of the equipment. For all the long 
 hours of his absence the thought of Brett Morgan 
 haunted me, and when at last a clear whistle sounded 
 from the gate I forgot that to Miss Luppy the arrival 
 was all unannounced and unexplained and sprang up 
 joyfully. 
 
 "Oh, he s safe, he s here !" I cried, and ran out, 
 leaving her transfixed. Transfixed she was still 
 when we returned, and received the news of our 
 engagement stonily, then suddenly and alarmingly 
 shed two tears which trickled down her nose and 
 reddened it. Having wiped them away she rose 
 with solemnity and kissed us both. 
 
 "I hope you ve thought it over well," was all she 
 said, this not very encouraging comment being 
 intended, I suppose, as an offset to so exceptional 
 an emotional display. 
 
 318 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 319 
 
 She heard the rest of our story in her usual self- 
 contained fashion. The return of Eben Gregg did 
 not surprise her, but the news that Brett Morgan 
 had been again in the neighborhood brought an 
 anxious wrinkle to her forehead. 
 
 "But I don t make it out yet," she said. "What 
 was it you think he was up to, Joe, that you was so 
 almighty sure it warn t you nor the dam he was 
 comin against? What harm could he do you right 
 here to the Flat unless twas runnin off again 
 with Sally?" 
 
 He paused before replying. 
 
 "Well," he said finally, "I suppose I might as 
 well tell you the whole yarn. Before Hackett left 
 the Flat he let me in on certain things in confidence, 
 but I know they will be as safe with you and Sally; 
 as with me, and besides, you are partly concerned 
 in the affair, Cousin Lavinia." Joe occasionally 
 employed this mode of address, to Miss Luppy s 
 immense though carefully disguised satisfaction. 
 
 "To begin with, Hackett is not a government 
 officer at all, but a detective in the service of the 
 railroad. Ever since it happened he has been work 
 ing on that train-robbery when I was held up, you 
 know. Of the three men .engaged in it, one is 
 known to have got away to San Francisco, where He 
 
320 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was lost sight of. The others, including the fellow 
 wounded by the brakeman s bullet, stayed in the 
 hills. A few days after the robbery a body was dis 
 covered between Nuttall Creek and Golconda, which 
 had been dug up by coyotes from a shallow grave. 
 Something had frightened the animals off before 
 they mutilated the corpse much, and it was recog 
 nized as that of a man who had been seen near the 
 railroad on the day before the hold-up. A bullet- 
 wound through the chest made it certain that it 
 was the body of the wounded bandit. This left the 
 third fellow to be accounted for, and when Hackett 
 had studied the ground a while he made out suffi 
 cient of a trail to bring him up here to the Flat. I 
 forget what the clues were exactly, but some kids 
 out hunting had seen a man in the brush farther up 
 Nuttall Creek, a ranch-house between there and the 
 Flat had been robbed of a side of bacon and some 
 bread, camp-fire ashes and bacon-rind had been 
 found in a gulch running down to the Stony. 
 Later, Hackett found signs at Little York which 
 indicated that the bandit had lain in hiding there 
 for several days, living on his bacon and small game 
 that he had trapped. 
 
 "Anyway, the trail was plain enough to make 
 Hackett think it worth his while to look things 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 321 
 
 over here at the Flat. And of course it didn t take 
 long for him to decide that Brett Morgan was the 
 man. Getting the goods on him wasn t so easy, 
 though, until he got on to this bootlegging business, 
 and made up his mind to pinch the fellow on that 
 charge and then dig up the necessary evidence in 
 the other case at his leisure. Morgan, of course, 
 wasn t courting the presence of inquisitive strang 
 ers just then, and the town being like-minded, he 
 didn t have much trouble in starting something 
 which would have turned out unpleasantly for 
 brother Hackett, if you hadn t got in ahead of him, 
 Cousin Lavinia. Hackett had already notified the 
 Revenue Department, and there was an agent, 
 Gamble, waiting for him at Golconda. As the 
 agent was anxious to nab Gregg too, they followed 
 Morgan up into the mountains with what results 
 I needn t remind you. Why, Sally, what s the 
 matter? You look as scared and upset as if you 
 thought Morgan was under the sofa." 
 
