CHAPTER XXXVIII
BETH MAKES DEMANDS
Beth Kent, while the camp was writing its feverish annals, had undergone emotions in the whole varied order of the gamut. She had felt herself utterly deserted and utterly unhappy. She had hoped against hope that Van would come, that something might explain away his behavior, that she herself might have an opportunity of ascertaining what had occurred.
One clew only was vouchsafed her puzzling mind: Searle had actually gone to Glen at last, had been there at the hour of Van's arrival, and had written Glen's letter to herself. Some encounter between the men had doubtless transpired, she thought, and Van had been poisoned against her. What else could it mean, his coldness, his abrupt departure, after all that had been, and his stubborn silence since?
The letter from Glen had been wholly unsatisfactory. Bostwick had written it, he said, at Glen's dictation. It echoed the phrases that Searle himself had employed so persistently, many of them grossly mendacious, as Beth was sufficiently aware. Her effort had been futile, after all. She was not at all certain as to Glen's condition; she was wholly in the dark in all directions.
On the day succeeding the reservation rush she received the news at Mrs. Dick's, not only that Van had lost his claim, and that McCoppet and Searle were its latest owners, but also that Van had run amuck that night after leaving herself.
Some vague, half-terrifying intuition that Searle was engaged in a lawless, retaliatory enterprise crept athwart her mind and rendered her intensely uneasy. Her own considerable sum of money might even be involved in—she could not fathom what. Something that lay behind it all must doubtless explain Van's extraordinary change. It was maddening; she felt there must be something she could do—there must be something! She was not content to wait in utter helplessness for anything more to happen—anything more that served to wreck human happiness, if not very life itself!
She felt, moreover, she had a right to know what it was affecting Van. He had come unbidden into her life. He had swept her away with his riotous love. He had taught her new, almost frightening joys of existence. He had drawn upon her very soul—kissing into being a nature demanding love for love. He had taken her all for himself, despite her real resistance. She could not cease to love so quickly as he. She had rights, acquired in surrender—at least the right to know what evil thing had wrought its way upon him.
But fret as she might, and burn as she might, with impatience, love-created anger and resentment of some infamy, doubtless practiced on them both, there was nothing in the world she could do.
She wrote again to Glen and had the letter posted in the mail. She asked for information. Was he better? Could he come to Goldite soon? Had he met Mr. Van? Had he understood that confession in her letter? Had he really purchased a mine, with Searle, or had he, by some strange mischance, concerned himself with the others in taking the "Laughing Water" claim?
She explained that she was wholly in the dark, that worry was her only companion. She begged him to come, if traveling were possible, and told of her effort to see him.
That Bostwick had opened and read her letter to Glen, suppressing that final page, together with sundry questions and references to himself, she could never have dreamed. It is ignorance always that baffles, as we grope our way in the world. And Beth had not yet entirely lost all trust in Bostwick himself.
Searle, in the meantime, having gone straight to the "Laughing Water" claim from Glenmore Kent, had remained three days away from Goldite and had taken no time to write. When he came at last the girl's suspicions were thoroughly aroused. That the man was a dangerous trickster, a liar, and perhaps a scoundrel she was rapidly becoming convinced.
He arrived at the house in the late afternoon while Mrs. Dick and Beth were engaged together in the dining-room, sewing at a quilt. The meeting was therefore a quiet one and Beth escaped any lover-like demonstrations he might otherwise have made.
Mrs. Dick, in her frank dislike of Bostwick, finally carried her work upstairs.
"Well, well, sweetheart!" Bostwick exclaimed. "You must have heard the news, of course. I expect your congratulations!"
He rose and approached her eagerly. She was standing. She moved a chair and placed herself behind it.
"I suppose you mean the claim you've—taken," she said. "You're elated over that?"
"Good Lord! aren't you?" he answered. "It's the biggest thing I've ever done! It's worth a million, maybe more—that 'Laughing Water' claim! And to think that Van Buren, the romantic fool, putting marble slabs on the graves of the demi-monde, and riding about like a big tin toreador, should have bought a property on reservation ground, and lost it, gold and all!"
His relish in the triumph was fairly unctuous. His jaw seemed to oscillate in oil as he mouthed his contempt of the horseman.
Beth flamed with resentment. Her love for Van increased despite her judgment, despite her wish, as she heard him thus assailed. She knew he had placed a stone on Queenie's grave. She admired the fearless friendliness of the action—the token whereby he had linked the unfortunate girl in death to the human family from which she had severed herself in life.
Not to be goaded to indiscretion now she sat down as before with her work.
"And the money—yours and mine—did it go to assist in this unexpected enterprise, and not to buy a claim with Glen?"
"Certainly. No—no—not all of it—certainly not," he stammered, caught for a moment off his guard. "Some of my funds I used, of course, in necessary ways. Don't you worry about your thirty thousand. You'll get it back a hundredfold, from your interest in the claim."
