Part 28 (1/2)

XIX.

BROOKE'S BARGAIN.

There was a portentous quietness in the little wooden town which did not exactly please Mr. Faraday Sloc.u.m, the somewhat discredited local agent of Grant Devine, as he ascended the steep street from the grocery store.

The pines closed in upon it, but their sombre spires were growing dim, and the white mists clung about them, for dusk was creeping up the valley. The latter fact brought Sloc.u.m a sense of satisfaction, and at the same time a growing uneasiness. He had, as it happened, signally failed to collect a certain sum from the store-keeper, who had expressed his opinion of him and his doings with vitriolic candor, and it was partly as the result of this that very little escaped his notice as he proceeded with an ostentatious leisureliness towards his dwelling.

A straggling row of stores and houses, log and frame and galvanized iron, jumbled all together in unsightly confusion, stretched away before him towards the gap in the forest where the railroad track came in, but it was the little groups of men who hung about them which occupied his quiet attention. He saluted them with somewhat forced good-humor as he went by, but there was no great cordiality in their responses, and some of them stared at him in uncompromising silence. There was, he felt, a certain tension in the atmosphere, and it was not without a purpose he stopped in front of the wooden hotel, where a little crowd had collected upon the verandah.

”It's kind of sultry to-night, boys,” he said.

n.o.body responded for a moment or two, and then there was an unpleasant laugh as somebody said, ”You've hit it; I guess it is.”

Sloc.u.m remembered that most of those loungers had been glad to greet him, and even hand him their spare dollars, not long ago; but there was a decided difference now. He was a capable business man, who could make the most of an opportunity, and the inhabitants of the little wooden town had shown themselves disposed to regard certain trifling obliquities leniently, while they or their friends made satisfactory profits on the deals in ranching land and building lots he recommended.

That, however, was while the boom lasted, but when the bottom had, as they expressed it, dropped out, and a good many of them found themselves saddled with unmarketable possessions, they commenced to be troubled with grave doubts concerning the rect.i.tude of his conduct. Sloc.u.m was naturally quite aware of this, but he was a man of nerve, and quietly walked up the verandah steps.

”It's that hot I must have a drink, boys. Who's coming in with me?” he said, genially.

A few months ago a good many of them would have been willing to profit by the invitation, but that night n.o.body moved, and Sloc.u.m laughed softly.

”Well,” he said, ”I'm not going to worry you. This is evidently a temperance meeting.”

He pa.s.sed into the empty bar alone, and a man who leaned upon the counter in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves shook his head as he glanced towards the verandah.

”They're not in a good humor to-night. It looks very much as if someone has been talking to them?” he said.

Sloc.u.m smiled a little, though he had already noticed this, and taken precautions the bar-keeper never suspected.

”I guess they'll simmer down. Who has been talking to them?” he said.

”The two ranchers you sold the Hemlock Range to. There was another man who'd bought a piece of natural prairie, and it cost him most of five dollars before he got through telling them what he thought of you. Now, I don't know what their notion is, but I'd light out for a little if I was you.”

Sloc.u.m appeared to reflect. ”Well,” he said, ”I may go to-morrow.”

”I'd go to-night,” said the bar-keeper, significantly. ”I guess it would be wiser.”

Sloc.u.m, who did not consider it necessary to tell him that he quite agreed with this, went out, and a few minutes later stopped outside his house, which was the last one in the town. A big, rudely-painted sign, nailed across the front of it, recommended any one who desired to buy or sell land and mineral properties or had mortgages to arrange, to come in and confer with the agent of Grant Devine. He glanced back up the street, and was relieved to notice that there was n.o.body loitering about that part of it. Then he looked at the forest the trail led into, which was shadowy and still, and, slipping round the building, went in through the back of it. A woman stood waiting him in a dimly-lighted room, which was littered with feminine clothing besides two big valises and an array of bulky packages. She was expensively dressed, but her face was anxious, and he noticed that her fingers were quivering.

”You're quite ready, Sue?” he said.

The woman pointed to the packages with a little dramatic gesture. ”Oh, yes,” she said. ”I'm ready, though I'll have to leave most two hundred dollars' worth of clothes behind me. I've no use for taking in plain sewing while you think over what you've brought me to in the penitentiary.”

Sloc.u.m smiled drily. ”If you hadn't wanted quite so many dry goods, I'm not sure it would have come to this, but we needn't worry about that just now. Tom will have the horses round in 'bout five minutes. You don't figure on taking all that truck along with you?”

”I do,” said the woman. ”I've got to have something to put on when we get to Oregon!”

”Well,” said Sloc.u.m, grimly, ”I'll be quite glad to get out with a whole hide, and I guess it couldn't be done if we started with a packhorse train or a wagon. I hadn't quite fixed to light out until I got the message that Devine, who didn't seem quite pleased with the last accounts, was coming in.”

”Could you have stood the boys off?”