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Gordon Keith written by Thomas Nelson Page

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"They may not be," said Keith. "There is one point as high as this. I
shall go on and see."

The men endeavored to dissuade him. It was "a useless risk of life,"
they assured him; "the others must have been swept away immediately. The
water had come so sudden. Besides, the water was rising, and it might
even now be too late to get out." But Keith was firm, and ordering them
back in charge of the two men who had come in with him, he pushed on
alone. He knew that the water was still rising, though, he hoped,
slowly. He had no voice to shout now, but he prayed with all his might,
and that soothed and helped him. Presently the water was a little
shallower. It did not come so high up on him. He knew from this that he
must be reaching the upper level. Now and then he spoke Bluffy's and
Hennson's names, lest in the darkness he should pass them.

Presently, as he stopped for a second to take breath, he thought he
heard another sound besides the gurgling of the water as it swirled
about the timbers. He listened intently.

It was the boy's voice. "Hold me tight, father. Don't leave me."

Then he heard another voice urging him to go. "You can't do any good
staying; try it." But Hennson was refusing.

"Hold on. I won't leave you."

"Hennson! Bluffy!" shouted Keith, or tried to shout, for his voice went
nowhere; but his heart was bounding now, and he plunged on. Presently he
was near enough to catch their words. The father was praying, and the
boy was following him.

"'Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,'" Keith heard him say.

"Hennson!" he cried again.

From the darkness he heard a voice.

"Who is that? Is that any one?"

"It is I,--Mr. Keith,--Hennson. Come quick, all of you; you can get out.
Cheer up."

A cry of joy went up.

"I can't leave my boy," called the man.

"Bring him on your back," said Keith. "Come on, Bluffy."

"I can't," said Bluffy. "I'm hurt. My leg is broke."

"God have mercy!" cried Keith, and waded on.

After a moment more he was up with the man, feeling for him in the
darkness, and asking how he was hurt.

They told him that the rush of the water had thrown him against a timber
and hurt his leg and side.

"Take the boy," said Bluffy, "and go on; leave me here."

The boy began to cry.

"No," said Keith; "I will take you, too: Hennson can take the boy. Can
you walk at all?"

"I don't think so."

Keith made Hennson take the boy and hold on to him on one side, and
slipping his arm around the injured man, he lifted him and they started
back. He had put new courage into them, and the force of the current was
in their favor. They passed the first high level, where he had found the
others. When they reached a point where the water was too deep for the
boy, Keith made the father take him on his shoulder, and they waded on
through the blackness. The water was now almost up to his chin, and he
grew so tired under his burden that he began to think they should never
get out; but he fought against it and kept on, steadying himself against
the timbers. He knew that if he went down it was the end. Many thoughts
came to him of the past. He banished them and tried to speak words of
encouragement, though he could scarcely hear himself.

"Shout," he said hoarsely; and the boy shouted, though it was somewhat
feeble.

A moment later, he gave a shout of an entirely different kind.

"There is a light!" he cried.

The sound revived Keith's fainting energies, and he tried to muster his
flagging strength. The boy shouted again, and in response there came
back, strangely flattened, the shrill cry of a woman. Keith staggered
forward with Bluffy, at times holding himself up by the side-timbers. He
was conscious of a light and of voices, but was too exhausted to know
more. If he could only keep the man and the boy above water until
assistance came! He summoned his last atom of strength.

"Hold tight to the timbers, Hennson," he cried; "I am going."

The rest was a confused dream. He was conscious for a moment of the
weight being lifted from him, and he was sinking into the water as if
into a soft couch. He thought some one clutched him, but he knew
nothing more.

* * * * *

Terpsichore was out on the street when the rumor of the accident reached
her. Any accident always came home to her, and she was prompt to do what
she could to help, in any case. But this was Mr. Keith's mine, and rumor
had it that he was among the lost. Terpsichore was not attired for such
an emergency; when she went on the streets, she still wore some of her
old finery, though it was growing less and less of late. She always
acted quickly. Calling to a barkeeper who had come to his front door on
hearing the news, to bring her brandy immediately, she dashed into a
dry-goods store near by and got an armful of blankets, and when the
clerk, a stranger just engaged in the store, made some question about
charging them to her, she tore off her jewelled watch and almost flung
it at the man.

