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Gordon Keith written by Thomas Nelson Page

T >> Thomas Nelson Page >> Gordon Keith




"Are you Mr. Keith?" His voice was deep and melancholy.

Keith bowed. He could not decide what the stranger was. The short
trousers inclined him to the church.

"I am proud to know you, sir. I am Mr. Drummond, the Methodist
preacher." He gripped Keith's hand.

Keith expressed the pleasure he had in meeting him.

"Yes, sir; I am proud to know you," repeated Mr. Drummond. "I hear you
have come out on the right side, and have given a righteous reproof to
that wretched dancing Jezebel who is trying to destroy the souls of the
young men of this town."

Keith said that he was not aware that he had done anything of the kind.
As to destroying the young men, he doubted if they could be injured by
her--certainly not by dancing. In any event, he did not merit
his praise.

Mr. Drummond shook his head. "Yes, sir. You are the first young man who
has had the courage to withstand the wiles of that person. She is the
most abandoned creature in this town; she beguiles the men so that I can
make no impression on them. Even when I am holding my meetings, I can
hear the strains of her fiddles and the shouts of the ribald followers
that throng her den-of-Satan. I have tried to get her to leave, but she
will not go."

Keith's reply was that he thought she had as much right there as any
one, and he doubted if there were any way to meet the difficulty.

"I am sorry to hear you say that," said the preacher. "I shall break up
her sink of iniquity if I have to hold a revival meeting at her very
door and call down brimstone and fire upon her den of wickedness"

"If you felt so on the subject of dancing, why did you come here?"
demanded Keith. "It seems to me that dancing is one of the least sins
of Gumbolt."

The preacher looked at him almost pensively. "I thought it my duty. I
have encountered ridicule and obloquy; but I do not mind them. I count
them but dross. Wherever I have found the print of my Lord's shoe in the
earth, there I have coveted to set my feet also."

Keith bowed. The speech of Mr. Valiant-for-Truth carried its cachet with
it. The stiff, awkward figure had changed. The preacher's sincerity had
lent him dignity, and his simple use of a simple tinker's words had
suddenly uplifted him to a higher plane.

"Do not you think you might go about it in a less uncompromising spirit?
You might succeed better and do more good," said Keith.

"No, sir; I will make no compromise with the devil--not even to succeed.
Good-by. I am sorry to find you among the obdurate." As he shook hands,
his jaw was set fast and his eye was burning. He strode off with the
step of a soldier advancing in battle.

Keith had not long to wait to test old Gilsey's advice. He was sitting
in the public room of the Windsor, a few evenings later, among the
motley crew that thronged that popular resort, who were discoursing of
many things, from J. Quincy Plume's last editorial on "The New Fanny
Elssler," to the future of Gumbolt, when Mr. Plume himself entered. His
appearance was the signal for some humor, for Mr. Plume had long passed
the time when any one but himself took him seriously.

"Here comes somebody that can tell us the news," called some one. "Come
in, J. Quincy, and tell us what you know."

"That would take too long," said Mr. Plume, as he edged himself toward
the stove. "You will find all the news in the _Whistle_ to-morrow."

Just then another new arrival, who had pushed his way in toward the
stove, said: "I will tell you a piece of news: Bill Bluffy is back."

"Come back, has he?" observed one of the company. "Well, that is more
interesting to J. Quincy than if the railroad had come. They are hated
rivals. Since J. Quincy has taken to writing editorials on Terpy, Bill
says there ain't no show for him. He threatened to kill Terp, I heard."

"Oh, I guess he has got more sense than that, drunk or sober. He had
better stick to men; shootin' of women ain't popular in most parts, an'
it ain't likely to get fashionable in Gumbolt, I reckon."

"He is huntin' for somebody," said the newcomer.

"I guess if he is going to get after all of Terpy's ardent admirers, he
will have his hands pretty full," observed Mr. Plume--a sentiment which
appeared to meet with general approval.

Just then the door opened a little roughly, and a man entered slowly
whom Keith knew intuitively to be Mr. Bill Bluffy himself. He was a
young, brown-bearded man, about Keith's size, but more stockily built,
his flannel shirt was laced up in front, and had a full, broad collar
turned over a red necktie with long ends. His slouch-hat was set on the
back of his head. The gleaming butts of two pistols that peeped out of
his waistband gave a touch of piquancy to his appearance. His black eyes
were restless and sparkling with excitement. He wavered slightly in his
gait, and his speech was just thick enough to confirm what his
appearance suggested, and what he was careful to declare somewhat
superfluously, that he was "on a ---- of a spree."

