Part 17 (2/2)

Little Eliza stayed on, as she often did after the school was dispersed, sure that ”her Simon,” would find some new and agreeable entertainment for her.

”Did your father ever hit you before?” Amberley asked casually, as they strung a handful of painter's-brush into a garland, which it was thought might prove becoming to Simon Jr.'s complexion.

”Yes,” said Eliza.

”More than once?”

”Yes.”

”Where did he hit you last time?”

”Here.” And Eliza pulled up the blue calico sleeve, and displayed a pretty bad bruise on the arm.

Simon paused a moment in his cross-examination.

”And you wish he was dead?” he asked at last, between his set teeth.

”Yes.”

”What does he look like?”

”Something like you,” was the startling response; ”only different.”

The amendment was, at first blush, more gratifying to Simon than the original statement. Yet, when Eliza was gone, he went and looked in his bit of a looking-gla.s.s, half hoping to find some touch of the latent ruffian in his face. All he saw there was a kindly, unalarming countenance, with a full blond beard, and thick blond hair. The eyes had a look of bewilderment which did not lessen their habitual mildness. He straightened his tall form, and threw his shoulders back, and he set his mouth in a very firm, determined line; but, somehow, the mild eyes would not flash, and a profound misgiving penetrated his soul. Was he the man after all, to terrorize a ruffian? The ruffian in question was an unknown quant.i.ty to his would-be intimidator, who boasted but a calling acquaintance with Eliza's mother,--a pale, consumptive creature, with that ”better-days” air about her, which gives the last touch of pitifulness to poverty and hards.h.i.+p.

Little as he had frequented the now thriving metropolis of Lame Gulch, Amberley knew pretty well where to look for his man, and as he sallied forth that same evening, with the purpose of investigating the ”unknown quant.i.ty,” he bent his steps, not in the direction of the rickety cabin in the hollow there, but toward the ”Lame Gulch Opera House.” This temple of the muses was easily discoverable, being situated in the main street of the town, and marked by a long transparency projecting above the door, upon which the luminous inscription, ”Opera House,” was visible from afar.

Upon entering beneath this alluring sign, Amberley found himself in a full-blown ”sample room,” the presence of whose glittering pyramids of bottles was still further emphasized by the following legend, ”Patronize the bar and walk in!” which was inscribed above an inner portal.

The new-comer stepped up to the bar-tender.

”Do you know whether a miner named Conrad Christie is in there?” he asked.

”I guess likely enough,” was the reply. ”Mr. Christie is one of our regular patrons. Won't you take a drink, Mister?”

”No;” said Simon, shortly.

”No? Ain't that ruther a pity? But pa.s.s right in, Sir. Any friend of Mr.

Christie's is welcome here.”

Whereupon Mr. Christie's ”friend” pa.s.sed through the door, into the long, narrow ”Opera House.” It was a dirty, cheerless hole, in spite of the brilliance of many oil lamps, s.h.i.+ning among the flimsy decorations.

At the end of the tunnel-shaped room was a rude stage, festooned with gaudy, squalid hangings, beneath which a painted siren was singing a song which Simon did not listen to. The floor of the auditorium was filled with chairs and tables in disorderly array, the occupants of which seemed to be paying more attention to their liquor and their cards than to the cracked voice of the songstress. There was a rattling of gla.s.ses, the occasional clink of money, frequent shrill laughs and deeper-chested oaths and guffaws; the fumes of beer and whisky mingled with the heavy canopy of smoke which gave to the flaring lights a lurid aspect, only too well befitting the place and the occasion.

”Wal, I swan!” exclaimed a familiar voice close at Simon's elbow: and, turning, he beheld the doughty Enoch, seated at a table close to the door, imbibing beer at the hands of a gaudy young woman in a red silk gown.

Simon looked at the elderly transgressor in speechless astonishment.

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