 It was no vision of Brett Morgan under the sofa 
 that had driven the blood from my cheeks. It was 
 the remembrance of that hour alone with him in the 
 mountains, of the wild love that he had offered me, 
 of the kiss that I had so amazingly returned. A 
 queer mixture of emotions, of which humiliation 
 
322 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 was only one element, had kept me from telling Joe 
 would always, I knew now, keep me from it. 
 How much worse, how much more dangerous and 
 desperate, he was than I had known, this man who 
 had had me at his mercy and who had not been 
 merciless. Was I altogether wrong and reprehen 
 sible to wish that he might not be taken, that so long 
 as Joe was safe Brett Morgan too might escape 
 to some place very far away whence he would return 
 no more? Wrong or not I wished it, and in the 
 same breath feared him unutterably. He was the 
 cloud on my happiness, at the same time that, prayer 
 fully, I wished him freedom and escape. Hence the 
 pale and agitated looks that had caught Joe s eye. 
 
 "It s nothing, only I never was personally 
 acquainted with a train-robber before." I achieved 
 an uncertain smile. "Go on, Joe, please. Why did 
 you say Miss Luppy was concerned in this?" 
 
 Again he hesitated. 
 
 "Because there is an angle to the affair which I 
 haven t mentioned to any one as yet. In the first 
 place, I believe the man who frisked me went 
 through my pockets, you know was Morgan. It 
 was a fellow about his size, anyway, and though he 
 was masked, of course, I remember dark hair show 
 ing where the bandanna had slipped a little. That 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 323 
 
 would account, perhaps, for his looking at me the 
 first time we met here at the Flat in an odd way 
 that struck me at the time as if he had seen me 
 before and didn t take pleasure in the recollection. 
 
 "Now the only thing, practically, that they got 
 from me was my wallet. And the only thing I 
 minded losing in the wallet was Uncle Bates s letter. 
 And the only person to whom that letter would have 
 meant anything was a man who knew the Flat and 
 knew it well its past as well as its present. My 
 idea is that it was that letter which brought Morgan 
 back to the Flat, though I suppose he may have been 
 as safe here as anywhere. Because that letter would 
 give a very strong hint, to a person who understood 
 the allusions as well as Morgan, that somewhere or 
 other about the place Uncle Bates had left some 
 thing very well worth finding, something which he 
 had tucked away without saying a word to any one, 
 and which he had intended leaving to my father. 
 The hold-up men, you know, didn t make much of a 
 haul, being scared off by the shot that got one of 
 them in the chest. Morgan, who stuck by the 
 wounded man, may have got his share as well as his 
 own, so that he returned here with perhaps ome 
 hundreds of dollars in his pocket, which he would 
 find useful later when it came to buying his horses 
 
324 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 and so forth. His one chance of gaining anything 
 worth while by his risky adventure was to follow up 
 the clue in Uncle Bates s letter. My idea is that he 
 did follow it up, picking out the old saloon as the 
 most likely place to look, with the result that he dis 
 covered the whisky hidden there somewhere. What 
 else he found no one knows, but I think he found 
 something, which and this would explain his 
 words last night to Eben Gregg he intended 
 either to appropriate or to destroy." 
 
 "Well, of all the extraordinary stories, Joe!" I 
 gasped. A thousand confirmatory circumstances 
 rushed on my mind I too recalled the oddity of the 
 lowering look he had turned on Joe that day. There 
 had been more in it than unfriendliness, there had 
 been a gleam of startled recognition. Then his 
 words to me "I got a chance, a big chance, Sally" 
 these and many others I recalled, and in the 
 light of Joe s story they were for the first time 
 intelligible. Yes, Morgan had been hunting in the 
 old saloon for something else when, in some 
 unknown repository, he found the whisky. And 
 the other thing that he had found, and that he had 
 come back last night either to carry off or to de 
 stroy, was either now destroyed or had been taken 
 with him in his flight to some place far away. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 325 
 
 "Why didn t you ever speak of this before, Joe ?" 
 demanded Miss Luppy after a stunned silence. 
 
