The White Desert

C >> Courtney Ryley Cooper >> The White Desert

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"Nothing," came the enigmatical reply. "Ba'teese will wait here. You
go Boston to-night?"

"Yes."

And that night, in the moonlight, behind the rushing engine of a motor
car, Barry Houston once more rode the heights where Mount Taluchen
frowned down from its snowy pinnacles, where the road was narrow and
the turns sharp, and where the world beneath was built upon a scale of
miniature. But this time, the drifts had faded from beside the
highway; nodding flowers showed in the moonlight; the snow flurries
were gone. Soon the downward grade had come and after that the
straggling little town of Dominion. Early morning found Houston in
Denver, searching the train schedules. That night he was far from the
mountains, hurrying half across the continent in search of the thing
that would give him back his birthright.

Weazened, wrinkle-faced little Jenkins met him at the office, to stare
in apparent surprise, then to rush forward with well-simulated
enthusiasm.

"You're back, Mr. Houston! I'm so glad. I didn't know whether to send
the notice out to you in Colorado, or wire you. It just came
yesterday."

"The notice? Of what?"

"The M. P. & S. L. call for bids. You've heard about it."

But Houston shook his head. Jenkins stared.

"I thought you had. The Mountain, Plains and Salt Lake Railroad. I
thought you knew all about it."

"The one that's tunneling Carrow Peak? I've heard about the road, but
I didn't know they were ready for bids for the western side of the
mountain yet. Where's the notice?"

"Right on your desk, sir."

Abstractedly, Houston picked it up and glanced at the
specifications,--for railroad ties by the million, for lumber, lathes,
station-house material, bridge timbers, and the thousands of other
lumber items that go into the making of a road. Hastily he scanned the
printed lines, only at last to place it despondently in a pocket.

"Millions of dollars," he murmured. "Millions--for somebody!"

And Houston could not help feeling that it was for the one man he
hated, Fred Thayer. The specifications called for freight on board at
the spurs at Tabernacle, evidently soon to have competition in the way
of railroad lines. And Tabernacle meant just one thing, the output of
a mill which could afford to put that lumber at the given point cheaper
then any other. The nearest other camp was either a hundred miles
away, on the western side, or so far removed over the range in the
matter of altitude that the freight rates would be prohibitive to a
cheaper bid. Thayer, with his ill-gotten flume, with his lake, with
his right to denude Barry Houston's forests at an insignificant cost,
could out-bid the others. He would land the contract, unless--

"Jenkins!" Houston's voice was sharp, insistent. The weazened man
entered, rubbing his hands.

"Yes, sir. Right here, sir."

"What contracts have we in the files?"

"Several, sir. One for mining timber stulls, logs, and that sort of
thing, for the Machol Mine at Idaho Springs; one for the Tramway
company in Denver for two thousand ties to be delivered in June; one
for--"

"I don't mean that sort. Are there any stumpage contracts?"

"Only one, sir."

"One? What!"

"The one you signed, sir, to Thayer and Blackburn, just a week or so
before you started out West. Don't you remember, sir; you signed it,
together with a lease for the flume site and lake?"

"I signed nothing of the sort!"

"But you did, sir. I attested it. I'll show it to you in just a
moment, sir. I have the copy right here."

A minute later, Barry Houston was staring down at the printed lines of
a copy of the contract and lease which had been shown him, days before,
out in the mountains of Colorado. Blankly he looked toward the servile
Jenkins, awaiting the return of the documents, then toward the papers
again.

"And I signed these, did I?"

"You certainly did, sir. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon.
I remember it perfectly."

"You're lying!"

"I don't lie, sir. I attested the signature and saw you read both
contracts. Pardon, sir, but if any one's lying, sir--it's yourself!"

CHAPTER XIII

Ten minutes after that, Barry Houston was alone in his office. Jenkins
was gone, discharged; and Houston felt a sort of relief in the
knowledge that he had departed. The last of the Thayer clan, he
believed, had been cleaned out of his organization--and it was like
lightening a burden to realize it.

That the lease and stumpage contract were fraudulent, Barry Houston was
certain. Surely he had seen neither of them; and the signing must have
been through some sort of trickery of which he was unaware. But would
such a statement hold in court? Houston learned, a half-hour later,
that it wouldn't, as he faced the family attorney, in his big, bleak,
old-fashioned office.

