[Charles W. Coyle, The Highgraders, The Overland Monthly, April 1911]

 

THE HIGHGRADERS

BY CHARLES W. COYLE

            FROM HER secluded position in a recess of the great Combination dump she could watch the file of miners passing down Fifth avenue on their way to the little tents and shacks which, by courtesy in Goldfield, are designated home. The air was chill, and over the mesa land to the west dense clouds carved in ebony threatened a tropical deluge, the rich tones of distant thunder echoed apparently from the upright columns of malapi on the cliffs, but no blessed rain drops fell on the arid wastes. A sharp wind blew off the barren mountains, and impatiently drawing her shawl about her, she scanned the line of men straggling along with large dinner buckets in hand without being conscious of the presence of a man in corduroys who gazed at her wistfully from the screen of a red outcrop not many feet distant. Presently her eye brightened as a big, husky fellow stepped out from a group of men and swung quickly along the trail that leads over the low red hill toward the dump. As he approached, she gave a low call. He responded and turned in to greet her. They stood for a moment talking, when, by a furtive movement, he slipped a long pouch into her hand, which she quickly concealed under the shawl. The couple then stepped out onto the trail, passing within a few feet of the man behind the outcrop, and continued over the hill to a thinly settled part of town.

            The young woman felt the weight of the pouch. She remarked:

            "You must have done well to-day, Jim !"

            "Yes," chuckled the young miner.

            "That's a sample from the jewel-streak."

            "Jim, do you know," she exclaimed, "the box is almost full."

            "Good! I believe I can put a couple of thousand more to it before the leases close down. We've got to make high-grade while the sun shines."

            "No, that isn't so, Jim. When you've got enough you ought to be satisfied. I believe you have the spirit of a capitalist. Do you know I've felt uneasy of late, and somehow to-day I have a strange presentiment of some dreadful occurrence about to happen, I don't know what. You have made enough, Jim. Lay off. You can devote yourself to the work."

            The young fellow laughed.

            "Oh, your woman's presentiments," he said. "Why, don't you know, Anna, they dar'sn't say a word. We'd tie them up so tight a wheel couldn't turn. The leasers must keep a-going, as their time is nearly out. Pshaw! They practically tell us, 'Help yourselves, boys, but leave a little for us.' Don't you worry, little girl. We're all right."

            She sighed.

            "Perhaps you think it is pleasant to have a sweetheart you must worry over," she answered. "And I don't know, Mr. James Norton, but I may take it in my head to run off with my admirer, Mr. Lister. How would you like that?"

            His face darkened as she pronounced the name.

            "Have you learned anything from him?" he asked in a serious tone.

            "Nothing except that he thinks a good deal of me."

            "Have I told you, Anna, that to-night the Circle is going to pass sentence on Lister?"

            "No." She gave a little start. 'Aren't you hasty ? I can't think it of him. There is something about the case that mystifies me."

            "And he mystified the rest of us, too, but we know now that the man's a dangerous fellow. He's a Pinkerton, a spy, a traitor, a tool of the Mine Owners' Association."

            "Somehow I can't believe it," she said.

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"If it were – true -- he – ought -- he ought -- to die – but --"

            "We'll give him a square deal, but if things we know are true he'll leave this camp afoot, or in a hearse, sure as you're born."

            She avoided the subject.

            "Can you come over to-night, Jim?"

            "I'd like to, Anna, but we're going to have a kind of jubilee at Seller's in honor of Fritzie's safe return, and after that we'll adjourn to Number 15 to discuss Lister."

            They had passed over the brow of the hill into a barren gulch covered with gray desert wash and sage-brush, with here and there a rude cabin or tent house scattered without order in the cheerless neighborhood. At the foot of the hill they separated, the young man striking off toward a small tent on a distant rise, while the girl made her way down the gulch to a double cabin occupied by herself on one side and on the other by a woman stenographer.

            Anna Lipsky belonged to that impressionistic class of young women who have furnished the enthusiasm for revolutions. Poverty had tutored her in bitter lessons. When a child, she felt the sting of want and listened to the voice of the oppressed. The daughter of Russian emigrants and acquainted with sweat-shop slavery, the grind of life in the black diamond belt and the wild freedom of Western gold camps, she was now a missionary of the coming revolution and high priestess of the Goldfield branch of the Reds known to the initiated as "Comrades of the Social Circle."

            She entered her plain but comfortably furnished room, locked the door carefully, and going over to the fireplace, removed a rug, lifted up a flat stone which concealed a trap door of wood, and opening this, uncovered a box almost filled with grayish-black quartz.

