The Girl of the Golden West by David Belasco (cool books to read txt) 📖

/>

XVII.


Whatever may be said to the contrary, there are few more humiliating moments in a man's life than when he learns that some other person has supplanted him in the affections of his adored one. And it was the Girl's knowledge of this, together with her desire to spare the feelings of her two old admirers,--for in her nature there was ever that thoughtfulness of others which never permitted her to do a mean thing to anyone,--that had caused her to flee so precipitously from the room.

But painful as was their humiliation as they stood in silence, gazing with saddened faces at the door through which the Girl had gone out, their cup of bitterness was not yet full. The next moment the Sheriff, his lips curled inscrutably, said mockingly:

"Well, boys, the right man has come at last. Take your medicine, gentlemen."

His words cut Sonora to the quick, and it was with difficulty that he braced himself to hear the worst.

"Who's the man?" he inquired gruffly.

The Sheriff's eyes fastened themselves upon him; at length with deadly coldness he drawled out:

"Johnson's the man."

All the colour went out of Sonora's face, while his lips ejaculated:

"Gol A'mighty!"

"You lie!" blazed Trinidad in the next breath, and made a quick movement towards the Sheriff.

But Rance was not to be denied. Seeing Nick advancing towards them he called upon him to verify his words; but that individual merely looked first at one and then the other and did not answer, which silence infuriated Sonora.

"Why, you tol' me . . .?" he said with an angry look in his eye.

"Tol' you, Sonora? Why he tol' me the same thing," protested Trinidad with an earnestness that, at any other time, would have sent his listeners into fits of laughter.

This was too much for Sonora; he flew into a paroxysm of rage.

"Well, for a first-class liar . . .!"

"You bet!" corroborated Trinidad, relapsing, despite his anger, into his pet phrase.

For some minutes the dejected suitors continued in this strain, now arguing and then condoling with one another, the boys, meanwhile, proceeding to clear the school-room of the benches, casks and planks, lifting or rolling them back into place as if they were made of paper.

All of a sudden Sonora's face cleared perceptibly. Turning swiftly to the sheriff, who sat tilted back in a chair before the fire, he said with unexpected cheerfulness of voice:

"Why, Johnson's dead. He got away, an'--"

"Yes, he got away," remarked Rance, dully, shaking the ashes from his cigar, which answer, together with the peculiar look which Sonora saw on the other's face, made him at once suspicious that something was being held back from them which they had a right to know. It came about, therefore, that, with a hasty movement towards the Sheriff, his eyes glaring, his voice husky, Sonora demanded:

"Jack Rance, I call on you as Sheriff for Johnson! He was in your county."

Instantly the cry was taken up by the others, but it was Trinidad who, shaking his fist in Rance's face, supplemented:

"You hustle up an' run a bridle through your p'int o' teeth or your boom for re-election 's over, you lily-fingered gambler!"

But the Sheriff did not move a muscle, though after a moment he answered coolly:

"Oh, I don't know as I give a damn . . .!" Which reply, to say the least, was somewhat disconcerting to the men who had surrounded him and were eyeing him threateningly.

"No talk--we want Johnson," insisted Trinidad, hotly.

"We want Johnson," echoed the crowd in low, tense voices, their fists clenched.

And still Rance did not waver, but calmly puffing sway at his long, black cigar he looked blankly into space. Presently a voice outside calling, "Boys!" sounded throughout the room and brought him back to actuality. He sat straight up in his chair while Nick, shifting uneasily about on his feet, muttered:

"Why, that's Ashby!"

"Oh, if--" began the Sheriff and stopped. The next instant the Wells Fargo Agent, a cool, triumphant look on his face, stood framed in the doorway. With a hasty movement towards him Rance asked tensely: "Did you get him?"

The answer came back, almost before the question was asked:

"Yes--we've got him."

"Not Johnson?" demanded Sonora, truculently.

"Yes, Johnson," affirmed the Wells Fargo Agent with a hard laugh, his eyes the while upon Handsome, who, unaided, was lifting a heavy cask to a bench nearby.

"Not alive?" questioned Trinidad, unwilling to trust his own ears.

"You bet!" was Ashby's sententious confirmation, at which pandemonium broke loose, Nick alone appearing dejected and morose-looking. For his love and devotion to the Girl were too genuine to permit of his taking any part whatsoever in what he believed was opposed to her happiness. On the other hand, Rance, as may be inferred, was inwardly rejoicing, though when he perceived that Nick was eyeing him steadily he was careful to lower his eyes lest the little barkeeper should see the triumph shining beneath them. And, finally, unable to bear Nick's scrutiny any longer, he explained with a feeble attempt at self-defence:

"Well, I didn't do it, Nick, I didn't do it." But a moment later, his face hard and set, he added: "Now he be damned! There's an end of Johnson!"

The words were hardly out of his mouth, however, than Johnson, his arms bound, followed by the Deputy, strode into the room with the courage of one who has long faced death, and stood before the men who glared at him with fire in their eyes and murder in their hearts.

