The boy, momentarily arrested more by something in the tone of his father's voice--a weakness he had never noticed before--than by any suggestion of his words, said with a laugh, "Oh, only about what we used to do when I was very little and used to call myself his 'little brother,'--don't you remember, long before the big strike on Heavy Tree?

They were gay times we had then."

"And how he used to teach you to imitate other people's handwriting?"

said Steptoe.

"What made you think of that, pop?" said the boy, with a slight wonder in his eyes. "Why, that's the very thing we DID talk about."

"But you didn't do it again; you ain't done it since," said Steptoe quickly.

"Lord! no," said the boy contemptuously. "There ain't no chance now, and there wouldn't be any fun in it. It isn't like the old times when him and me were all alone, and we used to write letters as coming from other people to all the boys round Heavy Tree and the Bar, and sometimes as far as Boomville, to get them to do things, and they'd think the letters were real, and they'd do 'em. And there'd be the biggest kind of a row, and n.o.body ever knew who did it."

Steptoe stared at this flesh of his own flesh half in relief, half in frightened admiration. Sitting astride the log, his elbows on his knees and his gloved hands supporting his round cheeks, the boy's handsome face became illuminated with an impish devilry which the father had never seen before. With dancing eyes he went on. "It was one of those very games we played so long ago that he wanted to see me about and wanted me to keep mum about, for some of the folks that he played it on were around here now. It was a game we got off on one of the big strike partners long before the strike. I'll tell YOU, dad, for you know what happened afterwards, and you'll be glad. Well, that partner--Demorest--was a kind of silly, you remember--a sort of Miss Nancyish fellow--always gloomy and lovesick after his girl in the States. Well, we'd written lots of letters to girls from their chaps before, and got lots of fun out of it; but we had even a better show for a game here, for it happened that Van Loo knew all about the girl--things that even the man's own partners didn't, for Van Loo's mother was a sort of a friend of the girl's family, and traveled about with her, and knew that the girl was spoony over this Demorest, and that they corresponded. So, knowing that Van Loo was employed at Heavy Tree, she wrote to him to find out all about Demorest and how to stop their foolish nonsense, for the girl's parents didn't want her to marry a broken-down miner like him. So we thought we'd do it our own way, and write a letter to her as if it was from him, don't you see? I wanted to make him call her awful names, and say that he hated her, that he was a murderer and a horse-thief, and that he had killed a policeman, and that he was thinking of becoming a Digger Injin, and having a Digger squaw for a wife, which he liked better than her. Lord! dad, you ought to have seen what stuff I made up." The boy burst into a shrill, half-feminine laugh, and Steptoe, catching the infection, laughed loudly in his own coa.r.s.e, brutal fashion.

For some moments they sat there looking in each other's faces, shaking with sympathetic emotion, the father forgetting the purpose of his coming there, his rage over Van Loo's visit, and even the rendezvous to which his horse in the road below was waiting to bring him; the son forgetting their retreat from Heavy Tree Hill and his shameful vagabond wanderings with that father in the years that followed. The sinking sun stared blankly in their faces; the protecting pines above them moved by a stronger gust shook a few cones upon them; an enormous crow mockingly repeated the father's coa.r.s.e laugh, and a squirrel scampered away from the strangely a.s.sorted pair as Steptoe, wiping his eyes and forehead with his pocket-handkerchief, said:--

"And did you send it?"

"Oh! Van Loo thought it too strong. Said that those sort of love-sick fools made more fuss over little things than they did over big things, and he sort of toned it down, and fixed it up himself. But it told. For there were never any more letters in the post-office in her handwriting, and there wasn't any posted to her in his."

They both laughed again, and then Steptoe rose. "I must be getting along," he said, looking curiously at the boy. "I've got to catch a train at Three Boulders Station."

"Three Boulders!" repeated the boy. "I'm going there, too, on Friday, to meet Father Cipriano."

"I reckon my work will be all done by Friday," said Steptoe musingly.

Standing thus, holding his boy's hand, he was thinking that the real fight at Marshall's would not take place at once, for it might take a day or two for Marshall to gather forces. But he only pressed his son's hand gently.

"I wish you would sometimes take me with you as you used to," said the boy curiously. "I'm bigger now, and wouldn't be in your way."

Steptoe looked at the boy with a choking sense of satisfaction and pride. But he said, "No;" and then suddenly with simulated humor, "Don't you be taken in by any letters from ME, such as you and Van Loo used to write. You hear?"

The boy laughed.

"And," continued Steptoe, "if anybody says I sent for you, don't you believe them."

"No," said the boy, smiling.

"And don't you even believe I'm dead till you see me so. You understand.

By the way, Father Pedro has some money of mine kept for you. Now hurry back to school and say you met me, but that I was in a great hurry. I reckon I may have been rather rough to the priests."

They had reached the lower road again, and Steptoe silently unhitched his horse. "Good-by," he said, as he laid his hand on the boy's arm.

"Good-by, dad."

He mounted his horse slowly. "Well," he said smilingly, looking down the road, "you ain't got anything more to say to me, have you?"

"No, dad."

"Nothin' you want?"

"Nothin', dad."

"All right. Good-by."

He put spurs to his horse and cantered down the road without looking back. The boy watched him with idle curiosity until he disappeared from sight, and then went on his way, whistling and striking off the heads of the wayside weeds with his walking-stick.

CHAPTER VII.