 "Because I had lost the letter which was the only 
 proof of what I had to say. I thought I might per 
 haps speak of it by and by, after we knew each other 
 better not putting forward any claim, of course, 
 but leaving the whole matter in your hands. Then 
 Sally s and my misunderstanding came, and I 
 wanted only to get away and to forget. I intended 
 to write to you from San Francisco, before I sailed, 
 telling you the circumstances and resigning to you 
 entirely anything that might be found. I had lost 
 interest in Uncle Bates s money then I didn t seem 
 to need it much for perpetual bachelorhood in South 
 America." 
 
 "Now don t git to moonin and philanderin, you 
 two," exclaimed Miss Luppy, quite unjustifiably 
 because all we had done was look at each other. 
 "What I want to know is, what are we goin to do ? 
 Though I expect it s only lockin the stable door 
 after the horse is gone; still that place ought to be 
 looked over thorough. But I won t consent to no 
 risks bein took while Brett s mebbe hangin round, 
 ready to shoot you on sight." 
 
 "It s not at all likely that he is hanging round," 
 Joe assured her. "Judging from what he said to 
 
326 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 Gregg, he did what he came to do and then lit out. 
 He would have no object in staying, and it would be 
 a risky thing for him, for Hackett is sure to have 
 left some channel open through which to get word if 
 he came back, though I know he did not expect 
 that Morgan would come back, but has been having 
 a lookout kept for him over in Nevada. Of course 
 Hackett knew nothing of the other circumstances 
 in the case, which I felt under no obligation to tell 
 him. But I sent him a message this morning, when 
 the men went out to Lone Pine, to be telephoned 
 to his headquarters in the city. Just where he is I 
 don t know, so it may be a couple of days before he 
 turns up. Anyway, I am afraid he will have his 
 trouble for his pains, for as I said before Morgan 
 has certainly made his getaway by now." 
 
 "Well, Joe," said Miss Luppy, "all I got to say is. 
 I wish you d kind o strung your surprises out. 
 There s more been offered to me sudden than I feel 
 it s agreein with my system to take in. As to 
 Bandy Bates s money, you only make me certain of 
 what I ve suspicioned all along that there was a 
 good deal more of it than ever showed up when it 
 came to probatin the estate. The hull town 
 thought so at the time, I know, and old Cousin 
 Eliza, she was always a-frettin* and specalatin 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 327 
 
 about it. She was real avaricious, though I m sorry 
 to say so, and warn t never willin , I jedge, that her 
 husband should do nothin about property without 
 she had her finger in it. And him not bein one to 
 stand for dictatin , why, I suspect he jest fixed 
 things up his own way without tellin her. It was 
 the chance o that letter miscarryin , and then him 
 dyin so sudden, that mixed things up so." 
 
 "Cousin Lavinia, it s perfectly bully of you to 
 believe this queer yarn of mine without question," 
 said Joe gratefully. "Of course Morgan, on account 
 of his grudge against me, has got away by now with 
 any valuables there may have been, or destroyed 
 them, if in a form he couldn t use. I am inclined to 
 think there may have been bonds or something of 
 the kind, which he would be dubious about trying to 
 realize on, as establishing a link by which he could 
 be traced. So I suspect there is nothing left for us 
 to quarrel about, even if I would have tried to assert 
 any claim." 
 
 "Quarrel, my grandmother s nightcap!" ex 
 claimed Miss Luppy with heat. "I guess you and 
 me, Joe, could o made out to settle about a parcel 
 c dirty money without quarrelin . Why, here I am 
 without chick or child, and you my own kin if not 
 so near as some, well, it ain t always nearness that 
 
328 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 makes kin agreeable. No, we wouldn t a quar 
 reled, Joe, and we won t however things turn out. 
 All I got to say is, you want to be awful sure Brett s 
 cleared out before you risk gittin in his way, par 
 ticular in the very place where he s most likely to 
 be hidin in case he ain t gone." 
 
 "The first thing to be done, of course," remarked 
 Joe, as if not heeding this, "is to get a key made for 
 the saloon door." 
 
