It was midnight and worse before the lately belted knight of fortune had outworn the hilarious and entered upon the somnolent stage of the little journey insensate, and when the thing could be done, Jeffard put him to bed with a pÆan of thanksgiving which was none the less heartfelt for being unvocalized.

Having thus set his hand to Garvin's plough, there was no alternative but to turn the furrow to the end; wherefore, to guard against surprises, he hid the boots of the bottle-mad one, barricaded the door with his own bed, and lay down to doze with eyelids ajar. At least that was the alert determination; but the event proved that he was weary enough to sleep soundly and late, and it was seven o'clock, and the breakfast caller was hammering on the door, when he opened his eyes on the new day. Naturally, his first thought was for his companion, and the sight of the empty bed in the farther corner of the room brought him broad awake and afoot at the same saltatory moment. The son of fortune was gone, and an open door into the adjoining room accounted for the manner of his going.

Five minutes later, picture an anxious brother-keeper making pointed inquiries of the day-clerk below stairs. Instant question and answer fly back and forth shuttle-wise, one may suppose, weaving suspicion into a firm fabric of fact. Two men whose names, or whose latest aliases, were Howard and Lantermann, had occupied the room next to Jeffard's,—quite chancefully, the clerk thinks. They had left at an early hour; their call was for—one moment, and he (the clerk) will ascertain the exact time.

Whereupon one may fancy an exasperated bearwarden cursing exactnesses and beating with impatient fist upon the counter for the major fact. The fact, extorted at length, is simple and conclusive. The two men had come down some time between five and six o'clock, with a third as a middle link in a chain of locked arms. One of the two had paid the bill, and they had all departed; by way of the bar-room and the side entrance, as the clerk remembers.

Whereat Jeffard is moved to swear strange oaths; is swearing them, in point of fact, when the omnibus from an early train shunts its cargo of arrivals into the main entrance. Among the incomers is a big fellow with a drooping mustache and square-set shoulders, who forthwith drops his handbag and pounces upon Jeffard with greetings boisterous.

"Well, I'll be shot!—or words to that effect" (hand-wringings and shoulder-clappings). "Now where on top of God's green earth did you tumble from? Begin away back yonder and give an account of yourself; or, hold on,—let me write my name in the book and then you can tell me while we eat. By Jove, old man! I'm foolishly glad to see you!"

Jeffard cut in quickly between the large-hearted protest and the signing of the register.

"Just a second, Bartrow; let the breakfast wait, and listen to me. I'm in no end of a tangle, and you're the man of all others to help me out if any one can. Do you happen to know a fellow named Garvin?"

"Don't I? 'Tennessee Jim, P. P.,'—that stands for perennial prospector, you know. Sure. He's of the salt of the earth; rock salt, but full flavored. I know him like a book, though I hadn't seen him for a dog's-age until—but go on."

Jeffard did go on, making the occasion one of the few which seemed to justify the setting aside of indirection.

"We were partners; we have been out together all summer. He has struck it rich, and has gone clean daft in the lilt of it. I can't get him sober long enough to do what may be necessary to secure the claim. The sharks are after him hot foot, and if they can succeed in soaking the data out of him, they will jump the claim before he can get it located and recorded."

Bartrow laughed. "That's just like Jim: ordinarily, he doesn't drink as much whiskey in a year as most men do in a week. But if that's your only grief you can come to breakfast with me and take your time about it. Later on, when we've smoked a few lines and brought up the arrears of gossip, we'll hold a council of war and see what you're to do about the potential bonanza."

"But I can't do anything; it's Garvin's, I tell you."

"Well, you are partners in it, aren't you?"

Jeffard had another fight with an ingrained reserve which was always blocking the way to directness and prompting him to leave the major fact unstated.

"We are not partners in this particular claim. It's an old discovery of Garvin's. He drove the tunnel on it two years ago and then abandoned it. He was looking for tellurides and opened a vein of free-gold quartz without knowing what he had found."

"Then it's nobody's claim, as it stands; or rather I should say it's anybody's. You—or rather Garvin—will have to begin at the beginning, just as if it were a new deal; go back and post a notice on the ground and then come out and record it. And if it's Garvin's claim, as you say, he's got to do this in person. Nobody can do it for him. You can't turn a wheel till you get hold of Jim, and that's what makes me say what I 'does.' Let's go in and eat."

"But, Dick; you don't understand"—

"Yes, I do; and I happen to know a thing or two about this deal that you don't. You've got the whole forenoon before you; you are as safe as a house up to twelve o'clock. Come on."

"I say you don't understand. You called it a 'potential bonanza' just now, meaning that it wouldn't make so very much difference if it were never recorded. But it's a bonanza in fact. If Rittenberger knows what he is talking about, it is the biggest strike of the year, by long odds. I don't know much about such things, but it seems to me it ought to be secured at once and at all hazards."

"Rittenberger, you say?—the little Dutchman? You can bank on what he tells you, every time. I didn't know you'd been to an assayer. What is the figure?"