"I am a-huntin' for a ---- furriner 'at I promised to run out of town
before to-morrow mornin'. Is he in here!" He tried to stand still, but
finding this difficult, advanced.

A pause fell in the conversation around the stove. Two or three of the
men, after a civil enough greeting, hitched themselves into a more
comfortable posture in their chairs, and it was singular, though Keith
did not recall it until afterwards, that each of them showed by the
movement a pistol on his right hip.

After a general greeting, which in form was nearer akin to an eternal
malediction than to anything else, Mr. Bluffy walked to the bar. Resting
himself against it, he turned, and sweeping his eye over the assemblage,
ordered every man in the room to walk up and take a drink with him,
under penalties veiled in too terrific language to be wholly
intelligible. The violence of his invitation was apparently not quite
necessary, as every man in the room pulled back his chair promptly and
moved toward the bar, leaving Keith alone by the stove. Mr. Bluffy had
ordered drinks, when his casual glance fell on Keith standing quietly
inside the circle of chairs on the other side of the stove. He pushed
his way unsteadily through the men clustered at the bar.

"Why in the ---- don't you come up and do what I tell you? Are you
deaf?"

"No," said Keith, quietly; "but I'll get you to excuse me."

"Excuse ----! You aren't too good to drink with me, are you? If you
think you are, I'll show you pretty ----d quick you ain't."

Keith flushed.

"Drink with him," said two or three men in an undertone. "Or take a
cigar," said one, in a friendly aside.

"Thank you, I won't drink," said Keith, yet more gravely, his face
paling a little, "and I don't care for a cigar."

"Come on, Mr. Keith," called some one.

The name caught the young bully, and he faced Keith more directly.

"Keith?--Keith!" he repeated, fastening his eyes on him with a cold
glitter in them. "So you're Mr. Keith, are you?"

"That is my name," said Keith, feeling his blood tingling.

"Well, you're the man I'm a-lookin' for. No, you won't drink with me,
'cause I won't let you, you ---- ---- ----! You are the ---- ---- that
comes here insultin' a lady?"

"No; I am not," said Keith, keeping his eyes on him.

"You're a liar!" said Mr. Bluffy, adding his usual expletives. "And
you're the man I've come back here a-huntin' for. I promised to drive
you out of town to-night if I had to go to hell a-doin' it."

His white-handled pistol was out of his waistband with a movement so
quick that he had it cocked and Keith was looking down the barrel before
he took in what had been done. Quickness was Mr. Bluffy's strongest
card, and he had played it often.

Keith's face paled slightly. He looked steadily over the pistol, not
three feet from him, at the drunken creature beyond it. His nerves grew
tense, and every muscle in his frame tightened. He saw the beginning of
the grooves in the barrel of the pistol and the gray cones of the
bullets at the side in the cylinder; he saw the cruel, black, drunken
eyes of the young desperado. It was all in a flash. He had not a chance
for his life. Yes, he had.

"Let up, Bill," said a voice, coaxingly, as one might to soothe a wild
beast. "Don't--"

"Drop that pistol!" said another voice, which Keith recognized as Dave
Dennison's.

The desperado half glanced at the latter as he shot a volley of oaths at
him. That glance saved Keith. He ducked out of the line of aim and
sprang upon his assailant at the same time, seizing the pistol as he
went, and turning it up just as Bluffy pulled the trigger. The ball
went into the remote corner of the ceiling, and the desperado was
carried off his feet by Keith's rush.

The only sounds heard in the room were the shuffling of the feet of the
two wrestlers and the oaths of the enraged Bluffy. Keith had not uttered
a word. He fought like a bulldog, without noise. His effort was, while
he still gripped the pistol, to bring his two hands together behind his
opponent's back. A sudden relaxation of the latter's grip as he made
another desperate effort to release his pistol favored Keith, and,
bringing his hands together, he lifted his antagonist from his feet, and
by a dexterous twist whirled him over his shoulder and dashed him with
all his might, full length flat on his back, upon the floor. It was an
old trick learned in his boyish days and practised on the Dennisons, and
Gordon had by it ended many a contest, but never one more completely
than this. A buzz of applause came from the bystanders, and more than
one, with sudden friendliness, called to him to get Bluffy's pistol,
which had fallen on the floor. But Keith had no need to do so, for just
then a stoutly built young fellow snatched it up. It was Dave Dennison,
who had come in just as the row began. He had been following up Bluffy.
The desperado, however, was too much shaken to have used it immediately,
and when, still stunned and breathless, he rose to his feet, the crowd
was too much against him to have allowed him to renew the attack, even
had he then desired it.