            In the quiet of the room she moved like a spectre, but not with more deliberation than the stenographer in the adjoining room, who, immediately upon Miss Lipsky's entrance, had crept to the wall, and, turning over a flap of paper, applied her eye to a pin-hole aperture which commanded a view of the next apartment.

            The long, narrow pouch was full of metal, genuine high-grade small, grayish particles held together by strings of gold, pieces of quartz oily with the dark sylvanite, and splashed with dull yellow stains. She ran the golden stream through her fingers, detaining a piece now and then to inspect it with the air of a connoisseur. The treasure box was nearly full.

            In the midst of her diversion, she was startled by a sudden knock on the door. With deft movements she replaced the rug and composing her features opened the door to a man in corduroys.

            Lister entered, and after the usual formalities, handed her a small jeweler's box.

            "You will notice," he remarked, "that I had the red flag put in with the miner's pan and the cactus. I believe you will make a convert of me one of these days -- at least to socialism," he added, with a short, dry laugh, though a look of trouble sat on his face.

            She thanked him heartily.

            "I wanted to give you something to remember me by, Miss Anna."

            "You are not going away, Mr. Lister !"

            "No-o. Not exactly that. But in our profession you can never tell what will happen. This is a wild town. There's lots of high-grading going on and I might be called out to-night."

            He stopped abruptly as if he had committed an indiscretion, and rising, held out his hand. Miss Anna thought, as she met his earnest gaze, that he was an exceptionally handsome fellow. Tall, well-formed, intelligent, with a high brow and deep, dreamy eyes that sat strangely in his rugged face like desert flowers in a rocky gulch. There was something about him, too, that appealed to her mystic temperament.

            "Miss Anna," he said, "there is nothing I would value more than your good opinion. Whatever happens, think of me kindly. Sometime, perhaps, I may explain. Good-bye."

            She stood perplexed and mystified by the strange turn of affairs. There was something in his veiled language that coincided with her presentiments. Immediately her thoughts reverted to Jim. She felt convinced from Lister's manner that he was sincere. She dropped into a chair and sat for a while thinking deeply, then

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she hurriedly seized her hat and walked up the gulch toward the brow of the hill. Jim was not at home. In a despondent frame of mind she walked slowly back to the cabin. During the evening she sat at her window, glancing now up the gulch road and then off to the assay shop, about two blocks distant, which stood out distinctly on a little knoll apart from the unpainted cabins. As dusk came, she occasionally surveyed the shop through a field glass.

            The comrades of the "Social Circle" were in high feather. Fortune, golden, glorious, smiled upon their efforts. In this new-found land the royal day of social equality seemed close at hand when every man would receive the just reward of his toil instead of the paltry sixth of what he actually produced. They were a gay and adventurous set. Little Fritz had just come home from a perilous expedition to San Francisco, where he successfully landed a quantity of specially rich high-grade under the very nose of the police, and the men were present to extend congratulations.

* * * *

            It had seemed that the watchmen were a little more strict of late, so it was deemed advisable to ship a good share of the plunder to outside points, especially since Sellers had all he could possibly handle at present without exciting undue suspicion. Of course, it was known in a general way in Goldfield that the seventy-five assay shops were not thriving on the infrequent assays of the honest prospector, but the town was living in a golden dream ; brokers trod on air ; miners threw down hundreds on the tables without exciting comment, and the assay shops were accepted as part of the general prosperity.

            Little Fritz twirled his tiny French mustache and beamed upon the circle of rough faces that gazed with pride upon him. They were seated at one end of the busy shop conversing in a high key, to be heard above the gasoline furnace where Sellers, stripped to the waist in the hot atmosphere, for the door was locked and the windows heavily draped, glowed like a demon in the glare of the smelting furnace as he stirred the bullion with an iron rod, and now and then threw in a little borax to dissolve the slag. An assistant was feeding a miniature crusher with particles of high-grade that disappeared like a dainty relish and then passed on to a small rotary mill where, to low, grinding music, the pulp gave up its yellow grains to the greedy mercury. The shop was glowing, humming, vibrating, singing with activity and joy. The assayer smiled as he stirred up the largest smelt in its history. His assistant gazed lovingly at the treasure pouring into the crusher, and the Comrades of the Social Circle chuckled with glee as clever Fritzie recounted his trip to San Francisco in the guise of an expert of the new school, one of the yellow-legged products of the Columbia School of Mines, who represented unlimited Eastern capital. He had taken with him a large and carefully-guarded number of samples in canvas bags sealed with wax and wire, the result of a mine examination which you would infer added to his prestige. He grinned as he recalled the respect with which his opinions of the Nevada fields had been received by an Eastern capitalist whom he met in the diner on the way to the Coast.

