The Award of Justice; Or, Told in the Rockies: A Pen Picture of the West. Barbour Anna Maynard
and now the only drawback seemed that he would have no assistant, and he felt the time would come when he would need one, and some one familiar with mining. An expert from the east would not do, he would be suspected; and a detective would not possess the necessary information regarding mining in general, and these mines in particular. At times, a vague idea of taking Rutherford into his confidence came into his mind, but he was not ready to do this yet, if at all.
All this flashed through Houston’s mind as Rutherford made the above remark, and he answered:
“I don’t apprehend any particular danger at present, but I am glad you are with me.”
“The question with me is,” continued Rutherford, “how I’ll amuse myself during your office hours in such a region as this; I don’t imagine I’ll find a great many congenial companions.”
“You seem to have forgotten the school teacher,” Houston remarked, with a quiet smile.
“Oh, bother the school ma’am! I had forgotten her. I suppose she’ll be as graceful as a scalene triangle, and about as entertaining as a mummy. They’re mostly that kind, or else the gushing, adoring sort, that can’t talk of anything but Browning, or Emerson, or theosophy, or something of that kind; and the most conceited lot of creatures that ever lived.”
Meanwhile, the train wound in and out among the mountains, stopping for a few moments at a small town where huge smelters were pouring forth their clouds of dense smoke, darkening the air until it seemed more like night than day; then on a few miles farther, to the little station known as the “Y,” so-called on account of the form of the spur tracks owned by the mining company, by which the ore was brought down from the mines above.
At the station was a store containing general mining supplies, with the post-office in one front window, a boarding and lodging house, and three or four saloons and gambling houses, these last designed to catch the wages of the miners from the surrounding camps.
Mr. Blaisdell having found one of the superintendents who had come down with a team for supplies, they were soon on their way up the gulch, and in the course of an hour were left at the office buildings, while the team went on to the mines.
Here Rutherford waited in the outer room of the little unpainted, frame building, while Mr. Blaisdell took Houston into the further room, and introduced him to Morgan, the general superintendent, and to his work, at the same time. Then, having seen Houston duly installed at his post of duty, perched on a wabbly stool, before a rickety, ink-bespattered desk, beside a window gray with the dust and smoke of ages, through which a few straggling sunbeams fell, Mr. Blaisdell sailed complacently forth to escort Rutherford to Jim Maverick’s boarding house, whither the baggage had already been taken by the team; then, all necessary arrangements for rooms and board having been completed, he went out to the mines, leaving Rutherford alone in the camp of the Philistines. He found no one, however, more formidable than Mrs. Maverick, an old woman bent nearly double, with white hair and hollow, deep-sunken eyes, so faded it was impossible to tell what their original color might have been, and the “help,” a stout, red-cheeked, coarse-featured girl of fifteen, whom Mrs. Maverick called “Minty,” but who rejoiced in the euphonious name of Araminta Bixby, and who ogled and grinned at Rutherford until he found the task of preserving his dignity more difficult than ever.
In the course of an hour he sauntered down to the office to meet Houston, and a little later the two sat in the porch of the low, wide-spreading house, partly frame and partly of logs, the roof of the porch supported by the trunks of slender trees, unhewn, from which even the bark had not been removed.
From the porch there was a view of the lake, and in the distance the gleaming cascades, while just opposite, the gulch road followed its winding course and disappeared among the mountains.
Presently there came up the winding road three men, apparently father and sons,–low-browed, heavy-eyed, brutal looking creatures,–who followed the foot path up toward the house, and glaring sullenly at the young men, shuffled around to the back door.
“Evidently mine host and his sons,” remarked Houston.
“Well,” replied Rutherford, “I think if I see a few more such specimens as those, I’ll take the first train out. Say though, I haven’t seen a sign of that school teacher, I begin to think she is a myth.”
“Sh!” said Houston quickly, under his breath, “see what you think of this!”
Rutherford turned in the direction Houston was facing, and had two beings just then descended from the mythical regions, he could not have been more astonished than at sight of the pair approaching from the lake. The first was a young girl, apparently about sixteen, but tall and well developed, the scant garments that she wore revealing the beautifully rounded outlines of her form, her carriage free and every movement full of grace. Her face was exquisitely beautiful, the features refined and perfect as though chiseled in marble; her eyes shone with a star-like brilliancy, and her hair fell about her shoulders like a mass of burnished gold.
Beside her was a woman several years her senior, equally beautiful, but an altogether different type of beauty; more mature, more perfect and more rare. Tall and splendidly developed, she moved with a queenly grace. Her face was classical in its contours, the profile resembling that of some of the old Grecians, while its beauty was so refined, so subtile, it could not be easily described. Perhaps the eyes were its chief attraction; large and dark, and of Madonna-like depth and tenderness; soulful eyes that reflected every emotion of the pure, womanly nature, as the calm lake mirrors the sunlit sky or the lowering storm-cloud, the silvery moon or the lightning’s flash. The wavy, auburn hair, tinged in the sunlight with red gold, was gathered into a knot near the top of a shapely, well-poised head, while stray curls clustered rebelliously about the broad, fair brow, forming a shining aureole.
Like a vision, the pair passed silently into the house, leaving Rutherford, for once in his life, speechless, and Houston watching him, apparently enjoying the situation.
“What’s the matter, my boy?” he asked, in a low, laughing tone, “Are you spell-bound?”
“Spell-bound? well, slightly!” responded Rutherford. “Great Heavens, Houston! do they have such women as those out here?”
“Evidently they have some fine samples of the genuine article, but I am not prepared to state how large a stock they carry. I’m positive of one thing though, that within the last three minutes you have changed your mind about taking the next train out. Not all the desperadoes and villains you’ve met from Valley City out, could drive you away from the mountains now.”
“You’re right, they couldn’t,” said Rutherford, with a broad grin, “not if I know myself; no, sir, when I’m in the line of duty nothing can scare me out of it worth a cent, and just now I feel it to be my duty to solve some of the mysteries thickening around me, among them, that of the mountain nymphs.”
“Altogether too substantial for mountain nymphs, my boy,” said Houston, “and you will please remember, while pursuing your line of duty, that I have vouched for your good behavior here, and am in a measure responsible for you, and I don’t want to get into any trouble on your account.”
Rutherford cleared his throat, and rising slowly with all the dignity he could muster, looked gravely over his glasses at Houston in exact imitation of Mr. Blaisdell, and in an oracular tone remarked:
“And you will please remember, my young friend, that I am out here as your duly constituted guardian, and as such, it is my duty to form the acquaintance of these–ahem!–these fair daughters of Eve, and judge for myself whether or not they will be suitable companions for an unsophisticated youth, like yourself.”
“Good!” said Houston, and after a few more jokes, dinner being announced by the moon-faced Minty, they went in to partake of their first meal in what Rutherford styled the “Hotel de Maverick.”
CHAPTER VIII
A few moments later, Houston and his friend had been duly presented by Mrs. Maverick, to Miss Gladden and to “our daughter, Lyle,” the former in a gown of soft, clinging material, of a delicate, golden tint, combined with a reddish brown velvet, which suited her style of beauty to perfection;