“It is, indeed, strange,” said I, rather thinking aloud than addressing my companion, “that this brute force should have achieved for us by outrage what love failed in. Fate seems to have played Brute against Brute, that Love might step between and claim the victory. The lady is safe; but the lover may have won her life and lost his own.”
“Look here, stranger,” says Armstrong, “part of this is yourn,” pointing to the money-belt, which, with the dead man’s knife and pistol, he had taken from the corpse. “Halves of this and the other fellow’s plunder belongs to your party.”
I suppose I looked disgusted; yet I have seen gentle ladies wearing boastfully brooches that their favorite heroes had taken from Christian men dead on the field at Inkermann, and shawls of the loot of Delhi cover many shoulders that would shudder over a dead worm.
“I’m not squimmidge,” said Armstrong. “It’s my own and my brother’s money in them belts. I’ll count that out, and then, ef you wont take your part, I’ll pass it over to the gal’s father. I allowed from signs ther was, that that thar boss Mormon had about tuk the old man’s pile. Most likely these shiners they won last night is some of the very sufferins Sizzum got from him. It’s right he should hev ’em back.”
I acknowledged the justice of this restitution.
“Now,” said Armstrong again, “you want to stay by your friend and the gal, so I’ll take one of the pack mules and fetch your two saddles along before dark lights down. It was too bad to lose that iron gray; but there’s more ’n two horses into the hide of that black of yourn. He was the best man of the lot for the goin’, the savin’, and the killin’. Stranger, I’ve ben byin’ and sellin’ and breedin’ kettrypids ever since I was raised myself; but I allow I never seed a HORSE till I seed him lunge off with you two on his back.”
Armstrong rode up the Alley again. Another man he was since his commission of vengeance had been accomplished. In those lawless wilds, vendetta takes the place of justice, becomes justice indeed. Armstrong, now that his stern duty was done, was again the kindly, simple fellow nature made him, the type of a class between pioneer and settler, and a strong, brave, effective class it is. It was the education, in youth, in the sturdy habits of this class, that made our Washington the manly chief he was.
I returned to my friends by the Springs.
Emerging from the austere grandeur of the Alley, dim with the shadows of twilight, the scene without was doubly sweet and almost domestic. The springs, four or five in number, and one carrying with it a thread of hot steam, sprang vigorously out along the bold edges of the cliffs. All the ground was verdure,—green, tender, and brilliant, a feast to the eyes after long staring over sere deserts. The wild creatures that came there every day for refreshment, and perhaps for intoxication in the aerated tipple of the Champagne Spring, kept the grass grazed short as the turf of a park. Two great spruce-trees, each with one foot under the rocks, and one edging fountainward, stood, pillar under pyramid. Some wreaths of drooping creepers, floating from the crags, had caught and clung, and so gone winding among the dark foliage of the twin trees; and now their leaves, ripened by autumn, shook amid the dusky green like an alighting of orioles. Except for the spruces posted against the cliffs, the grassy area of an acre about the springs was clear of other growth than grass. Below, the rivulet disappeared in a green thicket, and farther down were large cottonwoods, and one tall stranger tree, the feminine presence of a drooping elm, as much unlooked-for here as the sweet, delicate woman whom strange chances had brought to dignify and grace the spot. This stranger elm filled my heart with infinite tender memories of home, and of those early boyish days when Brent and I lay under the Berkeley College elms, or strayed beneath the elm-built arches up and down the avenues of that fair city clustered round the College. In those bright days, before sorrow came to him, or to me my harsh necessity, we two in brotherhood had trained each other to high thoughts of courtesy and love,—a dreamed-of love for large heroic souls of women, when our time of full-completed worthiness should come. And his time had come. And yet it might be that the wounded knight would never know his lady, as much loving as beloved; it might be that he would never find a sweeter soothing in her touch, than the mere touch of gratitude and common charity; it might be that he would fever away his beautiful life with the fever of his wound, and never feel the holy quiet of a lover’s joy when the full bliss of love returned is his.
I gave a few moments to the horses and mules. They were still to be unsaddled. Healthy Fulano had found his own way to water, and now was feasting on the crisp, short grass along the outlet of the Champagne Spring, tickling his nose with the bubbles of gas as they sped by. Sup, Fulano! This spot was worth the gallop to see Sup, Fulano, the brave, and may no stain of this day’s righteous death-doing rest upon your guiltless life!