"I don't know that. I left the sample with him last night, and was to call this morning for the certificate. But the little man bubbled over at the mere sight of it."

"Good for old Jim! So much the better. Nevertheless, as I say, you've an easy half-hour in which to square yourself with me over the ham and eggs and what-not, and plenty of time to do what there is to be done afterward. You can't do anything but wait."

"Yes, I can; I can find Garvin and make sure of him. Don't you see"—

"I see that I'll have to tell you all I know—and that's something you never do for anybody—before you'll be reasonable. Listen, then: I saw your chump of a partner less than an hour ago. He was with two of his old cronies, and all three of them were pretty well in the push, for this early in the morning. They boarded the train I came up on, and that is why I say you're safe till noon. There is no train from the west till twelve-seven. I know Jim pretty well, and at his foolishest he never quite loses his grip. He had it in mind that he ought to fight shy of something or somebody, and he's given you the slip, dodged the enemy, and gone off on a three-handed spree all in a bunch. There now, does that clear up the mystery?"

Jeffard had caught at the counter-rail and was gradually petrifying. Here was the worst that could have befallen, and Bartrow had suspected nothing more than a drunken man's frolic.

"Gone?—with two men, you say? Can you describe them?"

"Roughly, yes; they were Jim's kind—miners or prospectors. One of them was tall and thin and black, and the other was rather thick-set and red. The red one was the drunkest of the three."

"Dressed like miners?" Jeffard had to fight for the "s's." His tongue was thick and his lips dry.

"Sure."

"That settles it, Dick, definitely. Last night those two fellows were dressed like men about town and wore diamonds. They've soaked their information out of Garvin, and they are on their way to locate that claim."

It was Bartrow's turn to gasp and stammer. "What?—locate the—CÆsar's ghost, man, you're daft! They wouldn't take Garvin with them!"

"They would do just that. In the first place, with the most accurate description of the locality that Garvin, drunk, could give them, there would be the uncertainty of finding it without a guide. They know that they have left a sane man behind them who can find the way back to the claim; and their only chance was to take Garvin along, keeping him drunk enough to be unsuspicious, and not too drunk to pilot them. Once on the ground ahead of me, and with Garvin in their power, they can do the worst."

Bartrow came alive to the probabilities in the catching of a breath. "Which will be to kill Garvin safely out of the way, post the claim, and snap their fingers at the world. Good Lord!—and I let 'em knock him down and drag him out under my very eyes! I'd ought to be shot."

"It's not your fault, Dick; it's mine. I saw what was in the wind last night, and stuck to Garvin till I got him to bed. I was dog-tired,—we'd been tramping all day,—and I thought he was safe to sleep the clock around. I hid his boots, dragged my bed across the door, and went to sleep."

"You couldn't have done less—or more. What happened?"

"This. Those two fellows had the room next to us, and there was a door between. They slipped him out this morning before I was awake."

"Of course; all cut out and shaped up beforehand. But, thank the Lord, there's a ghost of a chance yet. Where is the claim?"

"It is three days' march a little to the south of west, on the headwaters of a stream which flows into the Gunnison River."

"And the nearest railroad point?"

"Is Aspen. If I remember correctly, Garvin said it was about twenty miles across the range."

"Good. That accounts for the beginning of the race; they'll go to Aspen and take horses from there. But I don't understand why they took the long line. There are two railroads to Aspen, and one of them is an hour and twenty minutes longer than the other. That's your chance, and the only one,—to beat 'em to the end of the railroad run. How are you fixed?"

"For money, you mean? I have the wreck of a ten-dollar note and a hotel bill to pay."

Bartrow spun around on his heel and shot a sudden question at the hotel clerk, the answer to which was inaudible to Jeffard. But Bartrow's rejoinder was explanatory.

"Rooms over the bank, you say? That's lucky." This to the clerk; and then to Jeffard: "Come along with me; this is no time to stick at trifles. You've got to have money, suddenly, and plenty of it."

But Jeffard hung back.

"What are you going to do, Dick?"

"Stake you and let you try for a special engine over the short line. Those fellows took the long way around, as I say,—why, I don't know, because both trains leave at the same time. The running time the way they have gone is five hours and forty-five minutes. By the other line it's only four hours and twenty-five minutes. Savez?"

"Yes, but"—

"Weed out the 'buts' and come along. We're due to rout a man out of bed and make him open a bank vault. I can't put my hand into my pocket for you, as I'd like to; but I know a banker, and my credit's good."

They found the cashier of the Carbonate City National in the midst of his toilet. He was an Eastern man of conservative habit, but he was sufficiently Occidentalized to grasp the main points in Bartrow's terse narrative, and to rise to the inexorable demands of the occasion.

"You know the rule, Mr. Bartrow,—two good names; and I don't know your friend. But this seems to be an eighteen-carat emergency. Take that key and go down the back way into the bank. You'll find blank notes on the public desk. Make out your paper for what Mr. Jeffard will need, and I'll be with you in half a minute."