"It's all right, Barry, for you to tell me that you didn't sign it,"
came the edict. "I'd believe you--because I feel sure you wouldn't lie
to me. But it would be pretty thin stuff to tell to a jury. There is
the contract and the lease in black and white. Both bear your
signature which, you have declared in the presence of witnesses, to be
genuine. Even when a man signs a paper while insane, it's a hard job
to pull it back; and we certainly wouldn't have any witnesses who could
swear that you had lost your reason."

"Nope," he concluded, giving the papers a flip, as though disposing of
the whole matter, "somebody has just worked the old sewing-machine
racket on you--with trimmings. This is an adaptation of a game that is
as old as the hills--the one where the solicitors would go up to a
farmhouse, sell a man a sewing-machine or a cream separator at a
ridiculous figure, let him sign what he thought was a contract to pay a
certain amount a month for twelve months--and then take the promissory
note which he really had signed down to the bank and discount it.
Instead of a promissory note, they made this a contract and a lease.
And just to make it good, they had their confederate, a legalized
notary public, put his seal upon it as a witness. You can't remember
when all this happened?"

"According to Jenkins--who put the notary seal on there--the whole
thing was put over about a week or so before I left for the West.
That's the date on them too. About that time, I remember, I had a good
many papers to sign. A lot of legal stuff, if you'll remember, came up
about father's estate, in which my signature was more of a form than
anything else. I naturally suspected nothing, and in one or two
instances signed without reading."

"And signed away your birthright--to this contract and lease. You did
it with no intention of giving your land and flume and flume site away,
that's true. If one of the men would be willing to confess to a
conspiracy, it would hold water in court. Otherwise not. You've been
bunked, and your signature is as legal and as binding as though you had
read that contract and lease-form a hundred times over. So I don't see
anything to do but to swallow your medicine with as little of a wry
face as possible."

It was with this ultimatum that Houston turned again for the West, glad
to be out of Boston, glad to be headed back once more for the
mountains, in spite of the fact that the shadows of his life had
followed him even there, that the ill luck which seemed to have been
perched continuously on his shoulders for the past two years still
hovered, like a vulture, above him. What he was going to do, how he
could hope to combat the obstacles which had arisen was more than he
could tell. He had gone into the West, believing, at worst, that he
would be forced to become the general factotum of his own business.
Now he found there was not even a business; his very foundations had
been swept from beneath him, leaving only the determination, the grim,
earnest resolution to succeed where all was failure and to fight to
victory--but how?

Personally, he could not answer the question, and he longed for the
sight of the shambling little station at Tabernacle, with Ba'tiste, in
answer to the telegram he had sent from Chicago, awaiting him with the
buggy from camp. And Ba'tiste was there, to boom at him, to call
Golemar's attention to the fact that a visit to a physician in Boston
had relieved the bandaged arm of all except the slightest form of a
splint, and to literally lift Houston into the buggy, tossing his
baggage in after him, then plump in beside him with excited happiness.

"_Bon_!" he rumbled. "It is good you are back. Ba'teese, he was
lonely. Ba'teese, he was so excite' when he hear you come. He have
good news!"

"About what?"

"The railroad. They are near' through with the tunnel. Now they shall
start upon the main road to Salt Lake. And they shall need
timbers--_beaucoup_! Ties and beams and materials! They have ask for
bids. Ah, _oui_. Eet is, what-you-say, the swollen chance! M'sieu
Houston shall bid lower than--"

"How, Ba'tiste?" Houston asked the question with a dullness that
caused the aged trapper to turn almost angrily upon him.

"How? Is eet putty that you are made of? Is eet--but no, Ba'teese,
he, what-you-say, misplace his head. You think there is no chance, eh?
Mebbe not. Me'bbe--"

"I found a copy of that contract in our files. The clerk I had in the
office was in the conspiracy. I fired him and closed everything up
there; as far as a Boston end to the business is concerned, there is
none. But the damage is done. My lawyer says that there is not a
chance to fight this thing in court."

"Ah, _oui_. I expec' that much. But Ba'teese, he think, mebbe, of
another way. Eh, Golemar?" He shouted to the dog, trotting, as usual,
beside the buggy. "Mebbe we have a, what-you-say, punch of luck."

