From Sand Hill to Pine

“But,” said Masterton, as the wind volleyed the sharp snow pellets in their faces and the leaders were scarcely distinguishable through the smoke-like discharges, “it can’t be worse than here.”

The driver did not speak, but the other passenger craned over his back, and said explanatorily:—

“I reckon ye don’t know these storms; this kind o’ dry snow don’t stick and don’t clog. Look!”

Indeed, between the volleys, Masterton could see that the road was perfectly bare and wind-swept, and except slight drifts and banks beside outlying bushes and shrubs,—which even then were again blown away before his eyes,—the level landscape was unclothed and unchanged. Where these mysterious snow pellets went to puzzled and confused him; they seemed to vanish, as they had appeared, into the air about them.

“I’d make a straight rush for the next station,” said the other passenger confidently to the driver. “If we’re stuck, we’re that much on the way; if we turn back now, we’ll have to take the grade anyway when the storm’s over, and neither you nor I know when THAT’ll be. It may be only a squall just now, but it’s gettin’ rather late in the season. Just pitch in and drive all ye know.”

The driver laid his lash on the horses, and for a few moments the heavy vehicle dashed forward in violent conflict with the storm. At times the elastic hickory framework of its domed leather roof swayed and bent like the ribs of an umbrella; at times it seemed as if it would be lifted bodily off; at times the whole interior of the vehicle was filled with a thin smoke by drifts through every cranny. But presently, to Masterton’s great relief, the interminable level seemed to end, and between the whitened blasts he could see that the road was descending. Again the horses were urged forward, and at last he could feel that the vehicle began to add the momentum of its descent to its conflict with the storm. The blasts grew less violent, or became only the natural resistance of the air to their dominant rush. With the cessation of the snow volleys and the clearing of the atmosphere, the road became more strongly defined as it plunged downward to a terrace on the mountain flank, several hundred feet below. Presently they came again upon a thicker growth of bushes, and here and there a solitary fir. The wind died away; the cold seemed to be less bitter. Masterton, in his relief, glanced smilingly at his companions on the box, but the driver’s mouth was compressed as he urged his team forward, and the other passenger looked hardly less anxious. They were now upon the level terrace, and the storm apparently spending its fury high up and behind them. But in spite of the clearing of the air, he could not but notice that it was singularly dark. What was more singular, the darkness seemed to have risen from below, and to flow in upon them as they descended. A curtain of profound obscurity, darker even than the mountain wall at their side, shut out the horizon and the valley below. But for the temperature, Masterton would have thought a thunderstorm was closing in upon them. An odd feeling of uneasiness crept over him.

A few fitful gusts now came from the obscurity; one of them was accompanied by what seemed a flight of small startled birds crossing the road ahead of them. A second larger and more sustained flight showed his astonished eyes that they were white, and each bird an enormous flake of SNOW! For an instant the air was filled with these disks, shreds, patches,—two or three clinging together,—like the downfall shaken from a tree, striking the leather roof and sides with a dull thud, spattering the road into which they descended with large rosettes that melted away only to be followed by hundreds more that stuck and STAYED. In five minutes the ground was white with it, the long road gleaming out ahead in the darkness; the roof and sides of the wagon were overlaid with it as with a coating of plaster of Paris; the harness of the horses, and even the reins, stood out over their steaming backs like white trappings. In five minutes more the steaming backs themselves were blanketed with it; the arms and legs of the outside passengers pinioned to the seats with it, and the arms of the driver kept free only by incessant motion. It was no longer snowing; it was “snowballing;” it was an avalanche out of the slopes of the sky. The exhausted horses floundered in it; the clogging wheels dragged in it; the vehicle at last plunged into a billow of it—and stopped.

The bewildered and half blinded passengers hurried out into the road to assist the driver to unship the wheels and fit the steel runners in their axles. But it was too late! By the time the heavy wagon was converted into a sledge, it was deeply imbedded in wet and clinging snow. The narrow, long-handled shovels borrowed from the prospectors’ kits were powerless before this heavy, half liquid impediment. At last the driver, with an oath, relinquished the attempt, and, unhitching his horses, collected the passengers and led them forward by a narrower and more sheltered trail toward the next stations now scarce a mile away. The led horses broke a path before them, the snow fell less heavily, but it was nearly an hour before the straggling procession reached the house, and the snow-coated and exhausted passengers huddled and steamed round the red-hot stove in the bar-room. The driver had vanished with his team into the shed; Masterton’s fellow passenger on the box-seat, after a few whispered words to the landlord, also disappeared.

