Found At Blazing Star

B >> Bret Harte >> Found At Blazing Star


The banking house of Bookham & Sons did not present an illusive nor
mysterious appearance. It was eminently practical and matter of fact; it
was obtrusively open and glassy; nobody would have thought of leaving
a secret there that would have been inevitably circulated over the
counter. Cass felt an uncomfortable sense of incongruity in himself,
in his story, in his treasure, to this temple of disenchanting realism.
With the awkwardness of an embarrassed man he was holding prominently in
his hand an envelope containing the ring and advertisement as a voucher
for his intrusion, when the nearest clerk took the envelope from his
hand, opened it, took out the ring, returned it, said briskly, "T'other
shop, next door, young man," and turned to another customer.

Cass stepped to the door, saw that "T'other shop" was a pawnbroker's,
and returned again with a flashing eye and heightened color. "It's an
advertisement I have come to answer," he began again.

The clerk cast a glance at Cass's scarf and pin. "Place taken
yesterday--no room for any more," he said, abruptly.

Cass grew quite white. But his old experience in Blazing Star repartee
stood him in good stead. "If it's YOUR place you mean," he said coolly,
"I reckon you might put a dozen men in the hole you're rattlin' round
in--but it's this advertisement I'm after. If Bookham isn't in,
maybe you'll send me one of the grown-up sons." The production of the
advertisement and some laughter from the bystanders had its effect.
The pert young clerk retired, and returned to lead the way to the
bank parlor. Cass's heart sank again as he was confronted by a dark,
iron-gray man--in dress, features, speech, and action--uncompromisingly
opposed to Cass--his ring and his romance. When the young man had told
his story and produced his treasure he paused. The banker scarcely
glanced at it, but said, impatiently,--

"Well, your papers?"

"My papers?"

"Yes. Proof of your identity. You say your name is Cass Beard. Good!
What have you got to prove it? How can I tell who you are?"

To a sensitive man there is no form of suspicion that is as bewildering
and demoralizing at the moment as the question of his identity. Cass
felt the insult in the doubt of his word, and the palpable sense of his
present inability to prove it. The banker watched him keenly but not
unkindly.

"Come," he said at length, "this is not my affair; if you can legally
satisfy the lady for whom I am only agent, well and good. I believe you
can; I only warn you that you must. And my present inquiry was to keep
her from losing her time with impostors, a class I don't think you
belong to. There's her card. Good day."

"Miss Mortimer." It was NOT the banker's daughter. The first illusion of
Blazing Star was rudely dispelled. But the care taken by the capitalist
to shield her from imposture indicated a person of wealth. Of her youth
and beauty Cass no longer thought.

The address given was not distant. With a beating heart he rung the
bell of a respectable-looking house, and was ushered into a private
drawing-room. Instinctively he felt that the room was only temporarily
inhabited; an air peculiar to the best lodgings, and when the door
opened upon a tall lady in deep mourning, he was still more convinced of
an incongruity between the occupant and her surroundings. With a smile
that vacillated between a habit of familiarity and ease, and a recent
restraint, she motioned him to a chair.

"Miss Mortimer" was still young, still handsome, still fashionably
dressed, and still attractive. From her first greeting to the end of the
interview Cass felt that she knew all about him. This relieved him from
the onus of proving his identity, but seemed to put him vaguely at a
disadvantage. It increased his sense of inexperience and youthfulness.

"I hope you will believe," she began, "that the few questions I have
to ask you are to satisfy my own heart, and for no other purpose."
She smiled sadly as she went on. "Had it been otherwise, I should have
instituted a legal inquiry, and left this interview to some one cooler,
calmer, and less interested than myself. But I think, I KNOW I can trust
you. Perhaps we women are weak and foolish to talk of an INSTINCT, and
when you know my story you may have reason to believe that but little
dependence can be placed on THAT; but I am not wrong in saying,--am I?"
(with a sad smile) "that YOU are not above that weakness?" She paused,
closed her lips tightly, and grasped her hands before her. "You say you
found that ring in the road some three months before--the--the--you know
what I mean--the body--was discovered?"

"Yes."

"You thought it might have been dropped by some one in passing?"

"I thought so, yes--it belonged to no one in camp."

"Before your cabin or on the highway?"

"Before my cabin."

"You are SURE?" There was something so very sweet and sad in her smile
that it oddly made Cass color.

"But my cabin is near the road," he suggested.

"I see! And there was nothing else; no paper nor envelope?"

"Nothing."

"And you kept it because of the odd resemblance one of the names bore to
yours?"

"Yes."

"For no other reason

"None." Yet Cass felt he was blushing.

"You'll forgive my repeating a question you have already answered, but
I am so anxious. There was some attempt to prove at the inquest that the
ring had been found on the body of--the unfortunate man. But you tell me
it was not so?"

"I can swear it."

"Good God--the traitor!" She took a hurried step forward, turned to the
window, and then came back to Cass with a voice broken with emotion. "I
have told you I could trust you. That ring was mine!"