            "You'll have to take the credit, 'Dad,' for my hit with the Nabob," said Fritzie, "for I didn't know a slicken sides from the side of a barn when I first blew into camp."

            The white-bearded old-timer addressed as "Dad" smiled softly. He took his elbow off his knee, held out a stubby pipe, and after expectorating into a crucible, said in a drawling tone:

            "If it comes to a show-down, you know right now more'n them dam-fool experts ever will."

            This tickled little Fritz particularly, being a compliment as much to his histrionic ability as to his ready wit, for in the days of his poverty he had traveled a vaudeville circuit in subordinate roles, which made him familiar with disguises and parts.

            In the general scheme of the highgraders, "Dad" played the old prospector act, the desert mystery just in from a long, weary trip over the alkali where he had spotted some fabulous chimneys of rich ore. He appeared in the morning, and the same night vanished with a string of burros loaded with grub, but a close inspection under the tarpaulins would

THE HIGHGRADERS. 387

have revealed loot rich enough for Ali Baba's renowned forty thieves.

            There were present this evening, in addition to Norton, Fritz and "Dad," the Smith brothers from the Hays and Monette lease, whose specialty lay in unlimited nerve, splendid biceps and a hatred of mine owners gained in the Coeur d'Alene and Cripple Creek fray, where they had known Lister in the exciting days previous to the deportation of the miners. At their hands a detective would find no more mercy than a heretic before the Spanish Inquisitors.

            The company settled down for a jolly time. Norton spread the contents of a well-filled basket upon a drygoods box. Jokes and incidents of the business passed round the circle in sparkling succession. One of the Hays and Monette boys related how that very day when the foreman's back was turned, the entire shift on the lower level had rushed into the jewel stope, where the foreman discovered them a few minutes later stowing away highgrade in their belts and pouches. The foreman swore a blue streak and told them to scoot, for the superintendent was coming.

            They all laughed at this incident, and Norton said that he guessed the foreman was thinking of a bungalow on Crook avenue with the rest of the grafters.

            "I had a time myself the other day," said "Dad," "with one of these crazy tenderfeet who got dern inquisitive about the load on the canaries. At last I showed him a quick trail to Goldfield, and they found him next day on the malapi with his tongue hanging out. Poor devil."

            As the wine passed around, the Circle grew more hilarious and boisterous. Sellers and his assistant attended to business with one hand on a bottle, while the shouts and songs of the men floated out on the night air above the roar of the machinery. The thrill of the wine, the elation at Fritzie's success, and the general sense of security caused them to give free vent to the Western miners' expression of a good time. They drank to the glorious cause of labor, eternal defiance to mine owners, and long life to Little Fritz, the cleverest, nerviest bantam in the high-grade profession. They held the wine aloft while Fritz acknowledged the compliment with his stagiest bow, when a trap door opened and a youth who acted in the capacity of watchman, protruded his frowsy head above the door and remarked that a woman had asked him to get this note to Mr. Norton.

            For a minute the interruption caused a halt in the festivities, but "Dad," whose beady eyes shone with unusual brilliance, tossed a shaky hand in the air and proposed three cheers for Little Fritz, and the ladies. The cheers were given with a will, three big ones and a tiger, in the face of Norton, who rushed upon them with a startled look and motioned for silence. But for response, the Smith boys threw their arms about his neck and attempted to execute a sailor's hornpipe. In the midst of the shuffle a fierce pounding echoed on the office door, and a rough voice commanded them sharply to open in the name of the law. On the instant, confusion reigned in the assay shop. Sellers and his assistant grasped the black crucible with a pair of tongs and threw it rambling and sizzling into a barrel of water that stood near the furnace. The assistant tossed a couple of sacks of highgrade down the trap door and motioned frantically for the miners to make their exit by that way. They stood, as if paralyzed for a moment by the unexpected character of the raid, then as if by one impulse they all, with the exception of Little Fritz, darted toward the trap door, and the assistant threw a pile of sacks over the exit. Meanwhile the knocking had become more vigorous and insistent.

            "Who's there?" cried Sellers, while Fritz gathered up the remains of the feast and the assistant hid some tell-tale evidence. In reply the door fell in with a crash, and three deputies appeared with drawn revolvers.