Then, silent, he leaned over the reins. Houston too was quiet,
striving in vain to find a way out of the difficulties that beset him.
At the end of half an hour he looked up in surprise. They no longer
were on the way to the mill. The road had become rougher, hillier, and
Houston recognized the stream and the aspen groves which fringed the
highway leading to Ba'tiste's cabin. But the buggy skirted the cabin,
at last to bring into sight a snug, well-built, pretty little cottage
which Houston knew, instinctively, to be the home of Medaine Robinette.
At the veranda, Ba'tiste pulled on the reins and alighted.

"Come," he ordered quietly.

"But--"

"She have land, and she have a part of the lake and a flume site."

Houston hung back.

"Isn't it a bad bet, Ba'tiste? Have you talked to her?"

"No--I have not seen her since the day--at the flume. She is
here--Lost Wing is at the back of the cabin. We will talk to her, you
and I. Mebbe, when the spring come, she will lease to you the lake and
the flume site. Mebbe--"

"Very well." But Houston said it against his will. He felt, in the
first place, that he would be presuming to ask it of her,--himself a
stranger against whom had come the accusation of murder, hardly denied.
Yet, withal, in a way, he welcomed the chance to see her and to seek to
explain to her the deadly thrusts which Fred Thayer had sent against
him. Then too a sudden hope came; Ba'tiste had said that Agnes Jierdon
had become friendly with her; certainly she had told the truth and
righted the wrongs of malicious treachery. He joined Ba'tiste with a
bound. A moment more and the door had opened, to reveal Medaine,
repressed excitement in her eyes, her features a trifle pale, her hand
trembling slightly as she extended it to Ba'tiste. Houston she
received with a bow,--forced, he thought. They went within, and
Ba'tiste pulled his queer little cap from his head, to crush it in the
grasp of his massive hands.

"We have come for business, Medaine," he announced, with a slight show
of embarrassment. "M'sieu Houston, he have need for a flume site."

"But I don't see where I could be of any assistance. I have no right--"

"Ah! But eet is not for the moment present. Eet is for the
springtime."

She seemed to hesitate then and Houston took a sudden resolve. It
might as well be now as later.

"Miss Robinette," he began, coming forward, "I realize that all this
needs some explanation. Especially," and he halted, "about myself."

"But is that any of my affair?" Her old pertness was gone. She seemed
white and frightened, as though about to listen to something she would
rather not hear. Houston answered her as best he could:

"That depends upon yourself, Miss Robinette. Naturally, you wouldn't
want to have any business dealings with a man who really was all that
you must believe me to be. It isn't a pleasant thing for me to talk
about--I would like to forget it. But in this case, it has been
brought up against my will. You were present a week ago when Thayer
accused me of murder."

"Yes."

"Eet was a big lie!"

"Wait just a minute, Ba'tiste." Cold sweat had made its appearance on
Barry Houston's forehead. "I--I--am forced to admit that a part of
what he said was true. When I first met Ba'tiste here, I told him
there was a shadow in my life that I did not like to talk about. He
was good enough to say that he didn't want to hear it. I felt that out
here, perhaps I would not be harassed by certain memories that have
been rather hard for me to bear in the last couple of years. I was
wrong. The thing has come up again, in worse form than ever and
without giving me a chance to make a denial. But perhaps you know the
whole story?"

"Your story?" Medaine Robinette looked at him queerly. "No--I never
have heard it."

"Then you've heard--"

"Only accusations."

"Is it fair to believe only one side of a thing?"

"Please, Mr. Houston," and she looked at him with a certain note of
pleading, "you must remember that I--well, I didn't feel that it was
any of my business. I didn't know that circumstances would throw you
at all in my path."

"But they have, Miss Robinette. The land on my side of the creek has
been taken from me by fraud. It is absolutely vital that I use every
resource to try to make my mill what it should be. It still is
possible for me to obtain lumber, but to get it to the mill
necessitates a flume and rights in the lake. I've lost that. We've
been hoping, Ba'tiste and myself, that we would be able to induce you
to lease us your portion of the lake and a flume site. Otherwise, I'm
afraid there isn't much hope."

"As I said, that doesn't become my property until late spring, nearly
summer, in fact."

"That is time enough. We are hoping to be able to bid for the railroad
contract. I believe it calls for the first shipment of ties about June
first. That would give us plenty of time. If we had your word, we
could go ahead, assemble the necessary machinery, snake a certain
amount of logs down through the snow this winter and be in readiness
when the right moment came. Without it, however, we can hardly hope
for a sufficient supply to carry us through. And so--"

"You want to know--about heem. You have Ba'teese's word----"

"Really--" she seemed to be fencing again.

