Chapter V: Part 5

The latter had kept men continuously at work on his newly acquired property since coming into possession of them; but the faith that was his in the beginning, grew fainter with the waning of Summer. Autumn brought decided doubt. With the coming of Winter came a certainty of their worthlessness, he knew he had been befooled by a sharp trickster, but how far his ignorance had been played upon he did not yet know. Nevertheless, he felt he had well earned the titles the camp had bestowed on him, for the claims, he found, were but relocations that had been abandoned years before as utterly worthless. He had simply thrown his dollars into the deep sea.

If only that had been all!

* * * * *

Evaleen Blaine and her father, contrary to all their earlier plans for a return to San Francisco at the beginning of Autumn, were still in Nevada, and there Winter found them, though the machinery was all placed and the big reservoir and dam completed. But an offer to buy the Monarch property--mines, mill, and all that went with them--had come from a New York syndicate, and the Judge was now detained by their agents. He must stay yet a few days more--then home to “mother and the girls.” Nor would Evaleen leave without him; so for the first time in all his married life he was to be away from home on Christmas. Thus matters stood when the greater half of December had gone.

* * * * *

A storm was brewing. There had been scarcely any rain or snow thus far, but a damp wind from the south had shut away the mountain behind dark and threatening clouds. The Judge found he was needed at the mine that morning, but had promised Evaleen he would be back the next night, to make Christmas eve as merry as possible for them both--separated from the others. By staying one night at the mine he could, without doubt, return on the morrow. He had kissed her good-bye and left her looking out of the window in the gloom of the early day. Fifteen minutes later she heard his heavy tread again on the stairs, and he stormed into the room.

“See here, daughter!” he panted in indignation, “I’ve just heard of the ---- ---- (I beg your pardon, child); I mean the shameful trick that that cur of a Zeke Runkle played on young Sherwood. Sherwood has just told me--just heard of it himself. Have you heard anything about it? No? Well, I thought not--I thought not! It seems everybody around the place, though, has known of it all along--but us. Why didn’t anybody tell me? Hey? What? Yes; but why didn’t anybody tell me, I want to know! Ah, they knew better. I’d have told Sherwood that he’d been played for a sucker! Yes, sir!” (forgetting his audience again) “and a ---- shame it is, too! There I go again--but I don’t know when anything has so worked me up!”

“But, Daddy, what is it?” faltered Evaleen. “What has happened? I don’t understand.”

“What has happened?” shouted the Judge. “Everything has happened--everything. Of course, you don’t understand. I don’t, myself--all of it. Somebody (I haven’t found out yet who, but I will!) put up that miserable old rascal--that drunken thief of a Zeke Runkle--to palming off on Sherwood as a bona fide mine, the worst fake I ever heard of. Hey? What? Why! a dug-out, I tell you--a hole in the cliff--a tunnel-like cellar-above-ground, if you want, that Crazy Dan, it seems, used to store away bacon, and flour, and potatoes in, more than thirty years ago. Just an old store-room, nothing else. That’s what! Made him a present of it (the foxy old rascal) so the law couldn’t touch him. Oh, he’s a clever swindler! I’m sorry for Sherwood--mighty sorry for him. I like the fellow; there’s good stuff in him. It’s a ---- A--hum! But, for the life of me I can’t see old Zeke’s object; for he made nothing by it. Somebody must have put him up to it--mark my words. And I’d like to know who.”

Who had done it? Evaleen was again hearing Cadwallader’s laugh, and the words, “An amusing sequel to the story.” And “I’ll tell you some day.” He need not tell her now. She knew; and she knew why.

All that day she stayed within her room. She felt she couldn’t see Sherwood in his humiliation; and Cadwallader she wouldn’t see.

That evening when she went down to dinner she was purposely late that she might avoid both men. Elwyn Cadwallader was out of town, she learned, called away unexpectedly on business. Hume Sherwood, after having been with her father all day, up on the mountain, had just returned--going directly to his room. He had declined dinner.

Almost any man can bear censure, but it takes a giant to brave ridicule.

When Miss Blaine went back to her room she found two letters awaiting her. She read the first with the angry blood mounting to her forehead, and lips tightened into a straight, hard line. It was from Cadwallader. He closed by saying:

“Give me the one thing I most want in all the world! I will go to you Christmas morning for it--for your ‘yes!’”

Miss Blaine’s face was very stern as with quick, firm steps she walked across the floor to the stove in which a fire was burning cheerily. She opened the door and flung the letter into the flames.

