The Desert Valley

by Jackson Gregory

Chapter XV

The Golden Secret

'Good morning, Mr. Howard!' cried Helen gaily. Her cheeks were still rosy, flushed, thought Howard quickly, less with the flood of the dawn than with some sudden rush of blood stirred by something that Carr had been saying. Then as she gave him her hand, inspired by the imp of the moment, she ran on: 'You should have been here last night! Shouldn't he, Mr. Carr? Sanchia was here!'

'Mrs. Murray?' demanded Howard, wondering and therefore floundering into Helen's trap. 'What was she doing here?'

Helen appeared to be in the lightest of spirits this morning. Her laughter was one of sheer joyousness. Her eyes were dancing as she retorted:

'Mrs. Murray? Who said Mrs. Murray? I was talking about Sanchia. Mr.
Chuck Evans rode her over last night, asking if we had seen you.'

Howard bit his lip. Carr laughed. Then, seeing the look upon his friend's face, he grew grave immediately and put out his own hand, saying merely:

'We wondered what had become of you, Al. And now to have you come in from that direction—and on foot! What's happened?'

'A side-winder scared my horse into breaking its tie-rope and leaving me on foot. And I've had enough walking to last me seven incarnations. Hello, Mr. Longstreet,' as he saw the professor step out of his canvas house. Howard went forward to meet him, leaving John Carr with Helen.

'Just the man I was wishing to see,' beamed Longstreet, shaking hands enthusiastically. 'I was on the verge of taking up the matter with your good friend Carr last night, but something prompted me to wait until this morning, in hopes you would come. I—I seem to know you better, somehow.' He lowered his voice confidentially. 'Those two out there are just a couple of youngsters this morning. You and I will have to be the serious brains of the occasion.'

Howard glanced over his shoulder. Carr's broad back was turned to him,
Helen's eyes, glancing toward the shack, were sparkling.

'Fire away,' he said colourlessly. 'What's in the wind?'

'First thing—Had breakfast yet?'

Oddly, Howard had no longer any appetite for coffee and bacon, though he had hungrily swallowed his last bit of dried meat an hour ago.

'Then,' said Longstreet eagerly, 'come in here where we can talk.' And to Helen he called, 'My dear, I want a few words with Mr. Howard.'

'Oh, we won't disturb you,' Helen laughed back at him. It struck Howard that she would laugh at anything this morning. 'Mr. Carr and I were just going up on the cliff for the view.'

Longstreet came in and dropped the flap behind him. Then he stepped to a shelf and took down a roll of paper which he spread upon the table. Howard looking at it with lack-lustre eyes saw that it was a sort of geological chart of the neighbourhood. Longstreet set his finger upon a point where he had made a cross in red pencil.

'It's there,' he announced triumphantly.

Howard was thinking of the view from the cliff and failed to grasp the other's meaning.

'What's there?' he asked.

'Gold, man!' cried Longstreet. 'Gold! Didn't I say it was as simple as A B C to find gold here? Well, I've done it!'

'Oh, gold.' And even yet Howard's interest was not greatly intrigued.
'I see.'

Longstreet stared at him wonderingly. And then, suddenly, Howard came to earth. Why, the thing, if true, was wonderful, glorious! With all his heart he hoped it was true; for Longstreet's dear old sake, for Helen's. He studied the map.

'That would be right over yonder? About half a mile from here? In Dry
Gulch?'

'Precisely. And it has been there since the time Dry Gulch was not dry but filled with rushing waters. It has been there for any man to find who was not a fool or blind. It rather looks,' and he chuckled, 'as though it had been waiting since the Pliocene age for me.'

'You are sure? You haven't just stumbled upon a little pocket——'

Longstreet snorted.

'I am going into the nearest fair-sized town right away,' he said emphatically, 'to get men and implements to begin a moderate development. It is a gold mine, my dear young sir—nothing else or less. Here; look at this.'

It was a handful of bits of quartz, brought up into the light from the depths of a sagging pocket. The quartz indicated high-grade ore; it was streaked and pitted with soft yellow gold.

'By the Lord, you've got it!' cried Howard. He wrung Longstreet's hand warmly. 'Good for you. You've got the thing you came for!'

'One of the things,' Longstreet corrected him with twinkling eyes.

'And the other?'

'Another gold mine! As our young friend Barbee puts it, I'm all loaded for bear this trip, partner!'

'And you haven't told Miss Helen? Or Carr?'