Houston, with a hard pull at his breath, came directly to the question.

"It's simply this, Miss Robinette. If I am guilty of those things, you
don't want to have anything to do with me, and I don't want you to.
But I am here to tell you that I am not guilty, and that it all has
been a horrible blunder of circumstance. It is very true in one
sense--" and his voice lowered--"that about two years ago in Boston, I
was arrested and tried for murder."

"So Mr. Thayer said."

"I was acquitted--but not for the reason Thayer gave. They couldn't
make a case, they failed absolutely to prove a thing which, had I
really been guilty, should have been a simple matter. A worthless
cousin, Tom Langdon, was the man who was murdered. They said I did it
with a wooden mallet which I had taken from a prize fight, and which
had been used to hammer on the gong for the beginning and the end of
the rounds. I had been seen to take it from the fight, and it was
found the next morning beside Langdon. There was human blood on it. I
had been the last person seen with Langdon. They put two and two
together--and tried to convict me on circumstantial evidence. But they
couldn't convince the jury; I went free, as I should have done. I was
innocent!"

Houston, white now with the memories and with the necessity of
retailing again in the presence of a girl who, to him, stood for all
that could mean happiness, gritted his teeth for the determination to
go on with the grisly thing, to hide nothing in the answers to the
questions which she might ask. But Medaine Robinette, standing beside
the window, the color gone from her cheeks, one hand lingering the
curtains, eyes turned without, gave no evidence that she had heard.
Ba'tiste, staring at her, waited a moment for her question. It did not
come. He turned to Houston.

"You tell eet!" he ordered. There was something of the father about
him,--the father with a wayward boy, fearful of the story that might
come, yet determined to do everything within his power to aid a person
he loved. Houston straightened.

"I'll try not to shield myself in any way," came at last. The words
were directed to Ba'tiste, but meant for Medaine Robinette. "There are
some things about it that I'd rather not tell--I wish I could leave
them out. But--it all goes. My word of honor--if that counts for
anything--goes with it. It's the truth, nothing else.

"I had come home from France--invalided back. The records of the
Twenty-sixth will prove that. Gas. I was slated for out here--the
recuperation hospital at Denver. But we managed to persuade the army
authorities that I could get better treatment at home, and they gave me
a disability discharge in about ten months--honorable, of course.
After a while, I went back to work, still weak, but rather eager to get
at it, in an effort to gather up the strands which had become tangled
by the war. I was in the real-estate business then, for myself. Then,
one afternoon," his breath pulled sharp, "Tom Langdon came into my
office."

"He was your cousin?" Ba'tiste's voice was that of a friendly
cross-examiner.

"Yes. I hadn't seen him in five years. We had never had much to do
with him; we," and Houston smiled coldly with the turn that Fate had
given to conditions in the Houston family, "always had looked on him as
a sort of a black sheep. He had been a runaway from home; about the
only letters my uncle ever had received from him had asked for money to
get him out of trouble. Where he had been this time, I don't know. He
asked for my father and appeared anxious to see him. I told him that
father was out of town. Then he said he would stay in Boston until he
came back, that he had information for him that was of the greatest
importance, and that when he told father what it was, that he, Langdon,
could have anything my father possessed in the way of a job and a
competence for life. It sounded like blackmail--I could think of
nothing else coming from Tom Langdon--and I told him so. That was
unfortunate. There were several persons in my office at the time. He
resented the statement and we quarreled. They heard it and later
testified."

Houston halted, tongue licking at dry lips. Medaine still gave no
indication that she had heard. Ba'tiste, his knit cap still crushed in
his big hands, moved forward.

"Go on."

"Gradually, the quarrel wore off and Tom became more than friendly,
still harping, however, on the fact that he had tremendous news for my
father. I tried to get rid of him. It was impossible. He suggested
that we go to dinner together and insisted upon it. There was nothing
to do but acquiesce; especially as I now was trying to draw from him
something of what had brought him there. We had wine. I was weak
physically. It went to my head, and Tom seemed to take a delight in
keeping my glass full. Oh," and he swerved suddenly toward the woman
at the window, "I'm not trying to make any excuses for myself. I
wanted if--after that first glass or two, it seemed there wasn't enough
in the world. He didn't force it on me--he didn't play the part of a
tempter or pour it down my throat. I took it readily enough. But I
couldn't stand it. We left the cafe, he fairly intoxicated, myself
greatly so. We saw the advertisement of a prize fight and went,
getting seats near the ring-side. They weren't close enough for me. I
bribed a fellow to let me sit at the press stand, next to the
timekeeper, and worried him until he let me have the mallet that he was
using to strike the gong.