The letter from her father was hurriedly scrawled, “so that Sherwood can take it down to you,” it said. There were but a dozen brief sentences: He couldn’t be with her, after all, on Christmas eve--he had about closed the deal with Akerman, and there was much business to settle up. She was to pack their suit-cases and trunks at once; to be ready to start home any day. He hoped (didn’t know--but hoped) to leave the evening of Christmas day, etc. There was a postscript: “Akerman (acting on my advice) bought Sherwood’s little group today for seven hundred and fifty dollars; which is just seven hundred and fifty dollars more than they are worth--as mining claims. But Akerman wants the ground for other purposes, and will use it in connection with his other property. I’m glad for the boy’s sake he got it, for I guess Sherwood needed the money. Of course he hasn’t said so (he’s too much of a thoroughbred to whimper) but I don’t believe he has a nickel left.”

Evaleen Blaine laid the letter down with a tender smile on her face. “Dear old Daddy!” she murmured. She understood the sympathetic heart which had been the factor in bringing about the sale of Sherwood’s claims. “Oh, Daddy, you’re good--good! I love you!”

Four or five hours after, she had finished packing and got up from where she had been kneeling, and looked about the room. Everything was folded away in place and awaiting the turning of the key, except the khaki suit and the wide-brimmed hat. She would soon be miles and miles away from Nevada and its joys. A very sober face looked out at her from the mirror, making her force her thoughts into other channels.

“Not spend Christmas eve with you, Daddy? ’Deed, an’ I will! I’ll just astonish you tomorrow morning!”

She laughed to herself in anticipation of his surprise. Then her face sobered, remembering that--for the first time--she would make the trip alone. She knew every inch of the way. She wasn’t afraid; there was nothing to harm her. And by taking her coffee and toast by lamplight, she would be with him by nine o’clock. As she fell asleep that night she was wishing some good fortune might come to Hume Sherwood, making his Christmas eve less lonely.

When day broke, though as yet no rain was falling, a storm was already gathering itself for the onslaught. Fine dust filled the air, and the wind was racing up the valley with the swiftness of a prairie fire, where, on the alkali flats, great breakers of white dust rose from the sea of dry storm that ran ahead of the rain. Dead branches of greasewood, tumble-weeds light as sea-spume on the waves of the wind, rabbit-brush wrenched from the roots--these (the drift-wood of desert seas), were swept on and away!

In the gray early dawn Miss Blaine’s horse had been saddled under protest.

“We’re a-goin’ to hev a Nevady zephyr, I’m a-thinkin’, an’ th’ house is a mighty good place f’r wimmin-folks ’bout now!” were the words she heard through the whistling wind as she mounted.

There was something electric in the strange storm that drew her into its midst--some kinship that called her away! She was sure she could reach shelter before the rain reached her. “Then, hurrah for the ring of the bridle-rein--away, brave steed, away!”

Mountain Boy snuffed at the dust-laden air and broke into the long stride that soon carried them into the foothills. At times the wind nearly swept her from the saddle, but she loped on and on. Then she gained the high ground; and the dust that had smarted her eyes and nostrils lay far below. It was misty, and the wind came in strong buffetings. Up, and still up they climbed. The rain-clouds were surely keeping their burden back for her! But, nay! she had almost reached the mill--was almost under shelter, when the storm swept down upon her and the waters fell in a flood. Drenched and disheveled she reached the mill. Disappointment and consternation awaited her--her father was not there! Nearly two hours before--just the time she was leaving the valley--the Judge, with Mr. Akerman, had driven away by the north road to take the morning express from the station above, and were now at the county seat thirty miles away, if they had met with no mishap.

Evaleen was aghast! What to do? Her father believed her to be at the hotel, to which place she must return at once--there was nothing else for her to do. Back through the wind and the wet! She heard the foreman’s voice in warning and entreaty swept away by the gale as she turned; but--shaking her head--she plunged down the road and back into the storm. Away and away! The road ran with many a curve and turn--easy grades, made for wagon use--; so, though steep it was for such riding, she loped down the mountain, while the wind, and the rain, and the roar of the storm shut the world away.

A feeling of numbness came over her, a something that was neither terror nor awe, yet which held something of each. As time went on she seemed to have been riding hours innumerable--it seemed days since she had seen a human face. Down, farther down must she go. She was becoming exhausted, and the sleet was chilling her to the very center of her being. It was terrible--terrible! To reach the valley and shelter! There on the mountain the wind shrieked and howled about her; the air was filled with voices that were deafening, dizzying, frightful. The horse himself was half mad with fright. Twice he had almost thrown her as thunder claps and flashes of lightning had seemed to surround them on all sides. Three miles yet to shelter! Could she stand it? But where--where was there nearer relief? Ah! the Spencer tunnel---- There would be safety there till the worst of the storm was over. A turn of the rein, and Mountain Boy was running straight for the old tunnel under the cliffs.

