Part 4 (1/2)

The tempest of the forest was upon her, and her eyes blazed as she hastened around the house.

V

Jeffery Neilson and Chan Heminway were already in session when Ray Brent, his face flushed and his eyes still angry and red, joined them.

Neilson was a tall, gaunt man, well past fifty--from his manner evidently the leader of the three. He had heavy, grizzled brows and rather quiet eyes, a man of deep pa.s.sions and great resolve. Yet his lean face had nothing of the wickedness of Brent's. There had evidently been some gentling, redeeming influence in his life, and although it was not in the ascendancy, it had softened his smile and the hard lines about his lips. Notorious as he was through the northern provinces he was infinitely to be preferred to Chan Heminway, who sat at his left who, a weaker man than either Ray or Neilson, was simply a tool in the latter's hand,--a smas.h.i.+ng sledge or a cruel blade as his master wished.

He was vicious without strength, brutal without self-control. Locks of his blond hair, unkempt, dropped over his low forehead into his eyes.

”Where's Beatrice?” Neilson asked at once. ”I thought I heard her voice.”

Ray searched for a reply, and in the silence all three heard the girl's tread as she went around the house. ”She's going in the back door.

Likely she didn't want to disturb us.”

Ray looked up to find Neilson's eyes firmly fixed upon his face. Try hard as he might he couldn't restrain a surge of color in his cheeks.

”Yes, and what's the rest of it?” Neilson asked.

”Nothing--I know of.”

”You've got some white marks on your cheeks--where it ain't red. The kid can slap, can't she--”

Ray flushed deeper, but the lines of Neilson's face began to deepen and draw. Then his voice broke in a great, hearty chuckle. He had evidently tried to restrain it--but it got away from him at last. No man could look at him, his twinkling eyes and his joyous face, and doubt but that this soft-eyed, strong-handed daughter of his was the joy and pride of his life. He had heard the ringing slap through the ramshackle walls of the house, and for all that he favored Ray as his daughter's suitor, the independence and spirit behind the action had delighted him to the core.

But Ray's sense of humor did not run along these lines. The first danger signal of rising anger leaped like a little, hot spark into his eyes.

Many times before Ray had been obliged to curb his wrath against Neilson: to-night he found it more difficult than ever. The time would come, he felt, when he would no longer be obliged to submit to Neilson's dictation. Sometime the situation would be reversed; he would be leader instead of underling, taking the lion's share of the profit of their enterprises instead of the left-overs, and when that time came he would not be obliged to endure Neilson's jests in silence. Neilson himself, as he eyed the stiffening figure, had no realization of Ray's true att.i.tude toward him. He thought him a willing helper, a loyal partner, and he would not have sat with such content in his chair if he could have beheld the smoldering fires of jealousy and ambition in the other's b.r.e.a.s.t.s The time would come when Ray would a.s.sert himself, he thought--when Beatrice was safe in his hands.

”It may seem like a joke to you, but it doesn't to me,” he answered shortly. Nor was he able to keep his anger entirely from his voice.

”Everything that girl does you think is perfect. Instead of encouraging her in her meanness you ought to help me out.” His tones harshened, and he lost the fine edge of his self-control. ”I've stood enough nonsense from that little--”

Seemingly, Neilson made no perceptible movement in his chair. What change there was showed merely in the lines of his face, and particularly in the light that dwelt in the gray, straightforward eyes.

”Don't finish it,” he ordered simply.

For an instant eyes met eyes in bitter hatred--and Chan Heminway began to wonder just where he would seek cover in case matters got to a shooting stage. But Ray's gaze broke before that of his leader. ”I'm not going to say anything I shouldn't,” he protested sullenly. ”But this doesn't look like you're helping out my case any. You told me you'd do everything you could for me. You even went so far as to say you'd take matters in your own hands--”

”And I will, in reason. I'm keeping away the rest of the boys so you can have a chance. But if you think I'm going to tie her up to anybody against her will, you're barking up the wrong tree. She's my daughter, and her happiness happens to be my first object.” Then his voice changed, good-humored again. ”But cool down, boy--wait till you hear everything I've got to tell you, and you'll feel better. Of course, you know what it's about--”

”I suppose--Hiram Melville's claim.”

”That's it. Of course we don't know that he had a claim--but he had a pocket full of the most beautiful nuggets you ever want to see. No one knows that fact but me--I saw 'em by accident--and I got 'em now. You know he's always had an idea that the Yuga country was worth prospecting, but we always laughed at him. Of course it is a pocket country; but it's my opinion he found a pocket that would make many a placer look sick, before he died.”

”But he might have got the nuggets somewheres else--”

”Hold your horses. Where would he get 'em? There's something else suspicious too. He wrote a letter, the day before he died, and addressed it to Ezra Melville, somewhere in Oregon. He must just about got it by now--maybe a few days ago. He had the clerk mail it for him, and got him to witness it, saying it was his will--and what did that old hound have to will except a mine? Next day he wrote another letter somewhere too--but I didn't find out who it was to. If I'd had any gumption I'd got ahold of 'em both. The point is--I'm convinced it's worth a trip, at least.”

”I should say it was worth a trip,” Ray agreed. ”And a fast one, too.

There might be some compet.i.tion--”