            "Stay where you are, young man. You will consider yourself under arrest," said the chief to Little Fritz.

            "What does this mean?" exclaimed the assayer in an indignant tone.

            "It means that you high-graders are up against it," said the leader, exhibiting a search warrant. "I believe I heard several voices, didn't I, Mr. Sellers?"

            "I don't know what you heard," replied the assayer in a sullen tone.

            "It doesn't matter; we've got the place

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surrounded anyhow," said the deputy, briskly.

            Little Fritz sat on the box, brushing the dust from his new clothes. He was a fastidious young man, and nothing pained him more than to appear in soiled attire. In the old, Gradgrind days reminiscent of soiled collars and threadbare garments, he had rowed by the dramatic muse that if he ever made a hit he would invest in at least twenty suits, and now as a star in the high-grade profession, one of the greatest delights came to him in the possession of a fancy wardrobe. But he sat at this minute on the box thinking miserably that he might better have crawled with his fine black suit into the dirty cellar, as now fate might present him with another suit of a more decided stripe than is consistent with good taste. While he sat meditating seriously on this point, he became aware of a pair of eyes looking at him from one corner of a window opposite. He thought he had noticed a sound as of breaking glass when the men entered, and he did not know how to explain this kind of surveillance, so he focused his attention on the window. The deputies were engaged in searching every nook and corner of the shop, not an object escaped their vigilance, yet Fritzie did not watch them, as his eyes had joined issue with those at the window. Presently the curtain was pushed aside cautiously by a little stick, and he saw the white face of Anna Lipsky. She motioned impatiently for him to go to the door. The deputies' backs were turned. They had unearthed a pile of high-grade which lay covered in a shed attached to the shop beyond the grinding machinery. Fritz crept to the door, when Anna pulled him out, and hand in hand they began to run down the hill. For a moment their course lay in the path of light that streamed out of the door, and as they ran, a guard looking in that direction as if by accident, spied the runaways, and leveling his gun, commanded them to halt. But at the same instant, with a mighty roar the back part of the assay shop rose in splinters; the crash was succeeded a minute later by a dull boom, and the entire building burst into flame. The refugees sped to the foot of the hill and along a small ravine, past an unfrequented part of town, whence they made their way to the railroad.

* * * *

            When the miners piled into the cellar at the suggestion of the assistant assayer, they found the youthful watchman at the foot of the stairs, paralyzed with fear.

            "Son, where kin we stow ourselves?" inquired "Dad."

            "I dunno. Oh, Lord, they've got us sure," whined the boy, trembling in every limb.

            "Here, quit that, sonny."

            "I'll bet 'Diamondfield's' here with um," continued the frightened youth, "an' he's a dead shot. Oh, God -- mother."

            "Here, you young spring chicken," muttered the old-timer, "shut up and tell something about these here diggin's, or I'll shake your gizzard out. Tell how'd you git here."

            "Through the tunnel," said the boy.

            "Where is it?"

            "At the end of the cellar. You crawl through into a woodshed."

            On the instant the men scrambled out with practiced speed through the narrow exit. As the boy had said, they came out into a small shed provided with a door in the rear facing down the ravine away from the shop. Bursting this open, they started full speed down the hill, the Smith boys running together toward the town, while the old-timer and Norton sped side by side in the direction of the mines. At once a sharp cry from one of the guards aroused the posse, who started in pursuit. "Dad" and Norton made for the shelter of a clump of shacks that stood just across the road from the assay shop. As the men darted into the shelter of the first building, Norton heard a shot, and glancing back, saw one of the deputies pitch forward on the slope of the hill. At the same instant, he perceived that they were followed by two deputies, one of whom, bringing up the rear, suggested Lister. Darting here and there among the cabins and tents, the miners occasionally came into a momentary view of the officers, who thus got their direction and called on them to halt. A moon in the first quarter gave a dim illumination to the scene. Norton ran well, but the pace was beginning to tell on old "Dad," who

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labored heavily. His breath came in short explosive gasps through his open mouth, and Norton, thinking him about to collapse, reached for his arm and pulled him along.

            "Go 'long, pardner; leave me. They'll never take me," gasped the old man, who reached into his belt and pulled out a long knife. "I'll sell my life dear. Oh, for a gun!"

            "Come on, 'Dad.' Come on, for God's sake. I can't leave you. You'll get your wind soon."