“I see you’ve got Jake Poole with you,” said one of the bar-room loungers to Masterton, indicating the passenger who had just left. “I reckon he’s here on the same fool business.”

Masterton looked his surprise and mystification.

“Jake Poole, the deputy sheriff,” repeated the other. “I reckon he’s here pretendin’ to hunt for Montagu Trixit like the San Francisco detectives that kem up yesterday.”

Masterton with difficulty repressed a start. He had heard of Poole, but did not know him by sight. “I don’t think I understand,” he said coolly.

“I reckon you’re a stranger in these parts,” returned the lounger, looking at Masterton curiously. “Ef you warn’t, ye’d know that about the last man San Francisco or Canada City WANTED to ketch is Monty Trixit! He knows too much and THEY know it. But they’ve got to keep up a show chase—a kind o’ cirkis-ridin’—up here to satisfy the stockholders. You bet that Jake Poole hez got his orders—they might kill him to shut his mouth, ef they got an excuse—and he made a fight—but he ain’t no such fool. No, sir! Why, the sickest man you ever saw was that director that kem up here with a detective when he found that Monty HADN’T left the State.”

“Then he IS hiding about here?” said Masterton, with assumed calmness.

The man paused, lowered his voice, and said: “I wouldn’t swear he wasn’t a mile from whar we’re talkin’ now. Why, they do allow that he’s taken a drink at this very bar SINCE the news came!—and that thar’s a hoss kept handy in the stable already saddled just to tempt him ef he was inclined to scoot.”

“That’s only a bluff to start him goin’ so that they kin shoot him in his tracks,” said a bystander.

“That ain’t no good ef he has, as they SAY he has, papers stowed away with a friend that would frighten some mighty partickler men out o’ their boots,” returned the first speaker. “But he’s got his spies too, and thar ain’t a man that crosses the Divide as ain’t spotted by them. The officers brag about havin’ put a cordon around the district, and yet they’ve just found out that he managed to send a telegraphic dispatch from Black Rock station right under their noses. Why, only an hour or so arter the detectives and the news arrived here, thar kem along one o’ them emigrant teams from Pike, and the driver said that a smart-lookin’ chap in store-clothes had come out of an old prospector’s cabin up thar on the rise about a mile away and asked for a newspaper. And the description the teamster gave just fitted Trixit to a T. Well, the information was give so public like that the detectives HAD to make a rush over thar, and b’gosh! although thar wasn’t a soul passed them but a file of Chinese coolies, when they got thar they found NOTHIN’,—nothin’ but them Chinamen cookin’ their rice by the roadside.”

Masterton smiled carelessly, and walked to the window, as if intent upon the still falling snow. But he had at once grasped the situation that seemed now almost providential for his inexperience and his mission. The man he was seeking was within his possible reach, if the story he had heard was true. The detectives would not be likely to interfere with his plans, for he was the only man who really wished to meet the fugitive. The presence of Poole made him uneasy, though he had never met the man before. Was it barely possible that he was on the same mission on behalf of others? IF what he heard was true, there might be others equally involved with the absconding manager. But then the spies—how could the deputy sheriff elude them, and how could HE?

He was turning impatiently away from the window when his eye caught sight of a straggling file of Chinamen breasting the storm on their way up the hill. A sudden idea seized him. Perhaps THEY were the spies in question. He remembered the driver’s story. A sudden flash of intuition made him now understand the singular way the file of coolies which they met had diverted their course after passing the wagon. They had recognized the deputy on the box. Stay!—there was another Chinaman in the coach; HE might have given them the signal. He glanced hurriedly around the room for him; he was gone. Perhaps he had already joined the file he had just seen. His only hope was to follow them—but how? and how to do it quietly? The afternoon was waning; it would be three or four hours before the down coach would arrive, from which the driver expected assistance. Now, if ever, was his opportunity.