 "It ain t no ways necessary," said Miss Luppy 
 calmly. "I got another one up-stairs." She 
 showed a gleam of frosty humor at our astonished 
 faces. "O course you re wonderin why I didn t 
 trot it out that day when we found the other key 
 was lost. Well, the truth is I had a notion it was 
 Hackett that had stole it borrered if, if you like 
 off the kitchen nail, and I was that put out over 
 makin a silly of myself by fallin for his trick that 
 I didn t want nothin more to do with the business, 
 nor with him. And I begun to wonder, real uneasy, 
 whether after all the whisky had come from some 
 nook or corner about the place, and if Hackett 
 knew it all the time, and was laughin at me in his 
 sleeve. And I remembered how much time Cousin 
 Heber Bates had put in there in that old buildin 
 before he died, and how even while he was workin 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 329 
 
 and tinkerin he kep the door locked, so twas a 
 mercy he had jest unlocked it before the fit took 
 him. So I made up my mind not to go no further 
 with the investigatin jest then, but to slip over 
 sometimes with no one noticin and do some lookin 
 round myself. Only after you and Sally fell out 
 she was never off the place long enough to give me 
 the chance to slip away without her seein me and 
 mebbe askin inconvenient questions." 
 
 "But you don t suspect Mr. Hackett now of hav 
 ing taken the key?" I asked. 
 
 She shook her head. "No, child/ she said 
 gravely, "I guess it ain t hard to figure now who 
 took the key. She d know the looks of it right well, 
 o course, account of her husband havin charge of 
 it till he was killed. So she d come over all primed 
 up with one that looked enough like it to pass, and 
 then watch her chance to swap I ll lay twas that 
 very Sunday you and Joe had been through the 
 place, and come back and hung the key on the nail 
 right under her eyes. I was back and forth a good 
 deal after that, I remember." 
 
 "Do you think she knew what her son had 
 done, or what he meant to do?" With all that 
 there was to distract it, my mind still persistently 
 hovered about the topic of Brett Morgan. 
 
330 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 
 
 Miss Luppy looked more sober still. 
 
 "I don t know, child/ she answered, "and I 
 guess I won t specalate. She s awful fond o Brett, 
 that s sure, and o course whatever he done she 
 wouldn t turn against him, no more n any other 
 mother. Whether she knew what he wanted the 
 key for, or anything but jest that he did want it, I 
 ain t got a notion. But I guess we won t find fault 
 with her none for what she done for her boy." 
 
 This conversation had taken place after supper. 
 It was interrupted now by the entrance of Kit with 
 the news so very small a matter makes news at 
 Bandy s that a horse, saddled and bridled, had 
 been found straying about in the mine. The men 
 who had found it, and who were presumably re 
 turning from work in a remote part of the old 
 excavation where slickens men troubled not, had 
 brought the animal up into the town. He was 
 hitched now outside the Bonanza House, and folks 
 were making bets about who owned him, and how 
 he had come to be down there in the mine. Kit had 
 even heard whispered the name of Brett Morgan 
 his eyes were very round as he made this announce 
 ment. But the expected effect of it was lost. Joe 
 and I had already told each other in a glance whose 
 horse it was. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 331 
 
 "But I suppose you are the only person, except 
 Gregg, who could really identify it, Sally," he said 
 in a low voice. "You had better go down and take 
 a look." 
 
 In the soft evening light we went together down 
 the queer little street. A knot of loungers in front 
 of the Bonanza House were interestedly regarding 
 a gray horse with a Spanish saddle, on whose 
 points Asa Cobb, that great authority in horse 
 flesh, was expatiating. A glance was enough. I 
 nodded slightly to Joe, and we turned and retraced 
 our steps, Joe signing to Kit, who remained to 
 drink in Asa Cobb s wisdom with an admiration 
 now unwilling, for silence. 
 
 "Then he hasn t gone after all!" I whispered as 
 we passed along the street, where every darkening 
 doorway held for me the lurking figure of Brett 
 Morgan. It seemed to me that I had been certain 
 of it already. Through all the happiness of this day 
 his dark powerful presence had seemed to brood 
 about me, troubling me with something that was 
 strangely like reproach. 
 