"Take that, idiot! Men are dying," she said. "I have not time to box
your jaws." And snatching up the blankets, she ran out, stopped a
passing buggy, and flinging them into it, sprang in herself. With a nod
of thanks to the barkeeper, who had brought out several bottles of
brandy, she snatched the reins from the half-dazed driver, and heading
the horse up the street that led out toward the mine, she lashed him
into a gallop. She arrived at the scene of the accident just before the
first men rescued reappeared. She learned of Keith's effort to save
them. She would have gone into the mine herself had she not been
restrained. Just then the men came out.

The shouts and cries of joy that greeted so unexpected a deliverance
drowned everything else for a few moments; but as man after man was met
and received half dazed into the arms of his family and friends, the
name of Keith began to be heard on all sides. One voice, however, was
more imperative than the others; one figure pressed to the front--that
of the gayly dressed woman who had just been comforting and encouraging
the weeping women about the mine entrance.

"Where is Mr. Keith?" she demanded of man after man.

The men explained. "He went on to try and find three more men who are
down there--Bluffy and Hennson and his boy."

"Who went with him?"

"No one. He went alone."

"And you men let him go?"

"We could not help it. He insisted. We tried to make him come with us."

"You cowards!" she cried, tearing off her wrap. "Of course, he insisted,
for he is a _man_. Had one woman been down there, she would not have let
him go alone." She sprang over the fencing rope as lightly as a deer,
and started toward the entrance. A cry broke from the crowd.

"She's going! Stop her! She's crazy! Catch her!"

Several men sprang over the rope and started after her. Hearing them,
Terpsichore turned. With outstretched arms spread far apart and blazing
eyes, she faced them.

"If any man tries to stop me, I will kill him on the spot, as God
lives!" she cried, snatching up a piece of iron bar that lay near by. "I
am going to find that man, dead or alive. If there is one of you man
enough to come with me, come on. If not, I will go alone."

"I will go with you!" A tall, sallow-faced man who had just come up
pushed through the throng and overtook her. "You stay here; I will go."
It was Tib Drummond, the preacher. He was still panting. The girl hardly
noticed him. She waved him aside and dashed on.

A dozen men offered to go if she would come back.

"No; I shall go with you," she said; and knowing that every moment was
precious, and thinking that the only way to pacify her was to make the
attempt, the men yielded, and a number of them entered the mine with
her, the lank preacher among them.

They had just reached the bottom when the faint outline of something
black was seen in the glimmer that their lights threw in the distance.
Terpy, with a cry, dashed forward, and was just in time to catch Keith
as he sank beneath the black water.

When the rescuing party with their burdens reached the surface once
more, the scene was one to revive even a flagging heart; but Keith and
Bluffy were both too far gone to know anything of it.

The crowd, which up to this time had been buzzing with the excitement of
the reaction following the first rescue, suddenly hushed down to an awed
silence as Keith and Bluffy were brought out and were laid limp and
unconscious on a blanket, which Terpsichore had snatched from a man in
the front of the others. Many women pressed forward to offer assistance,
but the girl waved them back.

"A doctor!" she cried, and reaching for a brandy-bottle, she pressed it
first to Keith's lips. Turning to Drummond, the preacher, who stood
gaunt and dripping above her, she cried fiercely: "Pray, man; if you
ever prayed, pray now. Pray, and if you save 'em, I'll leave town. I
swear before God I will. Tell Him so."

But the preacher needed no urging. Falling on his knees, he prayed as
possibly he had never prayed before. In a few moments Keith began to
come to. But Bluffy was still unconscious, and a half-hour later the
Doctor pronounced him past hope.

* * * * *

It was some time before Keith was able to rise from his bed, and during
this period a number of events had taken place affecting him, and, more
or less, affecting New Leeds. Among these was the sale of Mr. Plume's
paper to a new rival which had recently been started in the place, and
the departure of Mr. Plume (to give his own account of the matter) "to
take a responsible position upon a great metropolitan journal." He was
not a man, he said, "to waste his divine talents in the attempt to carry
on his shoulders the blasted fortunes of a 'bursted boom,' when the
world was pining for the benefit of his ripe experience." Another
account of the same matter was that rumor had begun to connect Mr.
Plume's name with the destruction of the Wickersham mine and the
consequent disaster in the Rawson mine. His paper, with brazen
effrontery, had declared that the accident in the latter was due to the
negligence of the management. This was too much for the people of New
Leeds in their excited condition. Bluffy was dead; but Hennson, the man
whom Keith had rescued, had stated that they had cut through into a
shaft when the water broke in on them, and an investigation having been
begun, not only of this matter, but of the previous explosion in the
Wickersham mine, Mr. Plume had sold out his paper hastily and shaken the
dust of New Leeds from his feet.