He made his way through the back door, and found himself among the straw and chips of the stable-yard and woodshed. Still uncertain what to do, he mechanically passed before the long shed which served as temporary stalls for the steaming wagon horses. At the further end, to his surprise, was a tethered mustang ready saddled and bridled—the opportune horse left for the fugitive, according to the lounger’s story. Masterton cast a quick glance around the stable; it was deserted by all save the feeding animals.

He was new to adventures of this kind, or he would probably have weighed the possibilities and consequences. He was ordinarily a thoughtful, reflective man, but like most men of intellect, he was also imaginative and superstitious, and this crowning accident of the providential situation in which he found himself was superior to his logic. There would also be a grim irony in his taking this horse for such a purpose. He again looked and listened. There was no one within sight or hearing. He untied the rope from the bit-ring, leaped into the saddle, and emerged cautiously from the shed. The wet snow muffled the sound of the horse’s hoofs. Moving round to the rear of the stable so as to bring it between himself and the station, he clapped his heels into the mustang’s flanks and dashed into the open.

At first he was confused and bewildered by the half hidden boulders and snow-shrouded bushes that beset the broken ground, and dazzled by the still driving storm. But he knew that they would also divert attention from his flight, and beyond, he could now see a white slope slowly rising before him, near whose crest a few dark spots were crawling in file, like Alpine climbers. They were the Chinamen he was seeking. He had reasoned that when they discovered they were followed they would, in the absence of any chance of signaling through the storm, detach one of their number to give the alarm. HIM he would follow. He felt his revolver safe on his hip; he would use it only if necessary to intimidate the spies.

For some moments his ascent through the wet snow was slow and difficult, but as he advanced, he felt a change of temperature corresponding to that he had experienced that afternoon on the wagon coming down. The air grew keener, the snow drier and finer. He kept a sharp lookout for the moving figures, and scanned the horizon for some indication of the prospector’s deserted hut. Suddenly the line of figures he was watching seemed to be broken, and then gathered together as a group. Had they detected him? Evidently they had, for, as he had expected, one of them had been detached, and was now moving at right angles from the party towards the right. With a thrill of excitement he urged his horse forward; the group was far to the left, and he was nearing the solitary figure. But to his astonishment, as he approached the top of the slope he now observed another figure, as far to the left of the group as he was to the right, and that figure he could see, even at that distance, was NOT a Chinaman. He halted for a better observation; for an instant he thought it might be the fugitive himself, but as quickly he recognized it was another man—the deputy. It was HE whom the Chinaman had discovered; it was HE who had caused the diversion and the dispatch of the vedette to warn the fugitive. His own figure had evidently not yet been detected. His heart beat high with hope; he again dashed forward after the flying messenger, who was undoubtedly seeking the prospector’s ruined hut and—Trixit.

But it was no easy matter. At this elevation the snow had formed a crust, over which the single Chinaman—a lithe young figure—skimmed like a skater, while Masterton’s horse crashed though it into unexpected depths. Again, the runner could deviate by a shorter cut, while the horseman was condemned to the one half obliterated trail. The only thing in Masterton’s favor, however, was that he was steadily increasing his distance from the group and the deputy sheriff, and so cutting off their connection with the messenger. But the trail grew more and more indistinct as it neared the summit, until at last it utterly vanished. Still he kept up his speed toward the active little figure—which now seemed to be that of a mere boy—skimming over the frozen snow. Twice a stumble and flounder of the mustang through the broken crust ought to have warned him of his recklessness, but now a distinct glimpse of a low, blackened shanty, the prospector’s ruined hut, toward which the messenger was making, made him forget all else. The distance was lessening between them; he could see the long pigtail of the fugitive standing out from his bent head, when suddenly his horse plunged forward and downward. In an awful instant of suspense and twilight, such as he might have seen in a dream, he felt himself pitched headlong into suffocating depths, followed by a shock, the crushing weight and steaming flank of his horse across his shoulder, utter darkness, and—merciful unconsciousness.

