Part 20 (1/2)

Beth's eyes were blazing with excitement. She had never dreamed that Searle could be so generous--so splendid. An impulse of grat.i.tude and admiration surged throughout her being.

”You'd _do_ it?” she said. ”You'll do as much as that for Glen?”

”Why, how can I do less?” he answered. ”That claim will doubtless be worth half a million, maybe more--if all I hear is reliable--and I get it from disinterested parties. The boy has done a good big thing.

I've got to help him out. It seems too bad to offer him only half of what he needs, but I'm not a very wealthy man. I can't be utterly Quixotic. We've all got to help him all we can.”

”Oh, thank you, Searle--thank you for saying 'we,'” she said in a voice that slightly trembled. ”I'm glad of the chance--glad to show dear Glen that a sister can help a little, too.”

He stared at her with an excellent imitation of surprise in his gaze.

”You'll--help?” he said in astonishment, masterfully simulated. ”Not with the other thirty thousand?”

”Why not?” she cried. ”Why not, when Glen has the chance of his life?

You don't really think I'd hesitate?”

”But,” said he, leading her onward, ”he needs the money now--at once.

You'd have to get it here by wire, and all that sort of trouble.”

”Then we'd better get things started,” she said. ”You'll help me, Searle, I'm sure.”

”If you wish it,” said Bostwick, ”certainly.”

”Dear Glen!” she said. ”Dear boy! I'll write him a letter at once.”

Bostwick started, alertly, as she ran in her girlish pleasure to a stand where she had placed her materials for writing.

”Good,” he commented drily, ”I'll mail it with one of my own.”

She dashed off a bright effusion with all her spontaneous enthusiasm.

Bostwick supplied her with the address, and presently took the letter in his hand. He had much to do at the bank, he informed her, by way of preparing for the deal. He promised to return when he could.

On his way down street be deliberately tore the letter to the smallest of fragments and scattered them widely on the wind.

CHAPTER XVII

UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS

On the following morning news arrived in Goldite that temporarily dimmed the excitement attendant upon stories of the ”Laughing Water”

property and the coming stampede to the Indian reservation.

Matt Barger and three others of the convicts, still uncaptured, had pillaged a freight team, of horses, provisions, and arms, murdered a stage driver, robbed the express of a large consignment of gold, and escaped as before to the mountains.

Two separate posses were in pursuit. Rewards aggregating ten thousand dollars were offered for Barger, dead or alive, with smaller sums for each of his companions. Their latest depredations had occurred alarmingly close to the mining camp, from which travel was becoming hazardous.

The gold theft was particularly disquieting to the Goldite mining contingent. Dangers beset their enterprises in many directions at the very best. To have this menace added, together with worry over every man's personal safety in traveling about, was fairly intolerable. The inefficient posses were roundly berated, but no man volunteered to issue forth and ”get” Matt Barger--either alive or as a corpse.

The man who arrived with the news was one of Van's cronies, Dave, the little station man whom Beth had met the morning of her coming. He was here in response to a summons from Van, who thought he saw an opportunity to a.s.sist his friend to better things. Everything Dave owned he had fetched across the desert, including both the horses that Beth and Elsa once had ridden. The station itself he had sold. He had launched forth absolutely on Van's new promises, burning all his bridges, as it were, behind him.