As for Keith, he found himself suddenly the object of universal
attention, and he might, had he been able to distribute himself, have
slept in half the shacks in the camp.

The only remark Dave made on the event was characteristic:

"Don't let him git the drop on you again."

The next morning Keith found himself, in some sort, famous. "Tacklin'
Bill Bluffy without a gun and cleanin' him up," as one of his new
friends expressed it, was no mean feat, and Keith was not insensible to
the applause it brought him. He would have enjoyed it more, perhaps, had
not every man, without exception, who spoke of it given him the same
advice Dave had given--to look out for Bluffy. To have to kill a man or
be killed oneself is not the pleasantest introduction to one's new home;
yet this appeared to Keith the dilemma in which he was placed, and as,
if either had to die, he devoutly hoped it would not be himself, he
stuck a pistol in his pocket and walked out the next morning with very
much the same feeling he supposed he should have if he had been going to
battle. He was ashamed to find himself much relieved when some one he
met volunteered the information that Bluffy had left town by light that
morning. "Couldn't stand the racket. Terpy wouldn't even speak to him.
But he'll come back. Jest as well tote your gun a little while, till
somebody else kills him for you." A few mornings later, as Keith was
going down the street, he met again the "only decent-lookin' gal in
Gumbolt." It was too late for him to turn off, for when he first caught
sight of her he saw that she had seen him, and her head went up, and she
turned her eyes away. He hoped to pass without appearing to know her;
but just before they met, she cut her eye at him, and though his gaze
was straight ahead, she said, "Good morning," and he touched his hat as
he passed. That afternoon he met her again. He was passing on as before,
without looking at her, but she stopped him. "Good afternoon." She spoke
rather timidly, and the color that mounted to her face made her very
handsome. He returned the salutation coldly, and with an uneasy feeling
that he was about to be made the object of another outpouring of her
wrath. Her intention, however, was quite different. "I don't want you to
think I set that man on you; it was somebody else done it." The color
came and went in her cheeks.

Keith bowed politely, but preserved silence.

"I was mad enough to do it, but I didn't, and them that says I done it
lies." She flushed, but looked him straight in the face.

"Oh, that's all right," said Keith, civilly, starting to move on.

"I wish they would let me and my affairs alone," she began.' "They're
always a-talkin' about me, and I never done 'em no harm. First thing
they know, I'll give 'em something to talk about."

The suppressed fire was beginning to blaze again, and Keith looked
somewhat anxiously down the street, wishing he were anywhere except in
that particular company. To relieve the tension, he said:

"I did not mean to be rude to you the other day. Good morning."

At the kind tone her face changed.

"I knew it. I was riled that mornin' about another thing--somethin' what
happened the day before, about Bill," she explained. "Bill's bad enough
when he's in liquor, and I'd have sent him off for good long ago if they
had let him alone. But they're always a-peckin' and a-diggin' at him.
They set him on drinkin' and fightin', and not one of 'em is man enough
to stand up to him."

She gave a little whimper, and then, as if not trusting herself further,
walked hastily away. Mr. Gilsey said to Gordon soon afterwards:

"Well, you've got one friend in Gumbolt as is a team by herself; you've
captured Terp. She says you're the only man in Gumbolt as treats her
like a lady."

Keith was both pleased and relieved.

A week or two after Keith had taken up his abode in Gumbolt, Mr. Gilsey
was taken down with his old enemy, the rheumatism, and Keith went to
visit him. He found him in great anxiety lest his removal from the box
should hasten the arrival of the railway. He unexpectedly gave Keith
evidence of the highest confidence he could have in any man. He asked
if he would take the stage until he got well. Gordon readily assented.

So the next morning at daylight Keith found himself sitting in the boot,
enveloped in old Tim's greatcoat, enthroned in that high seat toward
which he had looked in his childhood-dreams.

It was hard work and more or less perilous work, but his experience as a
boy on the plantation and at Squire Rawson's, when he had driven the
four-horse wagon, stood him in good stead.

Old Tim's illness was more protracted than any one had contemplated,
and, before the first winter was out, Gordon had a reputation as a
stage-driver second only to old Gilsey himself.

