The Mine with the Iron Door

by Harold Bell Wright

Without consciously willing his movements, indeed, without realizing where he was going, he climbed out of the cañon and hurried away up the mountain slopes and along the ridges in the direction of Natachee’s hut. With no clearly defined trail to follow, it is doubtful if in his normal mental state he could have found the place. He certainly would not have made the attempt, particularly at that time of day. But some subconscious memory must have guided him, for at sundown he found himself in the familiar gulch where he had toiled all through the winter for the gold that meant for him the realization of his dreams of freedom and happiness with Marta. When night came, he was seated on that spot from which he had so often, in the agony of those lonely months of hiding, watched the tiny point of light in the gloom of the cañon below.

With his eyes fixed on that red spot, which he knew was the window of Marta’s room, Hugh Edwards brooded over the series of events that had ended in that hour of his dead hopes and broken dreams.

His thoughts went back even to those glad days when he was graduated from his university, and when, with a heart of honest courage and purpose, he had accepted a position of trust in the institution that seemed to afford such an opportunity for service. He recalled every proud step of his advancement from office to office, of increasing responsibility.

He lived again that appalling hour when he knew that he had been promoted only that he might be betrayed. Again he suffered the agony of his arrest—the trial, with his baffled attempts to prove his innocence—the hideous publicity—the hatred of the people—and again he heard the sentence that condemned him to years in prison, and to a life of dishonor and shame.

Once more he endured the horror of a convict’s life—and the death of his mother.

Then came the terrible experiences of his escape—when he was hunted as a wild beast is hunted, with dogs and guns.

And then—the Cañon of Gold, with its promise of peace and safety—its blessed work and dreams and hopes—its miraculous gift of love.

One by one, the strange events of his life in the Cañon of Gold passed in review before him—the period when he lived in the cabin next door to the old prospectors and their partnership daughter—his comradeship with Marta and the sure development of their love—the story of the girl’s questionable parentage that had made it possible for him to think of her as his wife—then the visit of the sheriff—his enforced life of torment with the Indian, and his fruitless toil for the gold that held him with its promise of freedom and Marta.

Again he lived over the coming of the outlaw, with the sudden turn of fortune that made Natachee his ally, and gave him the gold from the Mine with the Iron Door.

And then, with the gold in his possession and all its promises almost within his grasp, the tragedy and disaster that had followed. Until now, having gained the wealth for which, inspired by love, he had toiled and fought, he had lost the thing which gave the gold its value. The thing for which he had wanted the gold had become impossible to him.