The sun arose so brightly over Hymettus on the morning after the meeting of the three partners that it was small wonder that Barker's impressionable nature quickly responded to it, and, without awakening the still sleeping child, he dressed hurriedly, and was the first to greet it in the keen air of the slope behind the hotel. To his pantheistic spirit it had always seemed as natural for him to early welcome his returning brothers of the woods and hills as to say good-morning to his fellow mortals. And, in the joy of seeing Black Spur rising again to his level in the distance before him, he doffed his hat to it with a return of his old boyish habit, laid his arm caressingly around the great girth of the nearest pine, clapped his hands to the scampering squirrels in his path, and whistled to the dipping jays.

In this way he quite forgot the more serious affairs of the preceding night, or, rather, saw them only in the gilding of the morning, until, looking up, he perceived the tall figure of Demorest approaching him; and then it struck him with his first glance at his old partner's face that his usual suave, gentle melancholy had been succeeded by a critical cynicism of look and a restrained bitterness of accent. Barker's loyal heart smote him for his own selfishness; Demorest had been hard hit by the discovery of the forgery and Stacy's concern in it, and had doubtless pa.s.sed a restless night, while he (Barker) had forgotten all about it. "I thought of knocking at your door, as I pa.s.sed," he said, with sympathetic apology, "but I was afraid I might disturb you. Isn't it glorious here? Quite like the old hill. Look at that lizard; he hasn't moved since he first saw me. Do you remember the one who used to steal our sugar, and then stiffen himself into stone on the edge of the bowl until he looked like an ornamental handle to it?" he continued, rebounding again into spirits.

"Barker," said Demorest abruptly, "what sort of woman is this Mrs. Van Loo, whose rooms I occupy?"

"Oh," said Barker, with optimistic innocence, "a most proper woman, old chap. White-haired, well-dressed, with a little foreign accent and a still more foreign courtesy. Why, you don't suppose we'd"--

"But what is she like?" said Demorest impatiently.

"Well," said Barker thoughtfully, "she's the kind of woman who might be Van Loo's mother, I suppose."

"You mean the mother of a forger and a swindler?" asked Demorest sharply.

"There are no mothers of swindlers and forgers," said Barker gravely, "in the way you mean. It's only those poor devils," he said, pointing, nevertheless, with a certain admiration to a circling sparrow-hawk above him, "who have inherited instincts. What I mean is that she might be Van Loo's mother, because he didn't SELECT her."

"Where did she come from? and how long has she been here?" asked Demorest.

"She came from abroad, I believe. And she came here just after you left.

Van Loo, after he became secretary of the Ditch Company, sent for her and her daughter to keep house for him. But you'll see her to-day or to-morrow probably, when she returns. I'll introduce you; she'll be rather glad to meet some one from abroad, and all the more if he happens to be rich and distinguished, and eligible for her daughter." He stopped suddenly in his smile, remembering Demorest's lifelong secret. But to his surprise his companion's face, instead of darkening as it was wont to do at any such allusion, brightened suddenly with a singular excitement as he answered dryly, "Ah well, if the girl is pretty, who knows!"

Indeed, his spirits seemed to have returned with strange vivacity as they walked back to the hotel, and he asked many other questions regarding Mrs. Van Loo and her daughter, and particularly if the daughter had also been abroad. When they reached the veranda they found a few early risers eagerly reading the Sacramento papers, which had just arrived, or, in little knots, discussing the news. Indeed, they would probably have stopped Barker and his companion had not Barker, anxious to relieve his friend's curiosity, hurried with him at once to the manager's office.

"Can you tell me exactly when you expect Mrs. Van Loo to return?" asked Barker quickly.

The manager with difficulty detached himself from the newspaper which he, too, was anxiously perusing, and said, with a peculiar smile, "Well no! she WAS to return to-day, but if you're wanting to keep her rooms, I should say there wouldn't be any trouble about it, as she'll hardly be coming back here NOW. She's rather high and mighty in style, I know, and a determined sort of critter, but I reckon she and her daughter wouldn't care much to be waltzing round in public after what has happened."

"I don't understand you," said Demorest impatiently. "WHAT has happened?"

"Haven't you heard the news?" said the manager in surprise. "It's in all the Sacramento papers. Van Loo is a defaulter--has hypothecated everything he had and skedaddled."

Barker started. He was not thinking of the loss of his wife's money--only of HER disappointment and mortification over it. Poor girl!

Perhaps she was also worrying over his resentment,--as if she did not know him! He would go to her at once at Boomville. Then he remembered that she was coming with Mrs. Horncastle, and might be already on her way here by rail or coach, and he would miss her. Demorest in the meantime had seized a paper, and was intently reading it.

"There's bad news, too, for your friend, your old partner," said the manager half sympathetically, half interrogatively. "There has been a drop out in everything the bank is carrying, and everybody is unloading.

Two firms failed in 'Frisco yesterday that were carrying things for the bank, and have thrown everything back on it. There was an awful panic last night, and they say none of the big speculators know where they stand. Three of our best customers in the hotel rushed off to the bay this morning, but Stacy himself started before daylight, and got the through night express to stop for him on the Divide on signal. Shall I send any telegrams that may come to your room?"

Demorest knew that the manager suspected him of being interested in the bank, and understood the purport of the question. He answered, with calm surprise, that he was expecting no telegrams, and added, "But if Mrs.

Van Loo returns I beg you to at once let me know," and taking Barker's arm he went in to breakfast. Seated by themselves, Demorest looked at his companion. "I'm afraid, Barker boy, that this thing is more serious to Jim than we expected last night, or than he cared to tell us. And you, old man, I fear are hurt a little by Van Loo's flight. He had some money of your wife's, hadn't he?"