            By this time the outmost house was reached, and they had a piece of open ground to cross before a ravine beyond would afford them shelter. Here, for a moment, they were in plain sight of their pursuers, dark objects in the gloomy sagebrush. A snappy voice called out : "Halt !" Then a bullet whistled through "Dad's" hat and the old man groaned. The song of the bullet taunted him like a red devil's war-whoop. The agony and humiliation to be hunted like this ! The frontiersman spirit in him rose in impotent resentment, and his crooked forefinger opened and closed convulsively.

            "Let's -- stand -- an' fight -- 'em, Jim," he panted.

            "No, come on," shouted Norton, recognizing the madness of the idea.

            They had but a step to gain the shelter of the ravine, although Norton momentarily awaited the hum of the bullet that would carry death to one of them, for the first shot spoke of a steady nerve. He listened for the crack of the gun, but instead heard a voice which he recognized as Lister's call out to the man in front sharply :

            "Look out, Jack. Watch on the right." and they darted into the shelter of the ravine.

            "Dad" threw himself to the ground, crying: "I'm played out. Go on, pardner."

            "Never," cried Norton, trying to pull the old man to his feet. "We've got a chance yet, 'Dad.' Come on."

            "Where'll we go? They'll outrun us. Skin out, Jim."

            "Get up. I say," commanded the young fellow, savagely.

            Suddenly, as if enthused with new life, the old man leaped to his feet and cried: "The shaft ! The shaft !"

            "Where?"

            "Come on !"

            At once darting forward with renewed energy, stumbling and swaying in the dusk along the ravine bottom through the wash and brush, they seemed to be gaining on their pursuers, whose approach was now very audible down the ravine. The sinuous course of their trail afforded shelter. When they reached the crest of the hill that commanded a view of the city the sound of an explosion reached their ears, and turning instinctively, they saw the assay shop in a blaze. Their objective was now an old workings, distant a few rods on the side of a low hill. To reach it they must cross a gulch where probably they would be seen by the deputies. Having no time for speculation, they charged down the hillside toward the shelter of the dump. They had just reached the rocky shield when the report of another cartridge announced the vigilance of their pursuers. The shot went wild, and now the open cuts and workings gave them sanctuary until they reached the mouth of the shaft, where they disappeared like a brace of ducks at the sound of a gun. About one hundred feet below, an exit led away from the shaft toward the ravine, but the exit was caved. In the shelter of the drift they flung themselves to the ground like hunted animals. "Dad" seemed to go all to pieces, but presently his breath came with more regularity, his wonderful recuperative powers asserted themselves, and he sat up and listened. A few pebbles rattled down the shaft. The old man turned toward Norton.

            "They're comin'. They know we ain't got no guns," he said. "You think you've got us cornered, do you?" he muttered. "Go on, old pal," he continued, "light out of here."

            "We're bottled," exclaimed the young man.

            "No we ain't. There's only a skin o' dirt near the top of the tunnel. You kin push right through. I've cached highgrade here. Go on, pardner."

            "Aren't you coming, too, 'Dad ?' "

            "No," hissed the old man, drawing out his knife. "I'm goin' ter stay an' git that feller that took a shot at me."

            Norton struck a match, and holding it

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cautiously in the hollow of his hand, saw the old man, who looked so pitiable, stained with sweat, flustered, haggard, yet resolute, the incarnation of the frontier desperado spirit, that the young man gazed at his comrade of the early days with a feeling, of admiration.

            "'Dad,' I'm interested here, too," he said. "There's a party following us I'd like to settle with, and I'm a younger man than you. You go out and find Anna. Tell her we're safe."

            The old man thought a great deal of Anna, and he also yearned for satisfaction of his wounded pride. He studied a minute as if going through a mental struggle, then quietly reached the knife into Norton's hand and crept out along the drift.

            Scarcely had a faint halo at the end of the drift announced the old-timer's exit when the young man heard rough foot steps scraping on the ladder. The man descended boldly, but with hesitation, waiting every now and then as if he listened for a sound of the fugitives. In the deathly stillness of the drift Norton listened to the beating of his own heart, his senses took on preternatural keenness, every nerve strained to breaking tension as he crouched back into a hollow in the wall and waited the approach of his victim.

            "Poor fool," he thought.

            The man descended with much noise, reached the plank that stretched from the ladder to the drift, took a step across to the entrance, and, peering in, touched the button of his pocket lamp. Behind the light stood Lister.