How long he lay there thus he never knew. With his returning consciousness came this strange twilight again,—the twilight of a dream. He was sitting in the new church at Canada City, as he had sat the first Sunday of his arrival there, gazing at the pretty face of Cissy Trixit in the pew opposite him, and wondering who she was. Again he saw the startled, awakened light that came into her adorable eyes, the faint blush that suffused her cheek as she met his inquiring gaze, and the conscious, half conceited, half girlish toss of her little head as she turned her eyes away, and then a file of brown Chinamen, muttering some harsh, uncouth gibberish, interposed between them. This was followed by what seemed to be the crashing in of the church roof, a stifling heat succeeded by a long, deadly chill. But he knew that THIS last was all a dream, and he tried to struggle to his feet to see Cissy’s face again,—a reality that he felt would take him out of this horrible trance,—and he called to her across the pew and heard her sweet voice again in answer, and then a wave of unconsciousness once more submerged him.

He came back to life with a sharp tingling of his whole frame as if pierced with a thousand needles. He knew he was being rubbed, and in his attempts to throw his torturers aside, he saw faintly by the light of a flickering fire that they were Chinamen, and he was lying on the floor of a rude hut. With his first movements they ceased, and, wrapping him like a mummy in warm blankets, dragged him out of the heap of loose snow with which they had been rubbing him, toward the fire that glowed upon the large adobe hearth. The stinging pain was succeeded by a warm glow; a pleasant languor, which made even thought a burden, came over him, and yet his perceptions were keenly alive to his surroundings. He heard the Chinamen mutter something and then depart, leaving him alone. But presently he was aware of another figure that had entered, and was now sitting with its back to him at a rude table, roughly extemporized from a packing-box, apparently engaged in writing. It was a small Chinaman, evidently the one he had chased! The events of the past few hours—his mission, his intentions, and every incident of the pursuit—flashed back upon him. Where was he? What was he doing here? Had Trixit escaped him?

In his exhausted state he was unable to formulate a question which even then he doubted if the Chinaman could understand. So he simply watched him lazily, and with a certain kind of fascination, until he should finish his writing and turn round. His long pigtail, which seemed ridiculously disproportionate to his size,—the pigtail which he remembered had streamed into the air in his flight,—had partly escaped from the discovered hat under which it had been coiled. But what was singular, it was not the wiry black pigtail of his Mongolian fellows, but soft and silky, and as the firelight played upon it, it seemed of a shining chestnut brown! It was like—like—he stopped—was he dreaming again? A long sigh escaped him.

The figure instantly turned. He started. It was Cissy Trixit! There was no mistaking that charming, sensitive face, glowing with health and excitement, albeit showing here and there the mark of the pigment with which it had been stained, now hurriedly washed off. A little of it had run into the corners of her eyelids, and enhanced the brilliancy of her eyes.

He found his tongue with an effort. “What are you doing here?” he asked with a faint voice, and a fainter attempt to smile.

“That’s what I might ask about you,” she said pertly, but with a slight touch of scorn; “but I guess I know as well as I do about the others. I came here to see my father,” she added defiantly.

“And you are the—the—one—I chased?”

“Yes; and I’d have outrun you easily, even with your horse to help you,” she said proudly, “only I turned back when you went down into that prospector’s hole with your horse and his broken neck atop of you.”

He groaned slightly, but more from shame than pain. The young girl took up a glass of whiskey ready on the table and brought it to him. “Take that; it will fetch you all right in a moment. Popper says no bones are broken.”

Masterton waived the proffered glass. “Your father—is he here?” he asked hurriedly, recalling his mission.

“Not now; he’s gone to the station—to—fetch—my clothes,” she said, with a little laugh.

“To the station?” repeated Masterton, bewildered.

“Yes,” she replied, “to the station. Of course you don’t know the news,” she added, with an air of girlish importance. “They’ve stopped all proceedings against him, and he’s as free as you are.”

Masterton tried to rise, but another groan escaped him. He was really in pain. Cissy’s bright eyes softened. She knelt beside him, her soft breath fanning his hair, and lifted him gently to a sitting position.