She stopped, and then went on hurriedly. "Years ago I gave it to a man
who deceived and wronged me; a man whose life since then has been a
shame and disgrace to all who knew him. A man who, once, a gentleman,
sank so low as to become the associate of thieves and ruffians; sank
so low, that when he died, by violence--a traitor even to them--his own
confederates shrunk from him, and left him to fill a nameless grave.
That man's body you found!"

Cass started. "And his name was--?"

"Part of your surname. Cass--Henry Cass."

"You see why Providence seems to have brought that ring to you," she
went on. "But you ask me why, knowing this, I am so eager to know if
the ring was found by you in the road, or if it were found on his body.
Listen! It is part of my mortification that the story goes that this man
once showed this ring, boasted of it, staked, and lost it at a gambling
table to one of his vile comrades."

"Kanaka Joe," said Cass, overcome by a vivid recollection of Joe's
merriment at the trial.

"The same. Don't you see," she said, hurriedly, "if the ring had been
found on him I could believe that somewhere in his heart he still kept
respect for the woman he had wronged. I am a woman--a foolish woman, I
know--but you have crushed that hope forever."

"But why have you sent for me?" asked Cass, touched by her emotion.

"To know it for certain," she said, almost fiercely. "Can you not
understand that a woman like me must know a thing once and forever? But
you CAN help me. I did not send for you only to pour my wrongs in your
ears. You must take me with you to this place--to the spot where you
found the ring--to the spot where you found the body--to the spot
where--where HE lies. You must do it secretly, that none shall know me."

Cass hesitated. He was thinking of his companions and the collapse of
their painted bubble. How could he keep the secret from them?

"If it is money you need, let not that stop you. I have no right to
your time without recompense. Do not misunderstand me. There has been a
thousand dollars awaiting my order at Bookham's when the ring should be
delivered. It shall be doubled if you help me in this last moment."

It was possible. He could convey her secretly there, invent some story
of a reward delayed for want of proofs, and afterward share that reward
with his friends. He answered promptly, "I will take you there."

She took his hands in both of hers, raised them to her lips, and smiled.
The shadow of grief and restraint seemed to have fallen from her face,
and a half-mischievous, half-coquettish gleam in her dark eyes touched
the susceptible Cass in so subtle a fashion that he regained the street
in some confusion. He wondered what Miss Porter would have thought. But
was he not returning to her, a fortunate man, with one thousand dollars
in his pocket! Why should he remember he was handicapped, by a pretty
woman and a pathetic episode? It did not make the proximity less
pleasant as he helped her into the coach that evening, nor did the
recollection of another ride with another woman obtrude itself upon
those consolations which he felt it his duty, from time to time, to
offer. It was arranged that he should leave her at the "Red Chief"
Hotel, while he continued on to Blazing Star, returning at noon to bring
her with him when he could do it without exposing her to recognition.
The gray dawn came soon enough, and the coach drew up at "Red Chief"
while the lights in the bar-room and dining-room of the hotel were
still struggling with the far flushing east. Cass alighted, placed Miss
Mortimer in the hands of the landlady, and returned to the vehicle. It
was still musty, close, and frowzy, with half-awakened passengers.
There was a vacated seat on the top, which Cass climbed up to, and
abstractedly threw himself beside a figure muffled in shawls and rugs.
There was a slight movement among the multitudinous enwrappings, and
then the figure turned to him and said, dryly, "Good morning!" It was
Miss Porter!

"Have you been long here?" he stammered.

"All night."

He would have given worlds to leave her at that moment. He would have
jumped from the starting coach to save himself any explanation of the
embarrassment he was furiously conscious of showing, without, as he
believed, any adequate cause. And yet, like all inexperienced, sensitive
men, he dashed blindly into that explanation; worse, he even told his
secret at once, then and there, and then sat abashed and conscience
stricken, with an added sense of its utter futility.

"And this," summed up the young girl, with a slight shrug of her pretty
shoulders, "is YOUR MAY?"

Cass would have recommenced his story.

"No, don't, pray! It isn't interesting, nor original. Do YOU believe
it?"

"I do," said Cass, indignantly.

"How lucky! Then let me go to sleep."

Cass, still furious, but uneasy, did not again address her. When the
coach stopped at Blazing Star she asked him, indifferently: "When does
this sentimental pilgrimage begin?"

"I return for her at one o'clock," replied Cass, stiffly.

He kept his word. He appeased his eager companions with a promise of
future fortune, and exhibited the present and tangible reward. By a
circuitous route known only to himself, he led Miss Mortimer to the road
before the cabin. There was a pink flush of excitement on her somewhat
faded cheek.

"And it was here?" she asked, eagerly.

"I found it here."

"And the body?"

"That was afterward. Over in that direction, beyond the clump of
buckeyes, on the Red Chief turnpike."

"And any one coming from the road we left just now and going
to--to--that place, would have to cross just here? Tell me," she said,
with a strange laugh, laying her cold nervous hand on his, "wouldn't
they?"