            With a cry of "Traitor !" that reverberated through the drift, Norton sprang at the man and fastened a throttle grip on his throat. His right hand grasping the knife was caught by the detective as it fell, and the two powerful men, now in darkness, clinched in a death struggle. Norton had the advantage in physical prowess; Lister was skilled in wrestling and defense. Like enraged bulls the antagonists strained for a new hold, but the relentless grip of the miner on his adversary's throat began to tell, and Lister gave way inch by inch toward the shaft. He struggled frantically and pushed against the rigid muscles of the miner until the blood seemed ready to burst from his veins. But in spite of his most forceful effort he gave way, an inch, five inches, a foot, another foot, and as the contest sapped his remaining strength, he felt his body bend over and his eyes caught a glimpse of the stars above the shaft. Quiet and calm with tropic lustre they glowed in the crisp air. The events of his entire life flashed across the screen of memory, and he saw the face of the woman who was dearer to him than the thought of heaven. They were struggling now on the edge of the drift. The plank, dislodged in the scuffle, fell with a loud splash into the bottom of the shaft, one hundred feet below. The deputy's failing breath came in harsh, gurgling exhausts, and the miner, seeing his advantage, prepared to hurl his adversary down the shaft. In this last moment, when the retribution of the Social Circle seemed actually meted out, a new thrill of energy surged into the detective's frame. With a maniac effort he lunged forward, and, falling to the ground, disengaged the miner's hold on his throat. Gasping Anna's name, he fell to the ground. In falling, the detective's arms clasped Norton about the knees, and the impact threw him to the floor of the drift, but quick as a panther he turned over and fell upon the hapless detective. At the same instant the drift rang with a sharp call, "Freedom!" Norton started as if shot. Once more the detective gasped out in a feeble voice the sacred pass-word of the Comrades.

            "Liebneckt!" called Norton, fiercely. "Answer me !"

            "Forward," came the response, feebly.

            Trembling in every limb, Norton relaxed his grip on the detective. His arms fell to his side. His right hand touched the pocket lamp. He raised it and turned the light on the prostrate man, who immediately made a few mysterious passes in the air. Then Norton clasped the hand of his former antagonist and gazed with surprise and dismay into the distorted face of a Brother of the Inmost Circle.

            "My God," said the detective, burying his face in his hands, "I have broken my oath."

            "Swear to me that you will tell no one what has passed between us to-night."

            "I swear it," exclaimed the miner, and he continued with hesitation :

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            "Brother, there is a matter I ought to speak to you about. Anna and I are engaged to be married."

            The deputy turned his head and groaned.

            "Leave the camp, Norton," he said, "with Anna. The game is up; the mine owners have made their play, and from this time on, change-rooms and watchmen are on the program. Make capital for us where you can ; we have a just cause and the people must triumph at last. You will bear me witness that I tried to save you twice. Once where I called to Jones and again where I warned you by crawling down here so noisily. I knew of 'Dad's' secret entrance. The coast is clear. You have lost considerable time already."

            With a parting word of sympathy the miner acted on the suggestion and crawled out toward the light.

* * * *

            When they reached the shelter of the railroad cut, Fritzie and Anna breathed freely. Public attention was diverted by the fire, and no one would question the young couple sauntering arm in arm along the outskirts of the town.

            "Who blew up the assay shop, Anna?"

            "I did," she replied, simply.

            Fritzie whistled and softly pressed her hand.

            "Fritzie," she said, in a faltering voice, "where is Jim?"

            "I don't know. Last thing I knew they ducked into the cellar."

            The girl swayed as she walked, and Fritzie put his arm about her waist to support her.

            "Don't take on, Anna. They probably gave them the slip. I expect we'll find them when we come to Number 1. Let's hurry."

            "Do you suppose Sellers and his man were injured when the gasoline exploded?" she asked, thinking, woman-like, of results after the event had transpired. "I didn't think of that."

            "Served them right," muttered Little Fritz. "They were a lot of thieves anyhow. We never could count on them to give us what they ought."

            They hastened down the track and turned into lower Broadway. Here, as they came out into the street, they ran into a crowd of men and boys following behind a couple of rough-clad miners handcuffed together and supported on either side by a man carrying a drawn weapon, while a deputy with a shotgun followed. Anna shuddered, for she recognized the Smith brothers. Fritzie now darted with his charge to a side street, whence they hastened along the gulch past the baseball grounds parallel to the main street, until they reached the lower part of town, where the lights glared brightly, and they heard the sound of wild music. Fritzie noticed as they came into the outer circle of a swinging electric light that his companion's face was deathly pale. It startled him.

            "Let's turn up here," he exclaimed.

            "You need a stimulant."

            "No. Not up there, Jimmy!"

            "But you must. You'll faint. Think of what that would mean to us now."