Keith knew nothing of this until it was all over. He was very ill for a
time, and but for the ministrations of Dr. Balsam, who came up from
Ridgely to look after him, and the care of a devoted nurse in the person
of Terpsichore, this history might have ended then. Terpsichore had,
immediately after Keith's accident, closed her establishment and devoted
herself to his care. There were many other offers of similar service,
for New Leeds was now a considerable town, and Keith might have had a
fair proportion of the gentler sex to minister to him; but Dr. Balsam,
to whom Terpsichore had telegraphed immediately after Keith's rescue,
had, after his first interview with her in the sick-room, decided in
favor of the young woman.

"She has the true instinct," said the Doctor to himself. "She knows when
to let well enough alone, and holds her tongue."

Thus, when Keith was able to take notice again, he found himself in good
hands.

A few days after he was able to get up, Keith received a telegram
summoning him to New York to meet the officers of the company. As weak
as he was, he determined to go, and, against the protestations of doctor
and nurse, he began to make his preparations.

Just before Keith left, a visitor was announced, or rather announced
himself; for Squire Rawson followed hard upon his knock at the door. His
heavy boots, he declared, "were enough to let anybody know he was
around, and give 'em time to stop anything they was ashamed o' doin'."

The squire had come over, as he said, "to hear about things." It was the
first time he had seen Keith since the accident, though, after he had
heard of it, he had written and invited Keith to come "and rest up a bit
at his house."

When the old man learned of the summons that had come to Keith, he relit
his pipe and puffed a moment in silence.

"Reckon they'll want to know why they ain't been a realizin' of their
dreams?" he said, with a twinkle in his half-shut eyes. "Ever notice,
when a man is huntin', if he gits what he aims at, it's himself; but if
he misses, it's the blamed old gun?"

Keith smiled. He had observed that phenomenon.

"Well, I suspicionate they'll be findin' fault with their gun. I have
been a-watchin' o' the signs o' the times. If they do, don't you say
nothin' to them about it; but I'm ready to take back my part of the
property, and I've got a leetle money I might even increase my
herd with."

The sum he mentioned made Keith open his eyes.

"When hard times comes," continued the old man, after enjoying Keith's
surprise, "I had rather have my money in land than in one of these here
banks. I has seen wild-cat money and Confederate money, and land's land.
I don't know that it is much of a compliment to say that I has more
confidence in you than I has in these here men what has come down from
nobody-knows-where to open a bank on nobody-knows-what."

Keith expressed his appreciation of the compliment, but thought that
they must have something to bank on.

"Oh, they've got something," admitted the capitalist. "But you know what
it is. They bank on brass and credulity. That's what I calls it."

The old man's face clouded. "I had been puttin' that by for Phrony," he
said. "But she didn't want it. _My_ money warn't good enough for her.
Some day she'll know better."

Keith waited for his humor to pass.

"I won't ever do nothin' for her; but if ever you see her, I'd like you
to help her out if she needs it," he said huskily.

Keith promised faithfully that he would.

That afternoon Terpy knocked at his door, and came in with that mingled
shyness and boldness which was characteristic of her.

Keith offered her a chair and began to thank her for having saved his
life.

"Well, I am always becoming indebted to you anew for saving my life--"

"I didn't come for that," declared the girl. "I didn't save your life. I
just went down to do what I could to help you. You know how that mine
got flooded?"

"I do," said Keith.

"They done it to do you," she said; "and they made Bill believe it was
to hurt Wickersham. Bill's dead now, an' I don't want you to think he
had anything against you." She began to cry.

All this was new to Keith, and he said so.

"Well, you won't say anything about what I said about Bill. J. Quincy
made him think 'twas against Wickersham, and he was that drunk he didn't
know what a fool they was makin' of him.--You are going away?" she
said suddenly.

"Oh, only for a very little while--I am going off about a little
business for a short time. I expect to be back very soon."

"Ah! I heard--I am glad to hear that you are coming back." She was
manifestly embarrassed, and Keith was wondering more and more what she
wanted of him. "I just wanted to say good-by. I am going away." She was
fumbling at her wrap. "And to tell you I have changed my business. I'm
not goin' to keep a dance-house any longer."

