Money Magic: A Novel

by Hamlin Garland

Gradually his fear of this misfortune grew less. "What does it matter where death comes or when it comes? The quicker the better for all concerned."

Nevertheless, he opened the little phial of medicine which Steele had given him and swallowed two of the pellets. That they were a powerful stimulant of the heart he knew, but that an overdose would kill he only suspected from Steele's word of caution.

They were, indeed, magical in their effect. His brain cleared, his pulse grew stronger, and the feeling of benumbing weakness which dismayed him passed away.

The conductor, on his round, found him sitting silently at the window, very pale and very stern, his eyes fixed upon the brawling stream along whose winding course the railway climbed. While noting the number of Mart's pass the official leaned over and spoke in a low voice, but Haney heard what he said as through a mist. He was no longer moved by the sound of the bugle. A labor war was temporary, like a storm in the pines. It might arrest the mining for a few weeks or a month, but through it all, no matter what happened, deep down in the earth lay Bertha's wealth, secure of any marauder. So much he was able to reason out.

One or two of the passengers who knew him drew near, civilly inquiring as to his health, and to each one he explained that he was on the gain and that he was going up to the camp to study conditions for himself. They were all greatly excited by the news of battle, but they did not succeed in conveying their emotion to Haney. With impassive countenance he listened, and at the end remarked: "'Tis all of a stripe to me, boys. I'm like the soldier on the battle-field with both legs shot off. I hear the shouting and the tumult, but I'm out of the running."

Without understanding his mood, they withdrew, leaving him alone. His mind went back to Bertha. "What will she do when she finds me gone? She will not be scared at first. She will wire to stop me; but no matter—before she can reach me, I'll be high in the hills."

He could not prevent his mind from dwelling on her. He tried to fix his thoughts upon his life as a boyish adventurer, but could not keep to those earlier periods of his career. All of his days before meeting her seemed base or trivial or purposeless. She filled his memory to the exclusion of all other loves and desires. She was at once his wife and his child. He possessed a thousand bright pictures of her swift and graceful body, her sunny smile, her sweet, grave eyes. He recalled the first time he saw her on the street in Sibley, and groaned to think how basely he had planned against her. "She never knew that, thank God!" he said, fervently.

Then came that unforgetable drive to the ranch, when she put her hand in his—and on this hour he dwelt long, searching his mind deeply in order that no grain of its golden store of incident should escape him. His throat again began to ache with a full sense of the loss he was inflicting upon himself. "'Tis a lonely trail I'm takin' for your sake, darlin'," he whispered, "but 'tis all for the best."

Slowly the train creaked and circled up the heights, following the sharp turnings of the stream, passing small towns which were in effect summer camps of pleasure-seekers, on and upward into the moist heights where the grass was yet green and the slopes gay with flowers. A mood of exaltation came upon the doomed man as he rose. This was the place to die—up here where the affairs of men sank into insignificance like the sound of the mills and the rumble of trains. Here the centuries circled like swallows and the personal was lost in the ocean of silence.

At one of these towns which stood almost at the summit of the pass the conductor brought a telegram, and Mart seized it with eager, trembling hands. It was (as he expected) a warning from Bertha. She implored him to let the mine go and to return by the next train.