Stage-driving, however, was not his only occupation, and before the next
Spring had passed, Keith had become what Mr. Plume called "one of
Gumbolt's rising young sons." His readiness to lend a hand to any one
who needed a helper began to tell. Whether it was Mr. Gilsey trying to
climb with his stiff joints to the boot of his stage, or Squire Rawson's
cousin, Captain Turley, the sandy-whiskered, sandy-clothed surveyor,
running his lines through the laurel bushes among the gray debris of the
crumbled mountain-side; Mr. Quincy Plume trying to evolve new copy from
a splitting head, or the shouting wagon-drivers thrashing their teams up
the muddy street, he could and would help any one.

He was so popular that he was nominated to be the town constable, a
tribute to his victory over Mr. Bluffy.

Terpy and he, too, had become friends, and though Keith stuck to his
resolution not to visit her "establishment," few days went by that she
did not pass him on the street or happen along where he was, and always
with a half-abashed nod and a rising color.



CHAPTER XII

KEITH DECLINES AN OFFER

With the growth of Gumbolt, Mr. Wickersham and his friends awakened to
the fact that Squire Rawson was not the simple cattle-dealer he appeared
to be, but was a man to be reckoned with. He not only held a large
amount of the most valuable property in the Gap, but had as yet proved
wholly intractable about disposing of it. Accordingly, the agent of
Wickersham & Company, Mr. Halbrook, came down to Gumbolt to look into
the matter. He brought with him a stout, middle-aged Scotchman, named
Matheson, with keen eyes and a red face, who was represented to be the
man whom Wickersham & Company intended to make the superintendent of
their mines as soon as they should be opened.

The railroad not having yet been completed more than a third of the way
beyond Eden, Mr. Halbrook took the stage to Gumbolt.

Owing to something that Mr. Gilsey had let fall about Keith, Mr.
Halbrook sent next day for Keith. He wanted him to do a small piece of
surveying for him. With him was the stout Scotchman, Matheson.

The papers and plats were on a table in his room, and Keith was looking
at them.

"How long would it take you to do it?" asked Mr. Halbrook. He was a
short, alert-looking man, with black eyes and a decisive manner. He
always appeared to be in a hurry.

Keith was so absorbed that he did not answer immediately, and the agent
repeated the question with a little asperity in his tone.

"I say how long would it take you to run those lines?"

"I don't know," said Keith, doubtfully. "I see a part of the property
lies on the mountain-side just above and next to Squire Rawson's lands.
I could let you know to-morrow."

"To-morrow! You people down here always want to put things off. That is
the reason you are so behind the rest of the world. The stage-driver,
however, told me that you were different, and that is the reason I
sent for you."

Keith straightened himself. "Dr. Chalmers said when some one praised him
as better than other Scotchmen, 'I thank you, sir, for no compliment
paid me at the expense of my countrymen." He half addressed himself to
the Scotchman.

Matheson turned and looked him over, and as he did so his grim face
softened a little.

"I know nothing about your doctors," said Mr. Halbrook; "what I want is
to get this work done. Why can't you let me know to-day what it will
cost? I have other things to do. I wish to leave to-morrow afternoon."

"Well," said Keith, with a little flush in his face, "I could guess at
it to-day. I think it will take a very short time. I am familiar with a
part of this property already, and--"

Mr. Halbrook was a man of quick intellect; moreover, he had many things
on his mind just then. Among them he had to go and see what sort of a
trade he could make with this Squire Rawson, who had somehow stumbled
into the best piece of land in the Gap, and was now holding it in an
obstinate and unreasonable way.

"Well, I don't want any guessing. I'll tell you what I will do. I will
pay you so much for the job." He named a sum which was enough to make
Keith open his eyes. It was more than he had ever received for any one
piece of work.

"It would be cheaper for you to pay me by the day," Keith began.

"Not much! I know the way you folks work down here. I have seen
something of it. No day-work for me. I will pay you so many dollars for
the job. What do you say? You can take it or leave it alone. If you do
it well, I may have some more work for you." He had no intention of
being offensive; he was only talking what he would have called
"business"; but his tone was such that Keith answered him with a flash
in his eye, his breath coming a little more quickly.

"Very well; I will take it."

Keith took the papers and went out. Within a few minutes he had found
his notes of the former survey and secured his assistants. His next step
was to go to Captain Turley and take him into partnership in the work,
and within an hour he was out on the hills, verifying former lines and
running such new lines as were necessary. Spurred on by the words of the
newcomer even more than by the fee promised him, Keith worked with might
and main, and sat up all night finishing the work. Next day he walked
into the room where Mr. Halbrook sat, in the company's big new office at
the head of the street. He had a roll of paper under his arm.

