Dick gave his testimony in a dulled voice that sounded strange and unfamiliar, telling all that the engineer had said of the assault. He had one rage of vindictiveness, when the three men from Denver were identified as the ones who had 196 attacked the engineer, and regretted that they were alive to meet the charge against them. He but vaguely understood the technical phraseology of Doctor Mills when he stated that Bells Park died from the shock of the blows and kicks rained on him in that last valorous chapter of his life. He heard the decision placing the responsibility on the men from Denver, saw the sheriff and his deputies step forward and lay firm hands on their arms and lead them away; and then was aroused by the heavy entrance of the camp undertaker to make ready, for the quiet sleep, the body of Bells Park, the engineer.
“He belongs to us,” said Dick numbly; “to Bill and me. He died for the Croix d’Or. The Croix d’Or will keep him forever, as it would if he had lived and we had made good.”
He saw, as they trudged past the High Light, that its door was shut, and remembered, afterward, a tiny white notice pasted on the glass. The trail across the divide was of interminable length, as was that other climb up to the foot of the yellow cross on the peak, and to the grave he had caused to be dug beside that other one which Bells had guarded with jealous care, planted with flowers, weeded, and where a faded, rough little cross bore the rudely carved inscription:
A DISASTEROUS BLOW
MEHITABLE PARK.
THE BEST WOMAN THAT EVER LIVED.
Those who had come to pay the last honor to the little engineer filed back down the hill, and the Croix d’Or was left alone, silent and idle. The smoke of the banked fires still wove little heat spirals above the stacks as if waiting for the man of the engines. The men were shamefacedly standing around the works and arguing, and one or two had rolled their blankets and dumped them on the bench beside the mess-house.
Two or three of them halted Dick and his partner as they started up the little path to the office building where they made their home.
“Well?” Bill asked, facing them with his penetrating eyes.
“We don’t want you boys to think we had any hand in any of this,” the old drill runner said, taking the lead. “They jobbed us. There were but three or four of the Cross men there when they voted a strike, and before that there wasn’t a man that hadn’t taken the floor and fought for your scale. The meeting dragged for some reason, because old Bells kept bringing up arguments––long-winded ones––as if holding it off.”
He appeared to choke up a little, and gave a swift glance over his shoulder at the yellow landmark above.