            Past the low dug-outs in the gulch, over tin-cans and piles of rubbish, he pulled his half-resisting companion until they came out by the St. Nicholas, and then turned down into the carnival place of the desert under-world. The broad main street was glittering. From the low houses on either side a hundred windows threw a cheerful radiance into the dreary night. Pianos, phonographs and banjos mingled their abandoned strains, and groups of young men, attracted from the fireless tents on the sage-covered mesa, sauntered with jaunty denizens from saloon to hall, and exchanged glances with the rouged faces at the windows. The dance halls raged and echoed with the tread of lusty feet. Hilarious songs and drunken laughter mingled. Desert life in all its picturesque phases joined in a wild bacchanalian that knows no law. Anna shuddered as she came into the glare of the lights. To her this seemed the entail of a wicked social system.

            Rag Time Jake's big dance hall roared with a boisterous life with the clash of riotous music and the swish and shuffle of brawny dancers. As Fritz and his pale friend slipped up to the bar, a suppressed conversation was going on not far from them between a red-clad ballet girl and a disheveled youth whose disordered neckwear and fancy waistcoat stained with wine harmonized with a threatening manner. About them stood an interested

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group. A scene was threatened, and Anna quickly drank the little glass of brandy. The quarrel grew louder. Anna glanced at the face of the ballet girl, but in the background, among the crowd at the farther end of the room her eyes were caught by a picture that held her in a spell. She instinctively grasped Fritzie's arm, for back there against the wall, commanding a view of the entrance, stood the guard who had called on them to stop when they fled from the assay shop. He had seen her face, and started toward them.

            The hunt was on.

            While she stood there for the moment as if in a hypnotic trance, a shrill cry echoed through the room, and was followed by the sickening thud of flesh striking flesh, then the red-clad ballet girl and the dissolute youth disappeared in a mad, swirling vortex of frantic men and women crazed with the lust of combat. Instantly Fritz and his companion found themselves enmeshed in a fighting mob. He struggled against the press of bodies like a hero, but they were powerless in the crush. The melee waxed fierce; men rushed in for the joy of battle, while above the din rose the falsetto shrieks of the women. Anna, terrified beyond measure by this pandemonium, accentuating all the trying circumstances of the past hour, struggled nevertheless with despairing energy to crowd through to the door. In imagination she felt the hand of the guard on her shoulder, yet they were safe, for the present, as access to the door was closed by the brawlers. At length the movement of the crowd threw them out from the storm center, and they found themselves in the street. Fritzie looked ruefully at his clothes. Torn and battered, his disgust gave way to despair as he stared at Anna. Her waist hung in shreds -- the black skirt drooped woefully behind, while there perched on one side of her straggling hair a disreputable piece of millinery that had once excited admiration. She did not wait for condolence. A crowd was gathering in front of the door. She simply gasped : "We're followed," and in the new crisis again assuming the role of guide, drew her escort down a side street, where they started to run for Number 15, the rendezvous beyond the hospital on the road to Bullfrog.

            They were near the house when the sound of some one on the ridge, crowding through the sage brush in their direction, gave wings to their flight. Fritz, aiding his companion, urged her to the utmost speed. They gained the cabin and locked the door. They tried to stifle the sound of their breathing. Fritz quietly reached for a deringer in his coat pocket. The steps approached and trod heavily on the porch. Three knocks sounded on the door, then a loud one, and Fritz jumped to his feet. In the open doorway stood "Dad."

            "Is Anna here ?" he asked in a strangely changed voice, parched with thirst.

            "Yes," came the answer from a heap on the floor.

            "Jim is safe," he said. "Give me a drink."

            They struck a light. Each appeared startled as he looked at the face of the other.

            "Fritz, the jig is up," exclaimed the prospector, after he had almost emptied the water bag. "I'll fly the coop to-night with the burros, and in one week from now -- if we make the get-away -- you'll find me loafin' on my little ranch in Colorado. I've had it spotted for some time, an' I've got the dust to buy it, too. Reckon I'll quit this mining business. I give ye all an invite to come out an' help me pick the persimmons."

            "Are you sure, 'Dad,' that Jim got away?" inquired Anna in a pathetic voice.

            "Sure he did, little gal, slick as a whistle." The old man breathed a sigh and sank back against the couch, nor could he conceal a look of anxiety as he added : "He had a little business to attend to first, an' then he'll come in on a lope. But you kids better git ready to pull your freight. Fritzie, can't you doctor our mugs? The whole country'll be onto us by mornin'."

            "Haven't got anything to do it with, 'Dad.' "

            "Go out an' git it."

