The Helpers

"We are not partners in this particular claim. It's an old discovery of Garvin's. He drove the tunnel on it two years ago and then abandoned it. He was looking for tellurides and opened a vein of free-gold quartz without knowing what he had found."

"Then it's nobody's claim, as it stands; or rather I should say it's anybody's. You – or rather Garvin – will have to begin at the beginning, just as if it were a new deal; go back and post a notice on the ground and then come out and record it. And if it's Garvin's claim, as you say, he's got to do this in person. Nobody can do it for him. You can't turn a wheel till you get hold of Jim, and that's what makes me say what I 'does.' Let's go in and eat."

"But, Dick; you don't understand" —

"Yes, I do; and I happen to know a thing or two about this deal that you don't. You've got the whole forenoon before you; you are as safe as a house up to twelve o'clock. Come on."

"I say you don't understand. You called it a 'potential bonanza' just now, meaning that it wouldn't make so very much difference if it were never recorded. But it's a bonanza in fact. If Rittenberger knows what he is talking about, it is the biggest strike of the year, by long odds. I don't know much about such things, but it seems to me it ought to be secured at once and at all hazards."

"Rittenberger, you say? – the little Dutchman? You can bank on what he tells you, every time. I didn't know you'd been to an assayer. What is the figure?"

"I don't know that. I left the sample with him last night, and was to call this morning for the certificate. But the little man bubbled over at the mere sight of it."

"Good for old Jim! So much the better. Nevertheless, as I say, you've an easy half-hour in which to square yourself with me over the ham and eggs and what-not, and plenty of time to do what there is to be done afterward. You can't do anything but wait."

"Yes, I can; I can find Garvin and make sure of him. Don't you see" —

"I see that I'll have to tell you all I know – and that's something you never do for anybody – before you'll be reasonable. Listen, then: I saw your chump of a partner less than an hour ago. He was with two of his old cronies, and all three of them were pretty well in the push, for this early in the morning. They boarded the train I came up on, and that is why I say you're safe till noon. There is no train from the west till twelve-seven. I know Jim pretty well, and at his foolishest he never quite loses his grip. He had it in mind that he ought to fight shy of something or somebody, and he's given you the slip, dodged the enemy, and gone off on a three-handed spree all in a bunch. There now, does that clear up the mystery?"

Jeffard had caught at the counter-rail and was gradually petrifying. Here was the worst that could have befallen, and Bartrow had suspected nothing more than a drunken man's frolic.

"Gone? – with two men, you say? Can you describe them?"

"Roughly, yes; they were Jim's kind – miners or prospectors. One of them was tall and thin and black, and the other was rather thick-set and red. The red one was the drunkest of the three."

"Dressed like miners?" Jeffard had to fight for the "s's." His tongue was thick and his lips dry.

"Sure."

"That settles it, Dick, definitely. Last night those two fellows were dressed like men about town and wore diamonds. They've soaked their information out of Garvin, and they are on their way to locate that claim."

It was Bartrow's turn to gasp and stammer. "What? – locate the – Cæsar's ghost, man, you're daft! They wouldn't take Garvin with them!"

"They would do just that. In the first place, with the most accurate description of the locality that Garvin, drunk, could give them, there would be the uncertainty of finding it without a guide. They know that they have left a sane man behind them who can find the way back to the claim; and their only chance was to take Garvin along, keeping him drunk enough to be unsuspicious, and not too drunk to pilot them. Once on the ground ahead of me, and with Garvin in their power, they can do the worst."

Bartrow came alive to the probabilities in the catching of a breath. "Which will be to kill Garvin safely out of the way, post the claim, and snap their fingers at the world. Good Lord! – and I let 'em knock him down and drag him out under my very eyes! I'd ought to be shot."

"It's not your fault, Dick; it's mine. I saw what was in the wind last night, and stuck to Garvin till I got him to bed. I was dog-tired, – we'd been tramping all day, – and I thought he was safe to sleep the clock around. I hid his boots, dragged my bed across the door, and went to sleep."