"The fight was exciting--especially to me in my condition. I was
standing most of the time, even leaning on the ring. Once, while in
this position, one of the men, who was bleeding, was knocked down. He
struck the mallet. It became covered with blood. No one seemed to
notice that, except myself--every one was too excited. A moment more
and the fight was over, through a knock-out. Then I stuck the mallet
in my pocket, telling every one who cared to hear that I was carrying
away a souvenir. Langdon and I went out together.

"We started home--for he had announced that he was going to spend the
night with me. Persons about us heard him. It was not far to the
house and we decided to walk. On the way, he demanded the mallet for
himself and pulled it out of my pocket. I struggled with him for it,
finally however, to be bested, and started away. He followed me a
block or so, taunting me with his superior strength and cursing me as
the son of a man whom he intended to make bow to his every wish. I ran
then and, evading him, went home and to bed. About four o'clock in the
morning, I was awakened by the police. They had found Tom Langdon
dead, with his skull crushed, evidently by the blow of a club or a
hammer. They said I did it."

A slight gasp traveled over the lips of Medaine, still by the window.
Ba'tiste, his features old and lined, reached out with one big hand and
patted the man on the shoulder. Then for a long time, there was
silence.

"Eet is the lie, eh?"

"Ba'tiste," Houston turned appealingly to him "as I live, that's all I
know. I never saw Langdon after he took that mallet from me. Some one
killed him, evidently while he was wandering around, looking for me.
The mallet dropped by his side. It had blood on it--and they accused
me. It looked right--there was every form of circumstantial evidence
against me. And," the breath pulled hard, "what was worse, everybody
believed that I killed him. Even my best friends--even my father."

"Ba'teese no believe it."

"Why?" Houston turned to him in hope,--in the glimmering chance that
perhaps there was something in the train of circumstances that would
have prevented the actuality of guilt. But the answer, while it
cheered him, was rather disconcerting.

"You look like my Pierre. Pierre, he could do no wrong. You look like
heem."

It was sufficient for the old French-Canadian. But Houston knew it
could carry but little weight with the girl by the window. He went on:

"Only one shred of evidence was presented in my behalf. It was by a
woman who had worked for about six months for my father,--Miss Jierdon.
She testified to having passed in a taxicab just at the end of our
quarrel, and that, while it was true that there was evidence of a
struggle, Langdon had the mallet. She was my only witness, besides the
experts. But it may help here, Miss Robinette."

It was the first time he had addressed her directly and she turned,
half in surprise.

"How," she asked the question as though with an effort, "how were you
cleared?"

"Through expert medical testimony that the blow which killed Langdon
could not have been struck with that mallet. The whole trial hinged on
the experts. The jury didn't believe much of either side. They
couldn't decide absolutely that I had killed Langdon. And so they
acquitted me. I'm trying to tell you the truth, without any veneer to
my advantage."

"_Bon_! Good! Eet is best."

"Miss Jierdon is the same one who is out here?"

"Yes."

"She testified in your behalf?"

"Yes. And Miss Robinette, if you'll only talk to her--if you'll only
ask her about it, she'll tell you the story exactly as I've told it.
She trusted me; she was the only bright spot in all the blackness. I
may not be able to convince you--but she could, Miss Robinette. If
you'll only--"

"Would you guarantee the truth of anything she should tell me?"

"Absolutely."

"Even if she told hidden things?"

"Hidden? I don't know what you mean. There's nothing to be hidden.
What she tells you will be the truth, the whole truth, the absolute
truth."

"I'm--I'm sorry." She turned again to the window. Houston went
forward.

"Sorry? Why? There's nothing--"

"Miss Jierdon has told me," came in a strained voice, "things that
perhaps you did not mean for her to tell."

"I? Why, I--"

"That she did pass as you were struggling. That she saw the blow
struck--and that it was you who struck it."

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