"They would."

"Let us go to that place."

Cass stepped out briskly to avoid observation and gain the woods beyond
the highway. "You have crossed here before," she said. "There seems to
be a trail."

"I may have made it: it's a short cut to the buckeyes."

"You never found anything else on the trail?"

"You remember, I told you before, the ring was all I found."

"Ah, true!" she smiled sweetly; "it was THAT which made it seem so odd
to you. I forgot."

In half an hour they reached the buckeyes. During the walk she had taken
rapid recognizance of everything in her path. When they crossed the road
and Cass had pointed out the scene of the murder, she looked anxiously
around. "You are sure we are not seen?"

"Quite."

"You will not think me foolish if I ask you to wait here while I go in
there"--she pointed to the ominous thicket near them--"alone?"

She was quite white.

Cass's heart, which had grown somewhat cold since his interview with
Miss Porter, melted at once.

"Go; I will stay here."

He waited five minutes. She did not return.

What if the poor creature had determined upon suicide on the spot where
her faithless lover had fallen? He was reassured in another moment by
the rustle of skirts in the undergrowth.

"I was becoming quite alarmed," he said, aloud.

"You have reason to be," returned a hurried voice. He started. It was
Miss Porter, who stepped swiftly out of the cover. "Look," she said,
"look at that man down the road. He has been tracking you two ever since
you left the cabin. Do you know who he is?"

"No!"

"Then listen. It is three-fingered Dick, one of the escaped road agents.
I know him!"

"Let us go and warn her," said Cass, eagerly.

Miss Porter laid her hand upon his shoulder.

"I don't think she'll thank you," she said, dryly. "Perhaps you'd better
see what she's doing, first."

Utterly bewildered, yet with a strong sense of the masterfulness of his
companion, he followed her. She crept like a cat through the thicket.
Suddenly she paused. "Look!" she whispered, viciously, "look at the
tender vigils of your heart-broken May!"

Cass saw the woman who had left him a moment before on her knees on the
grass, with long thin fingers digging like a ghoul in the earth. He had
scarce time to notice her eager face and eyes, cast now and then back
toward the spot where she had left him, before there was a crash in
the bushes, and a man,--the stranger of the road,--leaped to her side.
"Run," he said; "run for it now. You're watched!"

"Oh! that man, Beard!" she said, contemptuously.

"No, another in a wagon. Quick. Fool, you know the place now,--you
can come later; run!" And half-dragging, half-lifting her, he bore her
through the bushes. Scarcely had they closed behind the pair than
Miss Porter ran to the spot vacated by the woman. "Look!" she cried,
triumphantly, "look!"

Cass looked, and sank on his knees beside her.

"It WAS worth a thousand dollars, wasn't it?" she repeated, maliciously,
"wasn't it? But you ought to return it! REALLY you ought."

Cass could scarcely articulate. "But how did YOU know it?" he finally
gasped.

"Oh, I suspected something; there was a woman, and you know you're SUCH
a fool!"

Cass rose, stiffly.

"Don't be a greater fool now, but go and bring my horse and wagon from
the hill, and don't say anything to the driver."

"Then you did not come alone?"

"No; it would have been bold and improper."

"Please!"

"And to think it WAS the ring, after all, that pointed to this," she
said.

"The ring that YOU returned to me."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

"Don't, please, the wagon is coming."

*****

In the next morning's edition of the "Red Chief Chronicle" appeared the
following startling intelligence:--


EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY

FINDING OF THE STOLEN TREASURE OF WELLS, FARGO & CO.

OVER $800,000 RECOVERED

Our readers will remember the notorious robbery of Wells, Fargo & Co.'s
treasure from the Sacramento and Red Chief Pioneer Coach on the night of
September 1. Although most of the gang were arrested, it is known that
two escaped, who, it was presumed, cached the treasure, amounting
to nearly $500,000 in gold, drafts, and jewelry, as no trace of the
property was found. Yesterday our esteemed fellow citizen, Mr. Cass
Beard, long and favorably known in this county, succeeded in exhuming
the treasure in a copse of hazel near the Red Chief turnpike,--adjacent
to the spot where an unknown body was lately discovered. This body is
now strongly suspected to be that of one Henry Cass, a disreputable
character, who has since been ascertained to have been one of the road
agents who escaped. The matter is now under legal investigation. The
successful result of the search is due to a systematic plan evolved from
the genius of Mr. Beard, who has devoted over a year to this labor.
It was first suggested to him by the finding of a ring, now definitely
identified as part of the treasure which was supposed to have been
dropped from Wells, Fargo & Co's boxes by the robbers in their midnight
flight through Blazing Star.


In the same journal appeared the no less important intelligence, which
explains, while it completes this veracious chronicle:--

"It is rumored that a marriage is shortly to take place between the
hero of the late treasure discovery and a young lady of Red Chief, whose
devoted aid and assistance to this important work is well known to this
community."