“Oh, I’ve done it before,” she laughed, as she read his wonder, with his gratitude, in his eyes. “The horse was already stiff, and you were nearly so, by the time I came up to you and got”—she laughed again—“the OTHER Chinaman to help me pull you out of that hole.”

“I know I owe you my life,” he said, his face flushing.

“It was lucky I was there,” she returned naively; “perhaps lucky you were chasing me.”

“I’m afraid that of the many who would run after you I should be the least lucky,” he said, with an attempt to laugh that did not, however, conceal his mortification; “but I assure you that I only wished to have an interview with your father,—a BUSINESS interview, perhaps as much in his interest as my own.”

The old look of audacity came back to her face. “I guess that’s what they all came here for, except one, but it didn’t keep them from believing and saying he was a thief behind his back. Yet they all wanted his—confidence,” she added bitterly.

Masterton felt that his burning cheeks were confessing the truth of this. “You excepted one,” he said hesitatingly.

“Yes—the deputy sheriff. He came to help ME.”

“You!”

“Yes, ME!” A coquettish little toss of her head added to his confusion. “He threw up his job just to follow me, without my knowing it, to see that I didn’t come to any harm. He saw me only once, too, at the house when he came to take possession. He said he thought I was ‘clear grit’ to risk everything to find father, and he said he saw it in me when he was there; that’s how he guessed where I was gone when I ran away, and followed me.”

“He was as right as he was lucky,” said Masterton gravely. “But how did you get here?”

She slipped down on the floor beside him with an unconscious movement that her masculine garments only made the more quaintly girlish, and, clasping her knee with both hands, looked at the fire as she rocked herself slightly backward and forward as she spoke.

“It will shock a proper man like you, I know,” she began demurely, “but I came ALONE, with only a Chinaman to guide me. I got these clothes from our laundryman, so that I shouldn’t attract attention. I would have got a Chinese lady’s dress, but I couldn’t walk in THEIR shoes,”—she looked down at her little feet encased in wooden sandals,—“and I had a long way to walk. But even if I didn’t look quite right to Chinamen, no white man was able to detect the difference. You passed me twice in the stage, and you didn’t know me. I traveled night and day, most of the time walking, and being passed along from one Chinaman to another, or, when we were alone, being slung on a pole between two coolies like a bale of goods. I ate what they could give me, for I dared not go into a shop or a restaurant; I couldn’t shut my eyes in their dens, so I stayed awake all night. Yet I got ahead of you and the sheriff,—though I didn’t know at the time what YOU were after,” she added presently.

He was overcome with wondering admiration of her courage, and of self-reproach at his own short-sightedness. This was the girl he had looked upon as a spoiled village beauty, satisfied with her small triumphs and provincial elevation, and vacant of all other purpose. Here was she—the all-unconscious heroine—and he her critic helpless at her feet! It was not a cheerful reflection, and yet he took a certain delight in his expiation. Perhaps he had half believed in her without knowing it. What could he do or say? I regret to say he dodged the question meanly.

“And you think your disguise escaped detection?” he said, looking markedly at her escaped braid of hair.

She followed his eyes rather than his words, half pettishly caught up the loosened braid, swiftly coiled it around the top of her head, and, clapping the weather-beaten and battered conical hat back again upon it, defiantly said: “Yes! Everybody isn’t as critical as you are, and even you wouldn’t be—of a Chinaman!”

He had never seen her except when she was arrayed with the full intention to affect the beholders and perfectly conscious of her attractions; he was utterly unprepared for this complete ignoring of adornment now, albeit he was for the first time aware how her real prettiness made it unnecessary. She looked fully as charming in this grotesque head-covering as she had in that paragon of fashion, the new hat, which had excited his tolerant amusement.

“I’m afraid I’m a very poor critic,” he said bluntly. “I never conceived that this sort of thing was at all to your taste.”

“I came to see my father because I wanted to,” she said, with equal bluntness.

“And I came to see him though I DIDN’T want to,” he said, with a cynical laugh.

She turned, and fixed her brown eyes inquiringly upon him.

“Why did you come, then?”

“I was ordered by my directors.”

“Then you did not believe he was a thief?” she asked, her eyes softening.

“It would ill become me to accuse your father or my directors,” he answered diplomatically.