 Joe shook his head dubiously. 
 
 "I don t know, Sally; it s a queer business. If 
 Morgan had meant to hang around a while it seems 
 likely he would have left his horse somewhere else 
 
332 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 than in the mine, and with a saddle on its back at 
 that. No, it looks to m:e as if he had certainly in 
 tended to start last night. Or perhaps he did start 
 and something happened the horse may have 
 stumbled in the dark down there in the mine and 
 thrown him. The best of riders have broken their 
 necks that way." 
 
 Miss Luppy s view of the matter proved to be the 
 same as Joe s, and we sat together in the deepening 
 twilight, w r ondering and speculating. At least Miss 
 Luppy and I wondered and speculated, and Joe sat 
 reflectively smoking. It was nearly dark when 
 there was the sound of the garden gate opening and 
 closing, and I concluded that Kit had come home. 
 But the step that sounded on the porch outside was 
 slow and dragging, and the opening of the door re 
 vealed the shawled figure of a woman. 
 
 It was Mrs. Morgan. I think we all started 
 when we saw her I know a little sharp thrill ran 
 along my nerves, as though a cold wind of sorrow 
 and disaster had blown in with her. She did not per 
 ceive Joe and me at once, for the shadow of the 
 high-backed sofa hid us. Miss Luppy was con 
 spicuous against the still faintly lighted window, 
 and Mrs. Morgan took a step toward her, then 
 paused as if the power of motion had forsaken her. 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 333 
 
 "My sakes, Mis Morgan/ exclaimed Miss 
 Luppy in an agitated tone, "if you ain t sort o took 
 me by surprise ! Set down, set down, do. A fine 
 evenin seems promisin for early rain to me." 
 
 Mrs. Morgan did not move. 
 
 "Miss Luppy" she spoke in a slow difficult 
 fashion "I hear they found a horse" she broke 
 off suddenly. 
 
 "A horse?" Miss Luppy seemed confounded by 
 this simple inquiry. "A horse, Mis Morgan? 
 Y-yes, I expect they did." 
 
 "And was it any horse belongin round here?" 
 Back of the slow hesitating utterance you heard the 
 breath rasping in her throat. 
 
 Miss Luppy faced the inevitable. "There warn t 
 nobody recognized the horse but Sally," she said in 
 a low voice. "She she was jest a-tellin me " 
 
 "A-tellin you what what?" There was a ter 
 rible urgency in the straining whisper. 
 
 "That it was Brett s." 
 
 There was silence in the room. The shawled fig 
 ure stood motionless in the faint twilight from the 
 window. 
 
 Miss Luppy cleared her throat. "Mis Morgan," 
 she went on, "I guess I may as well out with it. 
 We know Brett was here last night he was seen. 
 
334 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 I m a-goin to ask you to tell me, and tell me plain, 
 whether Brett left you intendin to go right off, or 
 whether twas understood that he was to lie by 
 somewheres." 
 
 "He was goin right off." The whisper now 
 was hoarser, fainter. 
 
 "Right off?" 
 
 "Jest tend to somethin that wouldn t take long 
 then go." 
 
 Miss Luppy approached the immobile figure and 
 laid her firm hand upon its arm. 
 
 "Mis Morgan, you and me s been neighbors this 
 long time. You know I want to stand by you I 
 want to help you. There ain t no use pretendin 
 it looks awful like Brett hadn t never got away. 
 Either he must have been thrown after he got 
 a-hossback, down there in the mine, or else he never 
 got a-hossback he never got out o the place he 
 went into after he left you." 
 
 "The place ?" In the faint light from the win 
 dow I saw her start and quiver. 
 
 "The place there in the old saloon where he 
 found the whisky." Miss Luppy s voice was steady. 
 "O course I ve suspicioned it, Mis Morgan, and 
 I meant to look into it in my own time. But the 
 way things have come out, I guess there d best be 
 
1 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 335 
 
 no more putt in off. Hackett ll be here no later n 
 to-morrow, mebbe. Mis Morgan, wouldn t you 
 ruther we found Brett before he comes ?" 
 