"You couldn't have done less – or more. What happened?"

"This. Those two fellows had the room next to us, and there was a door between. They slipped him out this morning before I was awake."

"Of course; all cut out and shaped up beforehand. But, thank the Lord, there's a ghost of a chance yet. Where is the claim?"

"It is three days' march a little to the south of west, on the headwaters of a stream which flows into the Gunnison River."

"And the nearest railroad point?"

"Is Aspen. If I remember correctly, Garvin said it was about twenty miles across the range."

"Good. That accounts for the beginning of the race; they'll go to Aspen and take horses from there. But I don't understand why they took the long line. There are two railroads to Aspen, and one of them is an hour and twenty minutes longer than the other. That's your chance, and the only one, – to beat 'em to the end of the railroad run. How are you fixed?"

"For money, you mean? I have the wreck of a ten-dollar note and a hotel bill to pay."

Bartrow spun around on his heel and shot a sudden question at the hotel clerk, the answer to which was inaudible to Jeffard. But Bartrow's rejoinder was explanatory.

"Rooms over the bank, you say? That's lucky." This to the clerk; and then to Jeffard: "Come along with me; this is no time to stick at trifles. You've got to have money, suddenly, and plenty of it."

But Jeffard hung back.

"What are you going to do, Dick?"

"Stake you and let you try for a special engine over the short line. Those fellows took the long way around, as I say, – why, I don't know, because both trains leave at the same time. The running time the way they have gone is five hours and forty-five minutes. By the other line it's only four hours and twenty-five minutes. Savez?"

"Yes, but" —

"Weed out the 'buts' and come along. We're due to rout a man out of bed and make him open a bank vault. I can't put my hand into my pocket for you, as I'd like to; but I know a banker, and my credit's good."

They found the cashier of the Carbonate City National in the midst of his toilet. He was an Eastern man of conservative habit, but he was sufficiently Occidentalized to grasp the main points in Bartrow's terse narrative, and to rise to the inexorable demands of the occasion.

"You know the rule, Mr. Bartrow, – two good names; and I don't know your friend. But this seems to be an eighteen-carat emergency. Take that key and go down the back way into the bank. You'll find blank notes on the public desk. Make out your paper for what Mr. Jeffard will need, and I'll be with you in half a minute."

They found the way and the blank, which latter Bartrow hastily filled out, indorsed, and handed to Jeffard for signature. It was for five hundred dollars, and the proletary's hand shook when he dipped the pen.

"It's too much," he protested; "I can't stand it, Dick. It is like putting a whetted sword into the hands of a madman."

That was his first reference to the past and its smirched record, and Bartrow promptly toppled it into the abyss of generalities.

"Same old hair-splitter, aren't you? What's the matter with you now?"

"You know – better than any one. I am not to be trusted with any such sum of money."

"Call it Garvin's, then. I don't know how you feel toward Jim, but I've always found him a man to tie to."

A woman would have said that Jeffard turned aside to hide an upflash of emotion, though a clot on the pen was the excuse. But it was the better part of him that made answer.

"I owe him my life – twice, Dick. By all the known hypotheses of honor and gratitude and common decency I ought to be true to him now, in this his day of helplessness. But when one has eaten and drunk and slept with infamy" —

The cashier's step was on the stair, and Bartrow cut in swiftly.

"Jeffard, you make me weary! – and, incidentally, you're killing precious time. Can't you see that trust isn't a matter of much or little? If you can't, why just name the amount for which you'd be tempted to drop Garvin, and we'll cut under it so as to be on the safe side."

"But I sha'n't need a fifth of this," Jeffard objected, wavering.

"You are liable to need more. You must remember that ten minutes hence you'll be trying to subsidize a railroad company. Sign that note and quit quibbling about it."

The thing was done, but when the money had changed hands, Jeffard quibbled again.