* * * * *

Hark! What was that? There came to her ears a great roaring that was neither the howling of the wind, nor the rush of the rain, nor the mingled awful sounds of the storm as she tore along the cañon. She could see nothing of the thing she heard, for the wet slap of the rain blinded her. Closer and closer it came! As she slipped from the saddle at the tunnel’s mouth, the horse--terrified at the roaring which rose above the voice of the storm, and which was coming nearer--broke from her, and was off and away, with a ten-foot wall of water racing at his heels. The overtaxed dam had bursted its bounds, and the flood was cutting a waterway down the center of the cañon, but below the level of the old tunnel! She was safe! But----alone, and her horse was gone!

When, more than two hours afterward, Hume Sherwood found her, it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should take her in his arms, and her head should lie on his breast, while she told him how it had happened. Without question he claimed her as his own; without a word she gave him her troth.

“I knew you would come, Hume--I knew you would find me,” she said, softly.

“Dear!”

* * * * *

So simply were they plighted to one another; so easily does a great danger sweep away all disguises.

* * * * *

When the riderless bay had come into camp, Sherwood (half mad with an awful fear) had hurried away to the hills, lashing his span without mercy over the storm-washed road--or out through the open country where the road was gullied out. When in the up-piled drift where the flood had left it--he found the gray campaign hat he knew so well, a sickening fear fell upon him as though he had already looked upon the face of the dead. At length he thought of the tunnel, after fruitless search elsewhere; and there--in the dug-out that had been palmed off on him as a joke on his credulity, he found his heart’s desire. After all, Spencer’s old store-room--his cellar-above-ground--was worth a king’s ransom--when valued by this man and this maid.

The waters had gone down, but left the tunnel entrance flooded; for the fallen walls of the old adobe created a small dam which the flood overflowed. To get past this--without wading knee-deep in the mud--was a problem. The whirling waters had eaten away the earth which formed the front part of the tunnel--wider now by two feet--and in the place where the earth had melted away stood a small box. Sherwood put his foot against it, to pry it out of the mud.

“I’ll get this out for you to stand on, dear; then you can jump across I think, with my help.”

But, deep settled into the mud and debris, it resisted him. He went back in the tunnel and got a pick from among the tools he had used in extending the “cellar” to strike the ledge that wasn’t there; for the “croppings” that had been shown him had been hauled there--salted, to deceive the “tenderfoot.”

The box refused to move, even when Sherwood’s pick--used as a lever--was applied; so, swinging it over his head, he brought the pick down into the box, shattering the lid into pieces. It was more than half filled with small rusty tin cans, bearing soiled and torn labels, on which were the printed words in colors still bright: “Preston & Merrill’s Yeast Powder.” A case of baking powder of a sort popular five-and-thirty years before. Strange!

Sherwood laughed. “We’ve found some of Crazy Dan’s stores!” and attempted to take one of the little cans. It lifted like lead. He stopped--afraid to put it to the test--and looked at Evaleen queerly; and she (remembering the story she had heard of Dan’s persistence in working the cañon for placer gold) gave a little cry as he started to open it. It seemed too much to dare to believe--to hope for---- Yet----.

He lifted the lid. Gold! The gold dust that Crazy Dan (ay! Miser Dan) had, back in the dead years, hoarded away in the safest place he knew; adding to it month after month, as he delved, and died with his secret still his own.

* * * * *

The Judge was at the County Seat--at the station buying his ticket to go back to his “little girl”--when the train from the West came in. In the dusk he caught a glimpse of a tailor-made suit which seemed familiar to his eye, and that made him look twice at the wearer.

“Why! Bless my soul, child--and Sherwood, too! Well! Well! What are you doing here? I wrote to you about it. Didn’t you get my message, Evy?”

“Yes, Daddy, dear; you said: ‘Be at the station tonight ready to go home--I start from here.’ But as everything was packed I thought I’d come up and join you, and we could both start from here.”

“And,” added Sherwood, after they had gone into the now empty waiting-room, “I wanted to see you, sir, before you left.”

“Why, of course! Glad you came to see me off, Sherwood. You must come down to see us, you know; and meet mother and the girls. We’ll---- Eh! What’s that? * * * What! * * * Evy--my little girl?”

The Judge stuttered and stammered, bewildered at the suddenness of the attack.