"Good morning, sir." His head was held rather high, and his voice had a
new tone in it.

Mr. Wickersham's agent looked up, and his face clouded. He was not used
to being addressed in so independent a tone.

"Good morning. I suppose you have come to tell me how long it will take
you to finish the job that I gave you, or that the price I named is not
high enough?"

"No," said Keith, "I have not. I have come to show you that my people
down here do not always put things off till to-morrow. I have come to
tell you that I have done the work. Here is your survey." He unrolled
and spread out before Mr. Halbrook's astonished gaze the plat he had
made. It was well done, the production of a draughtsman who knew the
value of neatness and skill. The agent's eyes opened wide.

"Impossible! You could not have done it, or else you--"

"I have done it," said Keith, firmly. "It is correct."

"You had the plat before?" Mr. Halbrook's eyes were fastened on him
keenly. He was feeling a little sore at what he considered having been
outwitted by this youngster.

"I had run certain of the lines before," said Keith: "these, as I
started to tell you yesterday. And now," he said, with a sudden change
of manner, "I will make you the same proposal I made yesterday. You can
pay me what you think the work is worth. I will not hold you to your
bargain of yesterday."

The other sat back in his chair, and looked at him with a different
expression on his face.

"You must have worked all night?' he said thoughtfully.

"I did," said Keith, "and so did my assistant, but that is nothing. I
have often done that for less money. Many people sit up all night in
Gumbolt," he added, with a smile.

"That old stage-driver said you were a worker." Mr. Halbrook's eyes were
still on him. "Where are you from?"

"Born and bred in the South," said Keith.

"I owe you something of an apology for what I said yesterday. I shall
have some more work for you, perhaps."

* * * * *

The agent, when he went back to the North, was as good as his word. He
told his people that there was one man in Gumbolt who would do their
work promptly.

"And he's straight," he said. "He says he is from the South; but he is a
new issue."

He further reported that old Rawson, the countryman who owned the land
in the Gap, either owned or controlled the cream of the coal-beds there.
"He either knows or has been well advised by somebody who knows the
value of all the lands about there. And he has about blocked the game. I
think it's that young Keith, and I advise you to get hold of Keith."

"Who is Keith? What Keith? What is his name?" asked Mr. Wickersham.

"Gordon Keith."

Mr. Wickersham's face brightened. "Oh, that is all right; we can get
him. We might give him a place?"

Mr. Halbrook nodded.

Mr. Wickersham sat down and wrote a letter to Keith, saying that he
wished to see him in New York on a matter of business which might
possibly turn out to his advantage. He also wrote a letter to General
Keith, suggesting that he might possibly be able to give his son
employment, and intimating that it was on account of his high regard for
the General.

That day Keith met Squire Rawson on the street. He was dusty and
travel-stained.

"I was jest comin' to see you," he said.

They returned to the little room which Keith called his office, where
the old fellow opened his saddle-bags and took out a package of papers.

"They all thought I was a fool," he chuckled as he laid out deed after
deed. "While they was a-talkin' I was a-ridin'. They thought I was
buyin' cattle, and I was, but for every cow I bought I got a calf in the
shape of the mineral rights to a tract of land. I'd buy a cow and I'd
offer a man half as much again as she was worth if he'd sell me the
mineral rights at a fair price, and he'd do it. He never had no use for
'em, an' I didn't know as I should either; but that young engineer o'
yourn talked so positive I thought I might as well git 'em inside my
pasture-fence." He sat back and looked at Keith with quizzical
complacency.

"Come a man to see me not long ago," he continued; "Mr.
Halbrook--black-eyed man, with a face white and hard like a tombstone.
I set up and talked to him nigh all night and filled him plumb full of
old applejack. That man sized me up for a fool, an' I sized him up for a
blamed smart Yankee. But I don't know as he got much the better of me."

Keith doubted it too.

"I think it was in and about the most vallyble applejack that I ever
owned," continued the old landowner, after a pause. "You know, I don't
mind Yankees as much as I used to--some of 'em. Of course, thar was Dr.
Balsam; he was a Yankee; but I always thought he was somethin' out of
the general run, like a piebald horse. That young engineer o' yourn that
come to my house several years ago, he give me a new idea about
'em--about some other things, too. He was a very pleasant fellow, an' he
knowed a good deal, too. It occurred to me 't maybe you might git hold
of him, an' we might make somethin' out of these lands on our own
account. Where is he now?"