'Never a word. And for two very excellent reasons: Imprimis, they both were poking fun at me last night; Helen said that I couldn't find gold if it were in a minted twenty-dollar gold piece in my own pocket. Now I am having my revenge on them; I'll show them! Secundo: Next week comes Helen's birthday. I am going to give her a little surprise. A gold mine for a birthday present isn't bad, is it?'

Howard sat down to talk matters over, and since there was still coffee and some bits of toast left he changed his mind about breakfast and ate and drank while he listened to Longstreet. The university man had made certain of the value of his discovery only last evening; it had happened that Carr was staying over with them and therefore, while he and Helen chatted about a great deal of nothing at all, Longstreet had ample time to think matters over. To-day he meant to go into Big Run and on into the county seat, which he had learned was but a few miles further on and was a sizable town. There he would take on a small crew of men and what tools and implements and powder would be needed for uncovering his ledge and there he would attend to the necessary papers, the proving up on his claim, matters upon which he was somewhat hazy. The following day he would return and begin work.

'I've got to go down by the ranch,' Howard told him. 'Then, if you like, I can go on with you. It is possible I might be of service to you. At least, I could steer you into the right sort of people.'

Longstreet nodded vigorously. 'That's fine of you. And I won't say it was not expected. Some day, perhaps, I can repay you for some of your kindnesses to us. Now, if you are ready, I'll go and call Helen. And, remember, not a word to them about our business.'

'Miss Helen will go with us?'

'I can hardly leave her out here alone, can I?' smiled Longstreet. 'And Mr. Carr said that he would have to leave this morning. While he and Helen chat together, you and I can ride on ahead and talk. There are any number of matters to discuss.'

Howard hastily expressed his approval of the plan, and if his tone lacked heartiness, Longstreet did not notice.

'We are all going down to Desert Valley ranch,' Longstreet explained when Helen and Carr came at his calling. 'From there we are going to ride to Big Run and then on into San Ramon. I want to get some—some tools and things there, to scratch around with, you know,' he concluded, beaming with that expression that he wore when he had an ace in the hole. Helen looked at him with keen suspicious eyes.

'Papa is up to something underhanded,' she announced serenely. 'He thinks that he can fool me when he pleases and—look at his face! What is it, father?'

'Never mind,' said Longstreet hastily. 'Just get yourself ready, my dear. You'll ride with us, Mr. Carr?'

Helen, always ready for a ride, hurried for her hat and gloves; now from the end of the room, her eyes bright with mischief and hidden from the men, she called:

'Do come, Mr. Carr. I have to have some one to talk with, you know, and papa and Mr. Howard never let me slip a word in sideways.'

'She wasn't like this when we rode home in the moonlight the other night,' thought Howard, considerably puzzled. 'What have I done, anyway?'

Carr did not give a direct answer. While he cut the end off a fresh cigar, he suggested:

'How about the horses? Al is on foot.'

'That's easy,' Howard answered. 'Chuck Evans is herding a string up this way and I can get one of them. Be back while you are getting ready.' And over his shoulder to Carr, feeling vaguely that in his heart he had been unreasonable and not quite loyal, 'Better come along, John.'

From the edge of the tableland he saw Evans down below. The cowboy saw him and came at his signal.

'So you're back, are you?' said Chuck. 'We'd begun to wonder if you'd hit the trail for some other where. Special,' he added significantly, 'since it's been published kind of wide and large that you and Jim Courtot was both packing shooting-irons.'

'I haven't seen Courtot,' Howard told him carelessly, 'and I'm beginning to believe that he has other calves to brand and has pretty well forgotten all about me. I'm shy a horse, Chuck. Scare one up for me to ride back to the ranch, will you?'

By the time Chuck on his own horse had roped a mount for Howard the little party was ready. They rode down into the valley four abreast and across the fields to the ranch-house. Helen seemed a new creature this morning, utterly tantalizing and not a little perverse. Howard did not know what a proud and independent little person she was, nor did he know that each day during the week she had expected him to ride over, and had finally told herself point-blank that it did not matter the least snap of her fingers whether he ever came or not. Naturally, she did not know what had kept him away or that he had even wanted to come. Now that she had heard his remark about a lost horse and a long walk she was burning with curiosity. But that was another matter hidden from Alan.

She did remark the big revolver at his hip and when opportunity arose mentioned it to Carr. Wasn't it rather strange, she wanted to know, and even somewhat absurd that a man should go about armed like that? Carr evaded and made a vague remark about a man riding across the Bad Lands perhaps with money in his pocket. But John Carr was a blunt, straightforward type of a man, little given to finesse in circumlocution, and Helen fixed her frank, level gaze upon him and knew that he was holding back something. Still higher rose her curiosity about a man whom she did her feminine best to ignore this morning.