"How do you do, Mr. Johnson. I think, Mr. Johnson, five minutes will do for you." Rance gave to the words a peculiar accent and inflection, but this caused the prisoner to look even more composed and calm than before; he returned crisply:

"I think so."

"So this is the gentleman the Girl loves?" Sonora's face wore a cruel grin as he stood with arms folded leering at the prisoner.

The biting humour of the thought appealed to Rance, and he smiled grimly to himself.

"That's the gentleman"--he was saying when a voice outside broke in upon his words with:

"Nick! Boys! Boys!"

"It's the Girl!" cried Nick in dismay, at the same time rushing over to the door to intercept her; while Ashby, desirous of preventing any communication between the Girl and the prisoner took up a position between them--unnecessary precautions, since the Girl had no intention of re-entering the room, but wished merely to say that she had forgotten that it was recess and that the boys might have one drink.

At the sound of her voice Johnson paled. He listened to her retreating steps, then turning towards Nick he asked him to lock the door.

"Why, the devil . . .!" objected the Sheriff, angrily.

"Please," urged the prisoner with such a look of entreaty in his eyes that Nick could not find it in his heart to deny him, and went forthwith to the door and locked it.

"Why, you--" began Sonora with a hurried movement towards the prisoner.

"You keep out of this, Sonora," enjoined the Sheriff, coming forward to take a hand in the proceedings. "I handle the rope--pick the tree . . ."

"Then hurry . . ." said Sonora, impatiently, while Trinidad interposed with his usual, "You bet!"

"One moment," said the prisoner as the miners started to go out; and, strange to relate, the Sheriff ordered the men to halt. Turning once more to the prisoner, he said:

"Be quick--what is it?"

"It is true," began the unfortunate road agent in an even, unemotional voice, "that I love the Girl."

At these words Rance's arms flew up threateningly, while a mocking smile sprang to his lips.

"Well, you won't in a minute," he reminded him grimly.

The taunt brought no change of expression to the prisoner's face or change of tone in his voice as he went on to say that he did not care what they did to him; that he was prepared for anything; and that every man who travelled the path that he did faced death every day for a drink of water or ten minutes' sleep, concluding calmly:

"You've got me and I wouldn't care but for the Girl."

"You've got just three minutes!" A shade almost of contempt was in Sonora's exclamation.

"Yes . . .!" blazed Trinidad.

There was an impressive silence; then in a voice that trembled strangely between pride and humility Johnson continued:

"I don't want her to know my end. Why, that would be an awful thought for her to go on with all her life--that I died out there--near at hand. Why, boys, she couldn't stay here after that--she couldn't . . ."

"That's understood," replied Rance, succinctly.

"I'd like her to think," went on the prisoner, with difficulty choking back the tears, "that I got away clear and went East and changed my way of living. So you just drag me a good ways from here before you--" He stopped abruptly and began to swallow nervously. When he spoke again it was with a perceptible change of manner. "And when I don't write and she never hears why she will say, 'he's forgotten me,' and that will be about enough for her to remember, because she loved me before she knew what I was--and you can't change love in a minute."

All the while Johnson had been speaking the Sheriff's jealousy had been growing steadily until, finally, turning upon the other with a succession of oaths he struck him a fierce blow in the face.

"I don't blame you," returned the prisoner without a trace of malice in his voice. "Strike me again--strike me--one death is not enough for me. Damn me--I wish you could . . . Oh, why couldn't I have let her pass! I'm sorry I came her way--but it's too late now, it's too late . . ."

Rance, not in the least affected by what the prisoner had been saying, asked if that was his last word.

Johnson nodded.

Trinidad, simultaneously with his nod, snapped his finger, indicating that the prisoner's time was up.

"Dep!" called the Sheriff, sharply.

The Deputy came forward and took his prisoner in charge.

"Good-bye, sir!" said Nick, who was visibly affected.

"Good-bye!" returned the prisoner, briefly. "You tell the Girl--no, come to think of it, Nick, don't say anything . . ."

"Come on, you!" ordered Happy.

Whereupon with a shout and an imprecation the men removed en masse to the door.

"Boys," intervened Nick at this juncture, rushing into their midst, "when Alliger was hanged Rance let 'im see his sweetheart. I think, considerin' as how she ain't goin' to see no more o' Mr. Johnson here, an' knowin' the Girl's feelin's--well, I think she ought to have a chance to--"

Nick was not allowed to finish, for instantly the men were up in arms raising a most vigorous objection to his proposal; but, notwithstanding, Nick, evidently bent upon calling the Girl, started for the door.

"No," objected Rance, obstinately.

The road agent took a step forward and, turning upon the Sheriff with a desperately hopeless expression upon his face, he said:

"Jack Rance, there were two of us--I've had my chance. Inside of ten minutes I'll be dead and it will be all your way. Couldn't you let