"I am glad of that," said Keith, and then stuck fast again.

"I don't think a girl ought to keep a dance-house or a bank?"

"No; I agree with you. What are you going to do?"

"I don't know; I thought of trying a milliner. I know right smart about
hats; but I'd wear all the pretty ones and give all the ugly ones away,"
she said, with a poor little smile. "And it might interfere with Mrs.
Gaskins, and she is a widder. So I thought I'd go away. I thought of
being a nurse--I know a little about that. I used to be about the
hospital at my old home, and I've had some little experience since." She
was evidently seeking his advice.

"You saved my life," said Keith. "Dr. Balsam says you are a born nurse."

She put this by without comment, and Keith went on.

"Where was your home?"

"Grofton."

"Grofton? You mean in England? In the West Country?"

She nodded. "Yes. I was the girl the little lady gave the doll to. You
were there. Don't you remember? I ran away with it. I have it now--a
part of it. They broke it up; but I saved the body."

Keith's eyes opened wide.

"That Lois Huntington gave it to?"

"Yes. I heard you were going to be married?" she said suddenly.

"I! Married! No! No such good luck for me." His laugh had an unexpected
tone of bitterness in it. She gave him a searching glance in the dusk,
and presently began again haltingly.

"I want you to know I am never going back to that any more."

"I am glad to hear it."

"You were the first to set me to thinkin' about it."

"I!"

"Yes; I want to live straight, and I'm goin' to."

"I am sure you are, and I cannot tell you how glad I am," he said
cordially.

"Yes, thankee." She was looking down, picking shyly at the fringe on her
wrap. "And I want you to know 'twas you done it. I have had a hard
life--you don't know how hard--ever since I was a little bit of a
gal--till I run away from home. And then 'twas harder. And they all
treated me's if I was just a--a dog, and the worst kind of a dog. So I
lived like a dog. I learned how to bite, and then they treated me some
better, because they found I would bite if they fooled with me. And then
I learned what fools and cowards men were, and I used 'em. I used to
love to play 'em, and I done it. I used to amuse 'em for money and hold
'em off. But I knew sometime I'd die like a dog as I lived like one--and
then you came--." She paused and looked away out of the window, and
after a gulp went on again: "They preached at me for dancin'. But I
don't think there's any harm dancin'. And I love it better'n anything
else in the worl'."

"I do not, either," said Keith.

"You was the only one as treated me as if I was--some'n' I warn't. I
fought against you and tried to drive you out, but you stuck, and I knew
then I was beat. I didn't know 'twas you when I--made such a fool of
myself that time--."

Keith laughed.

"Well, I certainly did not know it was you."

"No--I wanted you to know that," she went on gravely, "because--because,
if I had, I wouldn' 'a' done it--for old times' sake." She felt for her
handkerchief, and not finding it readily, suddenly caught up the bottom
of her skirt and wiped her eyes with it as she might have done when a
little girl.

Keith tried to comfort her with words of assurance, the tone of which
was at least consoling.

"I always was a fool about crying--an' I was thinkin' about Bill," she
said brokenly. "Good-by." She wrung his hand, turned, and walked rapidly
out of the room, leaving Keith with a warm feeling about his heart.



CHAPTER XXI

THE DIRECTORS' MEETING

Keith found, on his arrival in New York to meet his directors, that a
great change had taken place in business circles since his visit there
when he was getting up his company.

Even Norman, at whose office Keith called immediately on his arrival,
appeared more depressed than Keith had ever imagined he could be. He
looked actually care-worn.

As they started off to attend the meeting, Norman warned Keith that the
meeting might be unpleasant for him, but urged him to keep cool, and not
mind too much what might be said to him.

"I told you once, you remember, that men are very unreasonable when they
are losing." He smiled gloomily.

Keith told him of old Rawson's offer.

"You may need it," said Norman.

When Keith and Norman arrived at the office of the company, they found
the inner office closed. Norman, being a director, entered at once, and
finally the door opened and "Mr. Keith" was invited in. As he entered, a
director was showing two men out of the room by a side door, and Keith
had a glimpse of the back of one of them. The tall, thin figure
suggested to him Mr. J. Quincy Plume; but he was too well dressed to be
Mr. Plume, and Keith put the matter from his mind as merely an odd
resemblance. The other person he did not see.

