The Helpers

"I do refuse, for the present. A few days later, when I have done what I have to do, there will be time enough to discuss ways and means – and ethics, if you still feel inclined that way. May I trouble you to run that window-shade up?" He was sitting on the edge of the bed and groping beneath it for his shoes.

The promoter admitted the light and ventured a question.

"What are you going to do?"

"Get on the ground with the least possible delay."

The shoes were found, but when the wounded one bent to lace them the room spun around and he would have fallen if Denby had not caught him.

"You're not fit," said the master of men, not unsympathetically. "You couldn't sit a horse if your life depended upon it."

"I must; therefore I can and will," Jeffard asserted, with fine determination. "Be good enough to ask the bell-boy to come in and lace my shoes."

The man with a mission to compel other men smiled. His fetish was indomitable resolution, for himself first, and afterward for those who deserved; and here was a man who, whatever his lacks and havings in the ethical field, was at least courageous. Having admitted so much, the promoter went down on one knee to lace the courageous one's shoes, dissuading him, meanwhile.

"You can't go to-day; the wound-fever will come on presently, and you'll be a sick man. Let it rest a while. Having put himself on the criminal side of the fence by trying to kill you, your partner will hardly dare to jump the claim in person; he will have to find a proxy, and that will ask for time, – more time than the sheriff-dodging will permit."

"His proxies are here, and they will act without instructions from him," said Jeffard, with his hands to his head and his teeth set to keep the words from shaping themselves into a groan.

"You mean the two who were with him?"

"Yes. So far as the present fight is concerned, the three are one; and two of them are still free to act."

"So? – that's different." Denby finished tying the second shoe and rose to begin measuring a sentinel's beat between the window and the door, pacing evenly with his brows knitted and his hands clasped behind him. "You know what to expect, then?"

"I know that I have been twice shot at within the past two hours, and that the moments are golden."

"But you are in no condition to go in and hold it alone! You'll have to meet force with force. You ought to have at least three or four good men with you."

"What I have to do presupposes a clear field," said Jeffard guardedly. "If it should come to blows, the discussion of – of ethics will be indefinitely postponed, I'm afraid."

"Humph! I suppose your reasons are as strong as your obstinacy. How far is it to your claim?"

"I don't know the exact distance; about twenty miles, I believe. But there is a mountain range intervening."

"You can't ride it in your present condition; it's a sheer physical impossibility."

"I shall ride it."

"What is the use of being an ass?" demanded the master of men, losing patience for once in a way. "Don't you see you can't stand alone?"

Jeffard struggled to his feet and wavered across the room to a chair. Denby laughed, – a quiet little chuckle of appreciation.

"I didn't mean literally; I meant in the business affair. You'll have to have help from the start. That means that you will have to trust some one. From what you say it is evident that there will be an immediate attempt made to jump the claim; an attempt which will be afoot and on the ground long before you can get there. Let us be reasonable and take hold of the live facts. I have a man here who is both capable and trustworthy. Let me send him in with a sufficient force to stand off the jumpers until you are able to hold your own."

Jeffard shook his head. "I can't do it, unreasonable as it may seem. I must go first and alone. That is another mystery, you will say, but I can't help it. If I win through it alive I shall be here again in a day or two, ready to talk business. More than that I can't say now."

Denby's thin lips came together in a straight line, with a click of the white teeth behind them. "As you please. I am not going about to prove to you that you would lose nothing by trusting me from the start. Can I do anything toward helping you off?"

"Yes; you can give me your shoulder down the stair and a lift into the saddle."

The little journey to the ground floor was made in silence. When they were passing the desk the clerk said: "Your horse is at the door, Mr. Jeffard. I was just about to send up word. Are you feeling better?"

"I am all right." He leaned heavily on the counter and paid his bill. "Did the liveryman leave any message?"

"No, only to say that he has stocked the saddle-bags as you directed."

The personally conducted journey went on to the sidewalk, and Denby heaved the wounded one into the saddle, steadying him therein till the vertigo loosed its hold.

"Anything else you can delegate?"

"No, thank you; nothing that I think of."

"You are still determined to go?"

"Quite determined."

"Well, you are a stubborn madman, and I rather like you for it; that's all I have to say. Good luck to you."

Jeffard gathered the reins and sat reflective what time the broncho sniffed the cool breeze pouring down from the higher slopes of the western range. When the horse would have set out, Jeffard restrained him yet another moment.

"You intimated a few minutes ago that I was afraid to trust you, Mr. Denby," he said, picking and choosing among the words as one who has a difficult course to steer. "I do trust you as far as I can trust any one at the present crisis, and I'll prove it." He drew a crumpled bit of paper from his pocket, and smoothed it upon the pommel of the saddle. "Here is a rough map of the claim and the trails by which it may be reached. If I'm not back in Aspen in three days, fit out your expedition and go in prepared to take and hold the property. The men you will find in possession will be robbers, – and murderers, – and you may have to fight for it; but that won't matter. In the right-hand tunnel wall, a few feet from the entrance, you will see a crevice where the dynamite was kept. In the bottom of that crevice you'll find my last will and testament, and I'm going to believe that you will carry out its provisions to the letter."

The promoter's smile was of grimness, with quarterings of approval.

"Which is to say that you'll be safely dead and buried. Barring your idiotic stubbornness, you are a man after my own heart, Mr. Jeffard, and I'll willingly be your executor. Are you armed?"

"No; I told you it would depend upon speed. I have no weapons."

"What! And you are going on a forlorn hope with an even chance of having to fight for your life? Wait a minute."

He ran back into the hotel, coming out again presently with a repeating rifle and a well-filled cartridge belt. "There is such a thing as cold nerve carried to the vanishing point in foolhardiness, Mr. Jeffard," he said. "Put this belt on while I sling the rifle under the saddle-flap. Can you shoot straight?"

"It is extremely doubtful. A little target practice as a boy" —

"Target practice! – and you may have to stand off a gang of desperadoes who can clip coins at a hundred yards! You'd better reconsider and give me time to organize a posse."

"No; thank you – for that and everything else. Good-by."

Denby stood on the curb and watched his man ride slowly up the street and take the turn toward the southern mountains. After which he went back to his place at the public writing-table in the lobby, picking up the hotel stenographer on the way. For a preoccupied half-hour he dictated steadily, and when the last letter was answered got up to pace out the transcribing interval. In the midst of it he drifted out to the sidewalk and stood staring absently up the street, as, an hour earlier, he had gazed after the lessening figure of the obstinate one. But this time there were two horsemen in the field of vision wending their way leisurely to the street-end. Denby, thinking pointedly of other things, saw them and saw them not; but when they, too, took the turn to the southward, he came alive to the probabilities in the heart of an instant.

"By all that's good! – they're after him, as sure as fate!" he muttered; and a little later he was quizzing the proprietor of a livery stable around the corner.

"Do you know those two fellows who have just left, Thompson?"

"You bet I don't; and I made 'em put up the collateral for the whole outfit before they got away."

"Where did you say they were going?"