Before they came to the ranch-house Helen and her father were riding ahead, while the two friends dropped further and further back. Carr listened with keen interest as Alan sketched the happenings of the last few days. He whistled softly at what he learned of the man on the trail of Jim Courtot. But he shook his head when Alan predicted that, soon or late, Kish Taka would kill the gambler.

'It's white man and Indian, Al,' he said. 'The thing always works out the same way. Jim got one of the two of them, didn't he? Well, he'll get the other. And what I know of the breed of your friend Kish Taka, they're a pretty low-lived bunch and there'd be precious little harm done if they killed each other.'

But Alan shook his head. 'Kish Taka is a pretty deep shade of dark on the outside, but he's white clean through under the hide of him. And I've got it clear in my head that he'll never quit on the trail until he's squared accounts with Courtot.'

'By the way,' said Carr carelessly after a moment, 'the professor seems all excited about something or other this morning. What's it all about?'

'What do you mean?' countered Howard.

'Oh, nothing. Only from the way he grabbed on to you I fancied that he had told you. I thought that if there were anything I could do for him——'

'No. There's nothing. He did tell me, but he asked me not to say anything about it. I'll tell you as soon as I can, John. To-night, maybe, or to-morrow.'

'Oh,' said Carr. 'I didn't mean to stampede in on a secret.' He turned to other matters and presently they fell silent, jogging along together, their eyes for the most part upon the girl riding ahead of them.

'Papa,' Helen was saying at her first opportunity, 'where has Mr.
Howard been?'

'I have no idea, my dear,' said her father placidly.

'What! You mean to tell me that you two have done all the talking you have, and that he hasn't said a word about where he has been hiding himself all this week?'

'Not a word.'

'H'm,' said Miss Helen, 'that's funny.' And then, 'Papa, do you know if he has had trouble with anyone lately?'

'What makes you ask that?' he queried uneasily, and Helen sat straighter in the saddle and looked him full in the face. For now she was positive that Alan had had trouble and that her father knew about it.

Longstreet hesitated. He had no desire to recount his experience at Moraga's saloon in Big Run. He had judged himself fortunate since the affair that Helen had been so absorbed in her new environment that she had not thought to call upon him for an accounting of the family funds. But even so, all along he had had a sort of fatalistic fear that in the end she would know everything; she always did.

'Well,' said Helen commandingly, 'tell me all about it.'

'Eh?' He started guiltily. 'About what?'

'About Mr. Howard's trouble with another man.'

Then Longstreet told her what he must. How, while he was with Barbee, a man named Jim Courtot had joined them. How Howard had happened along, looking for him, and had said that Jim Courtot was no gentleman. Ahem!—he had said it very emphatically, very. Longstreet did not recall the exact terms employed, but their purport was that Courtot was a crook and a—a man-killer. Courtot had whipped out a revolver, Howard had hurled himself upon him and had knocked him down. Table and chairs were overturned, and at first Longstreet thought that Courtot was dead. He was still unconscious when they left.

'Table?' said Helen. 'And chairs? Where were you? In whose house? For this didn't happen at the hotel and there was no table in the store.'

'In the—the house of a man named Moraga, I believe,' Longstreet answered hurriedly.

Helen looked at him severely.

'A saloon, wasn't it?' she asked, quite as a school teacher may put a leading question to a squirming little boy. When he did not answer immediately, Helen did not wait.

'I think,' she informed him judicially, 'that it will be better for you if I don't lose sight of you in these cattle and mining towns after this. And it would be a better thing for Mr. Howard if he did not frequent such places.'

'But you sent him for me!'

Helen merely sniffed at him. She was wondering if Jim Courtot really were a man-killer? She shuddered. Then she set her brain to work upon the name—Jim Courtot. It had a familiar ring; certainly she had heard it before. She and her father rode on in silence. She could hear Alan and Carr talking together again. Suddenly she remembered. It had been that afternoon when they went to Big Run. The two men had spoken of Mrs. Murray, remarking that she was in town. It had been Alan who had said on the heels of this remark:

'I'll bet you Jim Courtot has turned up again!'

That was it! Sanchia Murray—Jim Courtot. What had the one to do with the other? Had the enmity of the two men, Howard and Courtot, begun over Sanchia Murray?

When they came to the ranch-house and Alan was at her side to help her to the ground, Helen said, 'No, thank you,' quite stiffly and slipped down unaided.