Keith's greeting was returned, as it struck him, somewhat coldly by
most of them. Only two of the directors shook hands with him.

It was a meeting which Keith never forgot. He soon found that he had
need of all of his self-control. He was cross-examined by Mr. Kestrel.
It was evident that it was believed that he had wasted their money, if
he had not done worse. The director sat with a newspaper in his lap, to
which, from time to time, he appeared to refer. From the line of the
questioning, Keith soon recognized the source of his information.

"You have been misled," Keith said coldly, in reply to a question. "I
desire to know the authority for your statement."

"I must decline," was the reply. "I think I may say that it is an
authority which is unimpeachable. You observe that it is one who knows
what he is speaking of?" He gave a half-glance about him at his
colleagues.

"A spy?" demanded Keith, coldly, his eye fixed on the other.

"No, sir. A man of position, a man whose sources of knowledge even you
would not question. Why, this has been charged in the public prints
without denial!" he added triumphantly.

"It has been charged in one paper," said Keith, "a paper which every one
knows is for sale and has been bought--by your rival."

"It is based not only on the statement of the person to whom I have
alluded, but is corroborated by others."

"By what others?" inquired Keith.

"By another," corrected Mr. Kestrel.

"That only proves that there are two men who are liars," said Keith,
slowly. "I know but two men who I believe would have been guilty of such
barefaced and brazen falsehoods. Shall I name them?"

"If you choose."

"They are F.C. Wickersham and a hireling of his, Mr. J. Quincy Plume."

There was a stir among the directors. Keith had named both men. It was a
fortunate shot.

"By Jove! Brought down a bird with each barrel," said Mr. Yorke, who was
one of the directors, to another in an undertone.

Keith proceeded to give the history of the mine and of its rival mine,
the Wickersham property.

During the cross-examination Norman sat a silent witness. Beyond a look
of satisfaction when Keith made his points clearly or countered on his
antagonist with some unanswerable fact, he had taken no part in the
colloquy. Up to this time Keith had not referred to him or even looked
at him, but he glanced at him now, and the expression on his face
decided Keith.

"Mr. Wentworth, there, knows the facts. He knows F.C. Wickersham as well
as I do, and he has been on the ground."

There was a look of surprise on the face of nearly every one present.
How could he dare to say it!

"Oh, I guess we all know him," said one, to relieve the tension.

Norman bowed his assent.

Mr. Kestrel shifted his position.

"Never mind Mr. Wentworth; it's _your_ part in the transaction that we
are after," he said insolently.

The blood rushed to Keith's face; but a barely perceptible glance from
Norman helped him to hold himself in check. The director glanced down at
the newspaper.

"How about that accident in our mine? Some of us have thought that it
was carelessness on the part of the local management. It has been
charged that proper inspection would have indicated that the flooding of
an adjacent mine should have given warning; in fact, had given warning."
He half glanced around at his associates, and then fastened his eyes
on Keith.

Keith's eyes met his unflinchingly and held them. He drew in his breath
with a sudden sound, as a man might who has received a slap full in the
face. Beyond this, there was no sound. Keith sat for a moment in
silence. The blow had dazed him. In the tumult of his thought, as it
returned, it seemed as if the noise of the stricken crowd was once more
about him, weeping women and moaning men; and he was descending into the
blackness of death. Once more the roar of that rushing water was in his
ears; he was once more plunging through the darkness; once more he was
being borne down into its depths; again he was struggling, gasping,
floundering toward the light; once more he returned to consciousness, to
find himself surrounded by eyes full of sympathy--of devotion. The eyes
changed suddenly. The present came back to him. Hostile eyes were
about him.

Keith rose from his chair slowly, and slowly turned from his questioner
toward the others.

"Gentlemen, I have nothing further to say to you. I have the honor to
resign my position under you."

"Resign!" exclaimed the director who had been badgering him. "Resign
your position!" He leaned back in his chair and laughed.

Keith turned on him so quickly that he pushed his chair back as if he
were afraid he might spring across the table on him.

"Yes. Resign!" Keith was leaning forward across the table now, resting
his weight on one hand. "Anything to terminate our association. I am no
longer in your employ, Mr. Kestrel." His eyes had suddenly blazed, and
held Mr. Kestrel's eyes unflinchingly. His voice was calm, but had the
coldness of a steel blade.