She glanced up suddenly, startled by what he had said.
"My interest in the claim?"
"Certainly, your interest. You didn't suppose I'd freeze you out, my little woman—my little wife—to be? You are one of the company, of course. You'll be a director later on—and we'll clean up a fortune in a year!"
She was exceedingly pale. What wonder Van had a grievance! He had doubtless heard it all before he came that night to deliver Glen's letter from Starlight. He might even have thought she had sent him to Glen to got him away from his claim.
A thousand thoughts, that seemed to scorch like fire, went rocketing through her brain. The thing was too much to be understood at once—it went too deep—it involved such possibilities. She must try to hold herself in check—try to be clever with this man.
"Oh," she said, dropping her eyes to her work, "and Glen is in it too?"
Bostwick was nervous. He sat down.
"Well, yes—to some extent—a little slice of mine," he faltered. "Naturally he has less than I've given to you."
"But—didn't he discover the opportunity—the chance?"
"Certainly not!" he declared vehemently. "It's all my doing—everything! Wholly my idea from the start!" The impulse to boast, to vaunt his cleverness, was not to be resisted. "I told Van Buren the game had only begun! He thought himself so clever!"
She clung to her point.
"But—of course you told me Glen had found the chance, requiring sixty thousand dollars."
"That was a different proposition—nothing to do with this. I've dropped that game entirely. This is big enough for us all!"
She looked the picture of unsophisticated innocence, sewing at a gaudy square of cloth.
"Did this affair also require the expenditure of sixty thousand dollars?"
"No, of course not. Didn't I say so before?"
"How much did it need—if I may ask?"
Bostwick colored. He could not escape. He dared not even hint at the sum he had employed.
"Oh, just the bare expenses of the survey—nothing much."
"Then," she said, "if you don't mind returning my thirty thousand dollars, I think I'll relinquish my share."
He rose hurriedly.
"But I—but you—it won't be possible—just yet," he stammered. "This is perfectly absurd! I want you in—want you to retain your interest. There are certain development expenses—and—they can't be handled without considerable money."
"Why not use your own? I much prefer to withdraw." She said it calmly, and looked him in the eye.
He avoided her glance, and paced up and down the room.
"It can't be done!" he said. "I've pledged my support—our support—to get the claim on its feet."
She grew calmer and colder.
"Wasn't the claim already on its feet. I heard it was paying well—that quite a lot of gold was seized when—when you and the others took the place."
His impatience and uneasiness increased.
"Oh, it was being worked—in a pickyune, primitive fashion. We're going at it right!"
The color came and went in her face. She felt that the man had employed her money, and could not repay it if he would. She pushed the point.
"Of course, you'll remember I gave you the money to assist my brother Glen. It was not to help secure or develop this other property. I much prefer not to invest my money this way. I shall have to request its return."
Bostwick was white.
"Look here, Beth, is this some maudlin sentiment over that brigand, Van Buren? Is that what you mean?"
She rose once more and confronted him angrily. It was not a mere girl, but a strong and resolute woman he was facing.
"Mr. Bostwick," she said, "you haven't yet acquired the right to demand such a thing as that of me. For reasons of my own, maudlin or otherwise, I refuse to have my funds employed in the manner you say you mean to use them. I insist upon the immediate return to me of thirty thousand dollars."
If rage at Van Buren consumed his blood, Bostwick's fear was a greater emotion. Before him he could plainly discern the abject failure of his plans—the plan to marry this beautiful girl, the plan to go on with McCoppet and snatch a fortune from the earth. It was not a time for defiance. He must fence. He must yield as far as possible—till the claim should make him independent. Of the tirade on his tongue against Van Buren he dared not utter a word. His own affairs of love would serve no better.
He summoned a smile to his ghastly lips and attempted to assume a calm demeanor.
"Very well," he said. "If that is the way you feel about your money, I will pay you back at once."
"If you please," she said. "To-day."
"But—the bank isn't open after three," he said in a species of panic. "You can't be utterly unreasonable."
"It was open much later when we were wiring New York some time ago," she reminded him coldly. "I think you'll find it open to-night till nine."
"Well—perhaps I can arrange it, then," he said in desperation. "I'll get down there now and see what I can do."
He took his hat and, glad to escape a further inquisition, made remarkable haste from the house.
Trembling with excitement, quivering on the verge of half-discovered things, flashes of intuition, fragments of deduction, Beth waited an hour for developments.
Searle did not return. She had felt he would not. She was certain her money was gone.
At dusk a messenger boy arrived with the briefest note, in Bostwick's familiar hand.
"Sudden, urgent call to the claim. No time for business. Back as soon as possible. With love and faith, yours, SEARLE."
How she loathed his miserable lie!