 The implication of her words was unmistakable. 
 They seemed to deepen the shadow in the room, to 
 fall like a sentence of doom on the bowed head oi 
 the mother in its cowl-like drapery. r A low cry 
 broke from her. 
 
 "Found him you think my boy ?" 
 "Mis Morgan, there ain t but one thing to think 
 * somethin s happened to Brett that he didn t count 
 on. Now, there ain t but one person that knows 
 Jest exactly where to look for him, and that s you ; 
 you know, if any one does, how to find that secret 
 place over there. It ll be found pretty soon any 
 way, o course ; Hackett ain t one to let the wool be 
 pulled over his eyes very long. But if you want to 
 find Brett first, why, you come along with us right 
 
 now." 
 
 The mother threw out her hands with a despair 
 ing gesture. 
 
 "It s no use !" she wailed. "We can t git in ! He d 
 V locked the door like he always did and the 
 key s with him inside. Yes, I stole it from you, 
 Miss Luppy. I come over here pretendin jest 
 to visit friendly, and when your back was turned I 
 
336 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 took that key and hung another that looked like it 
 on the nail. And I told Brett where to hunt in the 
 old buildin soon as I read that letter I guessed 
 what it meant. Before Mr. Bates took the key from 
 me, right after Brett, my husband, was killed, I 
 used to go in there at night to cry and lay my cheek 
 to the spot on the floor where the bloodstains 
 showed. And that s when I saw, though without 
 troublin my head about it at the time, some queer 
 things old Bandy was doin in a carpenter way. 
 But he found out I d been in, and was angry and 
 took away the key. And I had never been inside 
 the place in more n twenty years, nor give a real 
 heedful thought to what Bandy had been doin 
 there, till my boy showed me the letter, and it come 
 to me all at once. And now Brett s in there, mebbe 
 hurt bad, and I can t git to him. Oh, the black luck 
 that hangs around the place for me and mine !" 
 
 "There, don t take on, Mis Morgan," urged 
 Miss Luppy. "As to gittin in, that s easy; I got 
 another key right here in my pocket. Joe, git the 
 lantern off the store-room shelf, third from the bot 
 tom at the left, next the molasses jug." 
 
 Whether Mrs. Morgan had all along been con 
 scious of our presence I don t know, but in her grief 
 and dread she was beyond resenting it. For my part, 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 337 
 
 I felt no longer any fear for Joe or for myself; 
 instead, a sense that events had already reached 
 their somber conclusion hung on me with an intol 
 erable weight. Joe and Miss Luppy, when they 
 found that I meant to accompany them, would have 
 demurred, but I cut them short with a resolute 
 word. In silence we went down the dark road to 
 the iron door. Joe unlocked it, then lighted the 
 lantern and stepped before us over the threshold 
 into the heavy gloom beyond. 
 
 How black it was in there, how drearily the place 
 echoed to our foot-falls! The air was close and 
 heavy, and the dim yellow ray of the lantern winked 
 and flickered as if overwhelmed by the surround 
 ing tide of darkness. I gave a fearful look about, 
 thinking of old Bandy Bates who had been found 
 dying here, of the elder Brett Morgan whose blood 
 had stained the floor. Had a third life gone out 
 under this roof, and would the advancing zone of 
 lantern-light reveal in a moment something that 
 lay very still, its dark head, so filled with feverish 
 ambitions, low and quiet at last? But nothing was 
 there, it seemed, but darkness, and dust, and scuttling 
 spiders. 
 
 Still in silence, Mrs. Morgan turned and took 
 the lantern. Holding it before her, she traversed 
 
338 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 
 
 the long room, we following at a little distance, I 
 with my ice-cold hand in Joe s. She passed through 
 the little gate that led behind the bar and turned 
 toward the wall, holding the lantern at arm s length. 
 Suddenly she cried out, then sank, a moan 
 ing, rocking, huddled heap, upon the floor. But 
 nothing was there but a black opening from which a 
 breath of earthy air rose chillingly. A section of 
 the floor, some thirty inches square, stood at a little 
 past the perpendicular, resting against the bar. 
 
