The Twins of Table Mountain, and Other Stories Part 10

"When Jim Byways left me this yer property," she began, looking cautiously around, "he left it to me on CONDITIONS; not conditions ez waz in his WRITTEN will, but conditions ez waz SPOKEN. A promise I made him in this very room, Mr. Hamlin,--this very room, and on that very bed you're sittin' on, in which he died."

Like most gamblers, Mr. Hamlin was superst.i.tious. He rose hastily from the bed, and took a chair beside the window. The wind shook it as if the discontented spirit of Mr. Byways were without, re-enforcing his last injunction.

"I don't know if you remember him," said Peg feverishly, "he was a man ez hed suffered. All that he loved--wife, fammerly, friends--had gone back on him. He tried to make light of it afore folks; but with me, being a poor gal, he let himself out. I never told anybody this. I don't know why he told ME; I don't know," continued Peg, with a sniffle, "why he wanted to make me unhappy too. But he made me promise, that, if he left me his fortune, I'd NEVER, NEVER--so help me G.o.d!--never share it with any man or woman that I LOVED; I didn't think it would be hard to keep that promise then, Mr. Hamlin; for I was very poor, and hedn't a friend nor a living bein' that was kind to me, but HIM."

"But you've as good as broken your promise already," said Hamlin.

"You've given Jack money, as I know."

"Only what I made myself. Listen to me, Mr. Hamlin. When Jack proposed to me, I offered him about what I kalkilated I could earn myself. When he went away, and was sick and in trouble, I came here and took this hotel. I knew that by hard work I could make it pay. Don't laugh at me, please. I DID work hard, and DID make it pay--without takin' one cent of the fortin'. And all I made, workin' by night and day, I gave to him. I did, Mr. Hamlin. I ain't so hard to him as you think, though I might be kinder, I know."

Mr. Hamlin rose, deliberately resumed his coat, watch, hat, and overcoat. When he was completely dressed again, he turned to Peg. "Do you mean to say that you've been givin' all the money you made here to this A 1 first-cla.s.s cherubim?"

"Yes; but he didn't know where I got it. O Mr. Hamlin! he didn't know that."

"Do I understand you, that he's bin buckin agin Faro with the money that you raised on hash? And YOU makin' the hash?"

"But he didn't know that, he wouldn't hev took it if I'd told him."

"No, he'd hev died fust!" said Mr. Hamlin gravely. "Why, he's that sensitive--is Jack Folinsbee--that it nearly kills him to take money even of ME. But where does this angel reside when he isn't fightin' the tiger, and is, so to speak, visible to the naked eye?"

"He--he--stops here," said Peg, with an awkward blush.

"I see. Might I ask the number of his room--or should I be a--disturbing him in his meditations?" continued Jack Hamlin, with grave politeness.

"Oh! then you'll promise? And you'll talk to him, and make HIM promise?"

"Of course," said Hamlin quietly.

"And you'll remember he's sick--very sick? His room's No. 44, at the end of the hall. Perhaps I'd better go with you?"

"I'll find it."

"And you won't be too hard on him?"

"I'll be a father to him," said Hamlin demurely, as he opened the door and stepped into the hall. But he hesitated a moment, and then turned, and gravely held out his hand. Peg took it timidly. He did not seem quite in earnest; and his black eyes, vainly questioned, indicated nothing. But he shook her hand warmly, and the next moment was gone.

He found the room with no difficulty. A faint cough from within, and a querulous protest, answered his knock. Mr. Hamlin entered without further ceremony. A sickening smell of drugs, a palpable flavor of stale dissipation, and the wasted figure of Jack Folinsbee, half-dressed, extended upon the bed, greeted him. Mr. Hamlin was for an instant startled. There were hollow circles round the sick man's eyes; there was palsy in his trembling limbs; there was dissolution in his feverish breath.

"What's up?" he asked huskily and nervously.

"I am, and I want YOU to get up too."

"I can't, Jack. I'm regularly done up." He reached his shaking hand towards a gla.s.s half-filled with suspicious, pungent-smelling liquid; but Mr. Hamlin stayed it.

"Do you want to get back that two thousand dollars you lost?"

"Yes."

"Well, get up, and marry that woman down stairs."

Folinsbee laughed half hysterically, half sardonically.

"She won't give it to me."

"No; but I will."

"YOU?"

"Yes."

Folinsbee, with an attempt at a reckless laugh, rose, trembling and with difficulty, to his swollen feet. Hamlin eyed him narrowly, and then bade him lie down again. "To-morrow will do," he said, "and then--"

"If I don't--"

"If you don't," responded Hamlin, "why, I'll just wade in and CUT YOU OUT!"

But on the morrow Mr. Hamlin was spared that possible act of disloyalty; for, in the night, the already hesitating spirit of Mr. Jack Folinsbee took flight on the wings of the south-east storm. When or how it happened, n.o.body knew. Whether this last excitement and the near prospect of matrimony, or whether an overdose of anodyne, had hastened his end, was never known. I only know, that, when they came to awaken him the next morning, the best that was left of him--a face still beautiful and boy-like--looked up coldly at the tearful eyes of Peg Moffat. "It serves me right, it's a judgment," she said in a low whisper to Jack Hamlin; "for G.o.d knew that I'd broken my word, and willed all my property to him."

She did not long survive him. Whether Mr. Hamlin ever clothed with action the suggestion indicated in his speech to the lamented Jack that night, is not of record. He was always her friend, and on her demise became her executor. But the bulk of her property was left to a distant relation of handsome Jack Folinsbee, and so pa.s.sed out of the control of Red Dog forever.

THE GREAT DEADWOOD MYSTERY

It was growing quite dark in the telegraph-office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne County, California. The office, a box-like enclosure, was separated from the public room of the Miners' Hotel by a thin part.i.tion; and the operator, who was also news and express agent at Cottonwood, had closed his window, and was lounging by his news-stand preparatory to going home. Without, the first monotonous rain of the season was dripping from the porches of the hotel in the waning light of a December day. The operator, accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness, was fast becoming bored.

The tread of mud-m.u.f.fled boots on the veranda, and the entrance of two men, offered a momentary excitement. He recognized in the strangers two prominent citizens of Cottonwood; and their manner bespoke business. One of them proceeded to the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it to the other interrogatively.

"That's about the way the thing p'ints," responded his companion a.s.sentingly.

"I reckoned it only squar to use his dientical words?"

"That's so."

The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch.

"How soon can you shove her through?"

The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length of the despatch.

"Now," he answered promptly.

"And she gets there?"

"To-night. But there's no delivery until to-morrow."

"Shove her through to-night, and say there's an extra twenty left here for delivery."