* * * * *

Sherwood talked long and earnestly; and the Judge’s eyes wandered to the daughter who had, until now, never seemed other than his “little girl.” But she had “grown up” under his unseeing eyes; and now somebody wanted to take her from him. Sherwood---- Well, Sherwood was a fine fellow; he would make his way in the world in spite of the luck that was against him now.

“My boy,” (and the Judge laid his hands affectionately on the young man’s shoulders as they stood facing each other) “I know you to be a gentleman, and I believe you to be every inch a manly man. I want my child to marry not what a man has made, but what he is made of. You will win in the world’s rough and tumble of money-making, if you’re only given a chance; and I’ve been going to tell you that there’s a place waiting for you in our San Francisco office when you are ready for it. And now I’ll add, there’s a place in my family, whenever Evy says so.

“As to your not having much more than the proverbial shilling just now, that cuts no figure with me. Why not? Let me tell you.”

He put his arm around Evaleen, drawing her to him.

“This child’s mother took me ‘for better or worse’ twenty-five years ago this very night, when I hadn’t a dollar in the world that I could call my own--married me on an hour’s notice, and without any wedding guests or wedding gowns. She trusted me and loved me well enough to take me as I was, and to trust to the future (God bless her!) and neither of us have ever had cause to regret it.”

To have this assurance from the Judge before he knew of the wonderful story Sherwood had to tell of the secret of Crazy Dan’s tunnel, added to the joy of the young people who now felt they were beloved of the gods.

The Judge’s joy over the finding of the treasure box was even greater than Sherwood’s; for the older man had lived long enough to realize (as a younger generation could not) that this wealth would put many possibilities for happiness within their reach that otherwise might not be theirs. To them--the lovers in the rose-dawn of youth, with love so new--love itself seemed enough; save perhaps that the money would make marriage a nearer possibility.

* * * * *

“Darling”--and a new thought, a new hope rang through Sherwood’s earnest tones--“do you believe you love me as well as she--your mother--loved him?”

“Oh, Hume!” was all she said, but the reproach in her eyes answered him.

“Then marry me now, as she did your father, at an hour’s notice. Here--this evening, before the train comes. Judge, why can not this be so? What is there to prevent our being married at once, without all the fussing and nonsense that will be necessary if we wait till she gets home? Let us be married here, and now, and all go away together.”

“Why, bless my soul! This takes my breath away. You young people--what whirlwinds you are! You--Yes, yes, but---- Hey? What’s that? I did? I know; but---- What? I should rather think it would be a surprise to mother and the girls to bring a son home to Christmas dinner. Oh, yes, I know; but---- What’s that you say? Her mother did----! Yes, yes, I know.... Well, well, my lad, I don’t know but you’re right. Her mother---- Love is the one thing--the rest doesn’t matter. Evy, child, it is for you to say.”

And remembering that girl of the long-ago who twenty-five years before had gone to a penniless lover with such a beautiful love and trust Evaleen Blaine, putting her hand with a like trust into her lover’s, walked with him across to the little parsonage, and there became Hume Sherwood’s wife.

* * * * *

When Cadwallader got back to the camp the next morning, he heard much he was unprepared for; for news travels fast where happenings are few. What he heard did not tend to make his Christmas a merry one.

Evaleen Blaine and Hume Sherwood were now man and wife! He did not want to believe it, yet he felt it was true. And Sherwood had sent to the mint (from the “Spencer” mine, too,) the largest shipment of bullion that had ever gone out of the county! Neither did he want to believe this--and did not. There must be some mistake.

He went over to the express office through the snow and the cold; for the rain had turned to snow and the Nevada winter had begun. It would be a cheerless yule-tide for him. It was true as he had heard--true in all particulars, except that the consignment to the mint had been in gold dust, not in bullion.

Elwyn Cadwallader knew mines. Therefore he knew ledges do not produce gold dust; and Sherwood had owned no placers. Whatever suspicion he had of the truth he kept to himself. It was enough for him to know that all he had done to make Hume Sherwood the butt of the camp, that he might all the more surely part him from Evaleen Blaine, had been but the means of aiding him in winning her; and that the richest joke of the camp had proved to be rich indeed, in that it had placed a great fortune in the hands of “the deckel-edged tenderfoot.”

And here ends “The Loom of the Desert,” as written by Idah Meacham
Strobridge, with cover design and illustrations made by L. Maynard
Dixon, and published by the Artemisia Bindery, which is in Los
Angeles, California, at the Sign of the Sagebrush; and completed on
the Twelfth day of December, One thousand nine hundred and seven.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.