 I felt Joe s hand tighten hard on mine. Miss 
 Luppy s breath made a sudden sharp sound between 
 her teeth. We stood still, while bending over the 
 black emptiness below the unhappy woman called 
 upon her son. He did not answer we knew at 
 once that he would never answer. The open trap 
 door had told the story; he had gone down, but he 
 had never come up. 
 
 Then Joe, putting me back with a slight motion, 
 went to her side and gently took the lantern from 
 her hand. He leaned down, thrusting the lantern 
 well into the opening. I saw the top rung of a lad 
 der it was all I ever did see of the secret place of 
 Bandy Bates s contriving. For Joe rose with a white 
 face, and putting the mother very gently aside 
 closed the trap-door. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 I SAW Brett Morgan once again, on the day they 
 took him to his grave in the little cemetery on 
 the hillside, where the tall cypress trees stand 
 guard beside the gate. I had gone over early with 
 some flowers from Miss Luppy s garden, and as I 
 entered the room where he lay his mother s figure, 
 in fresh black, rose from beside the coffin. She 
 approached with a slow step as I stood hesitating 
 at the door, and offered me something which I took 
 from her mechanically. 
 
 "For you," she said in a dead voice. "I found 
 it on him he meant to leave it for you some- 
 wheres, I expect." She went out, leaving me with 
 a folded slip of paper in my hand. It contained a 
 few scrawled lines: 
 
 Good-by, Sally, for a while. Dont forget I love 
 you, nor how you kissed me there in the wood. You 
 been mine in my heart since then and I wont never 
 give you up. I love you always and am in life and 
 deth yours. B. M. 
 
 With this in my hand I went softly to his side. 
 339 
 
340 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 We were alone together in the poor and shabby 
 room, he handsomer than ever in his pale com 
 posure, his stern strong features touched to nobility 
 by the hand of death. As I looked at him there 
 came an intolerable ache into my throat, for it 
 seemed to me that here was the man who might- 
 have been, if so much strength and force and pride 
 had not been fettered and warped by ignorance and 
 poverty. Perhaps with his Spanish blood there had 
 come down to him the soul of some valiant old 
 hidalgo, hot and headstrong, arrogant and proud, 
 unable tamely to accept inferiority, lacking the 
 homely, plodding virtues on which the humbly 
 born must build their fortunes. But if fate had 
 placed him otherwise if Brett Morgan had been 
 of the conquistadors? Ah, he had belonged 
 there, back in the heroic days of Spain, not here in 
 the slumber and decay of Bandy s Flat, not in the 
 mean little house where he was lying now. All this 
 I thought more clearly afterward; how often and 
 often I have thought it! Then I knew only that a 
 sense of loss and futility, an aching pity and regret, 
 hurt me unbearably. I laid the flowers on his 
 crossed hands; and then I bent and touched his 
 forehead with my lips. 
 
 Now as to the manner of Brett Morgan s death : 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 341 
 
 the ladder that descended into the secret place was 
 old; a rung half-way down had rotted from its fas 
 tenings with the passing of a quarter of a century. 
 It had given way under his feet that night the last 
 time, perhaps, that he would ever have trodden it. 
 The fall was trifling in itself, but somehow the re 
 volver he carried had been caught and discharged, 
 shooting him through the body. He had been dying 
 while I hurried over the flume in the darkness, 
 {praying that I might reach the dam before he came. 
 As to the place itself, it was a simple contrivance 
 after all. On the pretense that the cutting away of 
 the cliff had weakened the foundations of the build 
 ing, Mr. Bates had got in a load of brick and con 
 structed a new rear wall. But he had built it, not 
 flush with the old wall but some six feet in advance 
 of it. Probably no one but the dead barkeeper was 
 sufficiently familiar with the cellar to have observed 
 the change, even if Bandy had encouraged visitors. 
 Behind this wall was stored the unsold stock of 
 whisky, as well as other matters which the old gen 
 tleman had preferred to keep from his spouse s 
 knowledge. The trap-door in the shadow of the 
 bar was a neat affair, admirably designed to escape 
 attention, as well as unlikely to receive much in the 
 deserted state of the building. 
 
