‘Then,’ said Ben—and his answering smile was of a somewhat grimmer character, in spite of himself, than Morede’s had been—‘then I will tell you how my pardner at the mines introduced a stranger, who robbed me of fifteen hundred dollars. This stranger came, I should tell you, with information about Indians, on the war-path who were likely to be around our camp. But it was an arranged plot. He was a mean cuss, this stranger; he or his friends robbed the placers and broke the stamp-mill. It was either him or my pardner that shot at me from a gully; and the bullet went through my hat and cut away some of my hair. That was not the only time my pardner got his desperadoes to shoot at me; so I will tell you about him.’
Thereupon, stimulated by the desperate impulse we have alluded to, Ben proceeded to relate a part of the plot which had been devised for his ruin by his crafty partner; the incidents attendant on which greatly excited, and sometimes almost appalled his hearers, none among whom listened with more palpable interest than did Mr Morede. Ben told all, up to the action of the Vigilantes, but could not bring himself to speak of the final scene at the pool; there was something too horrible in the idea of describing that to his listeners. When Ben had finished, which he did by saying, ‘What do you think of that, Mr Morede?’ and looking his new partner straight in the face, the latter exclaimed, in what seemed the most genuine manner possible: ‘First-rate, Mr Creelock! I admire you. I see you have the real grit; and I wish I had been there to help you in such a fix. But, to my thinking, your partner was the worse of the two.’
‘He was,’ said Ben drily.
‘And he ought to have had his reward,’ continued Morede.
‘He had it,’ said Ben, with increased dryness.
‘Good! Good!’ cried Morede; and other comments being made, the conversation became general.
Morede bore his part all through the evening without a single allusion which could induce Ben to suppose he had the slightest remembrance of him, or had ever before heard a syllable relating to the dangerous stranger or the robberies. When they parted for the night, too, he was particularly demonstrative in his friendliness to Creelock, making quite a ‘smart oration,’ as Mr Showle afterwards remarked, on the agreeable evening he had passed, and the pleasure it would give him to be associated in business, and as he hoped, in still closer relationship with a man whom he admired and liked so much at first sight as he did Mr Creelock. Ben went home after this speech in doubt as to whether it was himself or every one around him that was going mad.
Day after day passed, and the new partners in the firm met frequently, with no diminution in the friendship which Mr Morede had from the first professed for Ben. They did not meet at the hotel, however; the strain on Ben’s nerves was bad enough when they met as part of a group. A tête-à-tête was more than he could stand with a man whom he believed to have killed, but who was now walking about as unconcernedly as though he had never been stretched by the side of that Colorado pool.
So confounded had Ben been by the apparition, that he had never thought of asking the Christian name of Mr Morede, and it came upon him as a new shock when he received a note from the warehouse on some business matters signed ‘Reuben Morede,’ while he could have sworn to the handwriting in a court of justice. This did not increase his certainty, for it could admit of no increase; he was certain, and could not go beyond that; but it seemed to make the position more dreadful and complicated. Now and then, too, he would find, if he turned quickly round, Mr Morede gazing fixedly upon him—an earnest gaze, as though he were striving to recall something to his memory; and this was not agreeable to Creelock.
He asked Ruth, as guardedly as possible, about her brother’s past career; but she knew nothing of it since he had left home. He had gone West, she knew; but he would not now utter a syllable in explanation, or even say how he had been employed. Ben could not press her very much upon the subject, as it was evidently a painful one. His departure from home had been caused by some disgraceful, possibly fatal broil—that was clear; so Ben forbore to question her.