CHAPTER XIX

BENNINGTON PROVES GAME

Bennington de Laney sat on the pile of rocks at the entrance to the Holy Smoke shaft.  Across his knees lay the thirty-calibre rifle.  His face was very white and set.  Perhaps he was thinking of his return to New York in disgrace, of his interview with Bishop, of his inevitable meeting with a multitude of friends, who would read in the daily papers the accounts of his incompetence—­criminal incompetence, they would call it.  The shadows were beginning to lengthen across the slope of the hill.  Up the gulch cow bells tinkled, up the hill birds sang, and through the little hollows twilight flowed like a vapour.  The wild roses on the hillside were blooming—­late in this high altitude.  The pines were singing their endless song.  But Bennington de Laney was looking upon none of these softer beauties of the Hills.  Rather he watched intently the lower gulch with its flood-wracked, water-twisted skeleton laid bare.  Could it be that in the destruction there figured forth he caught the symbol of his own condition?  That the dreary gloom of that ruin typified the chaos of sombre thoughts that occupied his own remorseful mind?  If so, the fancy must have absorbed him.  The moments slipped by one by one, the shadows grew longer, the bird songs louder, and still the figure with the rifle sat motionless, his face white and still, watching the lower gulch.

Or could it be that Bennington de Laney waited for some one, and that therefore his gaze was so fixed?  It would seem so.  For when the beat of hoofs became audible, the white face quickened into alertness, and the motionless figure stirred somewhat.

The rider came in sight, rising and falling in a steady, unhesitating lope.  He swung rapidly to the left, and ascended the knoll.  Opposite the shaft of the Holy Smoke lode he reined in his bronco and dismounted.  The rider was Jim Fay.

Bennington de Laney did not move.  He looked up at the newcomer with dull resignation.  “He takes it hard, poor fellow!” thought Fay.

“Well, what’s to be done?” asked the Easterner in a strained voice.  “I suppose you know all about it, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“Yes, I know all about it,” said Fay gently.  “You mustn’t take it so hard.  Perhaps we can do something.  We’ll be able to save one or two claims, any way, if we’re quick about it.”

“I’ve heard something about patenting claims,” went on de Laney in the same strange, dull tones; “could that be done?”

“No.  You have to do five hundred dollars’ worth of work, and advertise for sixty days.  There isn’t time.”

“That settles it.  I don’t know what we can do then.”

“Well, that depends.  I’ve come to help do something.  We’ve got to get an everlasting hustle on us, that’s all; and I’m afraid we are beginning a little behindhand in the race.  You ought to have hunted me up at once.”