            Anna spoke a few words to the young man as he passed out of the door, took a pair of scissors that Fritzie thrust into her hand, and going over to where the old man lay with closed eyes, she said in a gentle voice, as if speaking to her own father :

            ''Wake up, 'Dad ;' you must let me play barber."

THE HIGHGRADERS. 393

            She clipped his beard short, trimmed the white locks that fell upon his shoulders, which altered his appearance so much he declared the burros would make fun of him, placed an old hat they found in the room on his head, and then, when she had fastened the long-tailed coat into a short cut and he lowered the trousers over the high-top boots, he felt confident that he could enter the Mohawk without being identified.

            "Don't wait here with me, 'Dad,'" she said, when the last finishing touches had been completed.

            ''Well," he said slowly, as if meditating, "there ain't no danger here, an' the boys'll be back soon."

            As the old man took his departure his eyes filled with tears. He took a last long look at the slight, ardent figure and there was a quaver in his voice as he called back, "I'll write ye, care of Holder's, in San Francisco."

            The old man sauntered down the gulch, almost questioning his own personality because of the absence of the sombrero and the long-tailed coat, and he muttered to himself : "What a devil of a way to leave town !"

            When the old man had gone, Anna felt oppressed by the narrow walls of the cabin. She stepped outside, and closing the door, sat down on the porch. A slight breeze whistled its monotone through the brush, the dark rampart of the malapi rising sheer on the right and left hand, threw an eerie gloom over the cabin at its base, while black, fantastic hills around the sky line accentuated the impression. Over all hung the impassive heavens and the crushing melancholy of the desert. The scene gave rise to wistful longings, and she glanced down the stretch of road and thought of Jim.

            Some one called her name. It was repeated gently -- as if heard in a dream; nevertheless she turned, and at her side stood Lister.

            "You are alone ?" he asked.

            "Yes."

            She trembled at the suddenness of his appearing, and thought of danger to the Comrades.

            He sat down wearily by her side.

            "We have had fierce work to-night," he said. "To-morrow my duties will call me away. I may not see you again. I have come to say good-bye." His voice faltered. "I have thought deeply of you, Miss Anna. I want to ask you not to judge me unkindly. Will you shake hands?"

            She extended her hand. He took it in both of his large hands, and enclosing it with a soft caress, brought his right hand into gentle contact with hers. His voice choked as he attempted to say "Good-bye," and he left her standing there in a daze --  for on her soft white hand he seemed to have imprinted the secret grip of the Social Circle. Of that she could not be quite sure, however, since it was done so gently that she might have been mistaken, but she felt her mind groping as if in a mysterious haze. Her intuitions had not time to fathom the enigma when the whir of an automobile on the Bullfrog road claimed her attention. The machine stopped, and she waited breathlessly, and then a tall figure bounded up the path toward her, and she fell into the arms of Jim. As she hung on his neck, babbling love words and covering him with kisses, she saw, down the trail, gingerly picking her way, the stenographer who occupied the half of her little cabin. She gripped her lover's shoulder, and uttered an exclamation of surprise.

            He turned about and laughed. 'Don't you recognize little Fritz," said he, "in borrowed plumes? He has a change for you. Throw this cloak about you. Come, little girl, we must hurry. They're hot after us."

            "Fritzie," said he, "won't you come with us?"

            "No, not I. I'll play my star part tonight. There's a big bunch at stake for me. I'll meet you in San Francisco, Jim."

            They walked toward the auto. A figure across the gulch rose from the shelter of a Joshua tree with a sigh and sauntered with bowed head toward the town. The auto, forced at reckless speed, darted into the narrow canyon on the way to Bullfrog.

            "Anna," said her lover, "can you stand a little bad news?"

            "Yes, Jim, I could listen to any kind of news now. I feel as content as if I had been taken from hell to heaven."

            "Fritzie discovered when he reached your cabin that the stenographer had skipped out with our high-grade."

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            He waited a moment as if to moderate the force of the announcement and then continued :

            "The rest of our pile was in Seller's safe."

            "Jim," whispered the girl in a tone that thrilled him, "remember, I have you -- you safe and in my arms, when I thought of you lying there silent in the sage brush ! Oh, God, this is worth all !"

            She threw her arms about him passionately, and rested her head on his shoulder.

            The machine swayed and darted savagely down the long stretch toward Cuprite, and the lovers, silent in each other's arms, glancing over the star-lit desert, caught a glimpse of a dark figure tottering slowly but steadily along behind two burros.