Part 33 (1/2)

”Thanks,” Frawley said with a drawl. ”And you'll notice I haven't advised you to come back and face the music. Seems to me we understand each other.”

”Here's my address,” said Greenfield, handing him a card; ”may save you some trouble. I'm here every night.” He held out his hand. ”Turn up and meet the profesh. They're a clever lot here. They'd appreciate meeting you, too.”

”Perhaps I will.”

”Ta-ta, then.”

Greenfield took a few steps, halted, and lounged back with a smile full of mischief.

”By the way, Bub--how long has Her Majesty's d.i.n.kies given you?”

”It's a life appointment, Bucky.”

”Really--bless me--then your bloomin' government has some sense after all.”

The two men saluted gravely, with a parting exchange.

”Now, Bub--keep fit.”

”Same to you, Bucky.”

IV

The view of Greenfield sauntering lightly away among the noisy tables, bravado in his manner, deviltry in his heart, was the last glimpse Inspector Frawley was destined to have of him in many months. True, Greenfield had not lied: the address was genuine, but the man was gone.

For days Frawley had the city scoured without gaining a clue. No steamer had left the harbor, not even a tramp. If Greenfield was not in hiding, he must have buried himself in the interior.

It was a week before Frawley found the track. Greenfield had walked thirty miles into the country and taken the train for Rio Mendoza on the route across the Andes to Valparaiso.

Frawley followed the same day, somewhat mystified at this sudden change of base. In the train the thermometer stood at 116. The heat made of everything a solitude. Frawley, lifeless, stifling, and numbed, glued himself to the air-holes with eyes fastened on the horizon, while the train sped across the naked, singeing back of the plains like the welt that springs to meet the fall of the lash. For two nights he watched the distended sun, exhausted by its own madness, drop back into the heated void, and the tortured stars rise over the stricken desert. At the end of thirty-six hours of agony he arrived at Rio Mendoza. Thence he reached Punta de Vacas, procured mules and a guide, and prepared for the ascent over the mountains.

At two o'clock the next morning he began to climb out of h.e.l.l. The tortured plains settled below him. A divine freshness breathed upon him with a new hope of life. He left the burning conflict of summer and pa.s.sed into the aroma of spring.

Then the air grew intense, a new suffocation pressed about his temples--the suffocation of too much life. In an hour he had run the gamut of the seasons. The cold of everlasting winter descended and stung his senses. Up and up and up they went--then suddenly down, with the half-breed guide and the tireless mule always at the same distance before him; and again began the insistent mechanical toiling upward. He grew listless and indifferent, acquiescent in these steep efforts that the next moment must throw away. The horror of immense distance rose about him. From time to time a stone dislodged by their pa.s.sage rushed from under him, struck the brink, and spun into the void, to fall endlessly. The face of the earth grew confused and dropped in a mist from before his eyes.

Then as they toiled still upward, a gale as though sent in anger rushed down upon them, sweeping up whirlwinds of snow, raging and shrieking, dragging them to the brink, and threatening to blot them out.

Frawley clutched the saddle, then flung his arms about the neck of his mule. His head was reeling, the indignant blood rushed to his nostrils and his ears, his lungs no longer could master the divine air. Then suddenly the mules stopped, exhausted. Through the maelstrom the guide shrieked to him not to use the spur. Frawley felt himself in danger of dying, and had no resentment.

For a day they affronted the immense wilds until they had forced themselves thousands of feet above the race of men. Then they began to descend.

Below them the clouds lapped and rolled like the elements before the creation. Still they descended, and the moist oblivion closed about them, like the curse of a world without color. The bleak mists separated and began to roll up above them, a cloud split asunder, and through the slit the earth jumped up, and the solid land spread before them as when at the dawn it obeyed the will of the Creator. They saw the hills and the mountains grow, and the rivers trickle toward the sea. The ma.s.ses of brown and green began to be splashed with red and yellow as the fields became fertile and fructified; and the insect race of men began to crawl to and fro.

The half-breed, who saw the scene for the hundredth time, bent his head in awe. Frawley straightened in his saddle, stretched the stiffness out of his limbs, patted his mule solicitously, glanced at the guide, and stopped in perplexity at the mute, reverential att.i.tude.

”What's he starin' at now?” he muttered in as then, with a glance at his watch, he added anxiously, ”I say, Sammy, when do we get a bit to eat?”