342 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 I was not among those who, on the day after the 
 burial of Brett Morgan, descended into the hiding- 
 place to inventory its contents. No motive of in 
 terest or curiosity could outweigh for me the horror 
 of the spot where the man who in his wild way had 
 loved me well had met his lonely death. But Joe 
 went, and Miss Luppy, and Kit, speechlessly enrap 
 tured, and also Mr. Hackett, who had returned to 
 the Flat too late for his own purposes, but remained 
 to witness the last act of the drama of which, 
 though an actor in it, he now understood the real 
 plot for the first time. He had heard the details 
 v/ith great interest, remarking that, as the poet said, 
 truth was stranger than fiction. 
 
 Besides some unimportant trifles the contents of 
 the hiding-place were some kegs still remaining of 
 the whisky, which were later carried to the brink 
 of the mine and staved in by Miss Luppy s order 
 and under her immediate and suspicious superin 
 tendence and in a niche behind some loosened 
 bricks a metal box. The lock had been forced, and 
 when the box was opened the first thing revealed was 
 Joe s wallet, containing the strangely-fated letter of 
 Bandy Bates. This letter I transcribe : 
 
 Dear Nephew Joseph 
 
 Since hearing of your mother s death you have 
 
FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 343 
 
 been much in my mind. There you are an orphan 
 and alone away off in old York State, and here am 
 I an aging man, alone too as far as any of my own 
 blood are concerned, away off in this Golden State 
 of California. Now what I have been thinking is, 
 that we two are all that is left of the family. I have 
 no children, and God knows sorely disappointed 
 about it. Why not then, Nephew Joseph, come out 
 to your old Uncle here in the Golden West, and be 
 what my own boy would have been to me if I had 
 had one? As you may have heard from your 
 mother, I have done well and prospered since run 
 ning away from home to California over forty 
 years ago. I am maybe not as rich as some think, 
 on account of liking speculation too well, but there 
 is plenty to leave Mrs. B. comfortable and a good 
 wad besides that I have put into a form convenient 
 for keeping out of sight and have now laid away 
 where Mrs. B. may hunt from garret to cellar as 
 often as she takes the notion without finding it. 
 Women have their good points, Nephew Joseph, 
 but one of them isn t letting a man alone to run his 
 affairs as he s a mind to. 
 
 Now, Nephew Joseph, this sum that I have laid 
 by, and on which my widow would have no claim, 
 being provided for otherwise to the extent of her 
 legal share of my estate, is meant for you, being as 
 you are all that is left me of my kin. Won t you, 
 then, come out to your old Uncle for the few years 
 he has left, to give me the satisfaction of seeing 
 with my own eyes that I leave my money in good 
 hands? Don t delay, for I am getting old and 
 breaking a good deal, and there is no one here that 
 I can trust to know about the place where I have 
 put your inheritance, along with what I can t find 
 it in my conscience to traffic in any more, nor in 
 
344 FORTUNE AT BANDY S FLAT 
 
 my heart to throw away. I have been working 1 like 
 a day-laborer lately, so that I know my neighbors 
 say I have turned skin-flint in my old age and am 
 trying to save wages. But when you come we can 
 laugh at them together. Please write soon, and let 
 me know you are agreeable to do as I wish. 
 Yours affec. uncle, 
 
 HEBER J. BATES. 
 
 Beneath the wallet in the box were government 
 securities to the amount of two hundred thousand 
 dollars. They were of an issue nearly thirty years 
 old and the interest had long since ceased. But 
 what had accrued during the years when it was still 
 running made a substantial addition to the principal. 
 
 What Joe s legal claim would have been I don t 
 know, because Miss Luppy refused even to take 
 half and at once handed over the securities to him, 
 only reluctantly consenting in the end to accept the 
 sum represented by the interest. And as it is under 
 stood that Joe is to be her heir, some day, I sup 
 pose, the old home of Bandy Bates will be ours. 
 
 Joe, by the way, did not sign the South Ameri 
 can contract. The long-delayed legacy of Bandy 
 Bates made it unnecessary, and besides, the chief 
 thought that as a married man Joe ought to have 
 a job nearer home. 
 
 THE END 
 
L-\J 
 
 M530836