They found the way and the blank, which latter Bartrow hastily filled out, indorsed, and handed to Jeffard for signature. It was for five hundred dollars, and the proletary's hand shook when he dipped the pen.

"It's too much," he protested; "I can't stand it, Dick. It is like putting a whetted sword into the hands of a madman."

That was his first reference to the past and its smirched record, and Bartrow promptly toppled it into the abyss of generalities.

"Same old hair-splitter, aren't you? What's the matter with you now?"

"You know—better than any one. I am not to be trusted with any such sum of money."

"Call it Garvin's, then. I don't know how you feel toward Jim, but I've always found him a man to tie to."

A woman would have said that Jeffard turned aside to hide an upflash of emotion, though a clot on the pen was the excuse. But it was the better part of him that made answer.

"I owe him my life—twice, Dick. By all the known hypotheses of honor and gratitude and common decency I ought to be true to him now, in this his day of helplessness. But when one has eaten and drunk and slept with infamy"—

The cashier's step was on the stair, and Bartrow cut in swiftly.

"Jeffard, you make me weary!—and, incidentally, you're killing precious time. Can't you see that trust isn't a matter of much or little? If you can't, why just name the amount for which you'd be tempted to drop Garvin, and we'll cut under it so as to be on the safe side."

"But I sha'n't need a fifth of this," Jeffard objected, wavering.

"You are liable to need more. You must remember that ten minutes hence you'll be trying to subsidize a railroad company. Sign that note and quit quibbling about it."

The thing was done, but when the money had changed hands, Jeffard quibbled again.

"If the worst comes, you can't afford to pay that note, Bartrow; and my probability hangs on a hundred hazards. What if I fail?"

The cashier had unlocked the street door for them, and Bartrow ran the splitter of hairs out to the sidewalk.

"You're not going to fail if I can ever succeed in getting you in motion. Good Lord, man! can't you wake up and get a grip of the situation? It isn't the mere saving or losing of the bonanza; it's sheer life or death to Jim Garvin—and you say you owe him. Here,—this cab is as good as any. Midland office, my man; half time, double fare. Don't spare the leather."

At eight-ten to the minute they were negotiating with the superintendent's chief clerk for a special engine to Aspen. Whereupon, as is foreordained in such crises, difficulties multiplied themselves, while the office clock's decorous pendulum ticked off the precious margin of time. Bartrow fought this battle, fought it single-handed and won; but that was because his weapon was invincible. The preliminary passage at arms vocalized itself thus:—

The Clerk, mindful of his superior's moods, and reflectively dubitant: "I'm afraid I haven't the authority. You will have to wait and see the superintendent. He'll be down at nine."

Bartrow: "Make it a dollar a mile."

The Clerk: "Can't be done; or, at least, I can't do it. We're short of motive power. There isn't an engine fit for the run at this end of the division."

Bartrow: "Say a hundred and fifty for the trip."

The Clerk: "I'm afraid we couldn't make it, anyhow. We'd have to send a caller after a crew, and"—

Bartrow, sticking to his single text like a phonograph set to repeat: "Call it a hundred and seventy-five."

The Clerk, in a desperate aside: "Heavens! I wish the old man would come!"—and aloud—"Say, I don't believe we could better the passenger schedule, even with a light engine. It's fast—four hours and twenty-five"—

Bartrow: "Make it two hundred."

Jeffard counted out the money while the office operator was calling the engine-dispatcher; and at eight-twenty they were pacing the station platform, waiting for the ordered special. Bartrow looked at his watch.

"If you get away from here at eight-thirty, you'll have three hours and thirty-five minutes for the run, which is just fifty minutes better than the regular schedule. It'll be nip and tuck, but if your engineer is any good he'll make it. Do you know what to do when you reach Aspen?"

"Why, yes; I'll meet Garvin when his train arrives, cut him out of the tangle with the sharks, get him on a horse and ride for life across the range."

"That's the scheme. But what if the other fellows object?"

Jeffard straightened himself unconsciously. "I'm not uncertain on that side; I can fight for it, if that is what you mean."

Bartrow looked him up and down with a smile which was grimly approbative. "Your summer's done you a whole lot of good, Jeffard. You look like a grown man."

"As I didn't when you last saw me. But I'm afraid I am neither better nor worse, Dick,—morally."

"Nonsense! You can't help being one or the other. And that reminds me: you haven't accounted for yourself yet. Can you do it in the hollow of a minute?"

"Just about. Garvin picked me out of the gutter and took me with him on this prospecting trip. That's all."

"But you ought to have left word with somebody. It was rough on your friends to drop out as if you'd dodged the undertaker."

"Who was there to care?"

"Well, I cared, for one; and then there is Lansdale, and—and"—

"I know," said Jeffard humbly. He was hungry for news, but he went fasting on the thinnest paring of inquiry. "Does she remember me yet?"

Bartrow nodded. "She's not of the forgetting kind. I never go to Denver that she doesn't ask me if I've heard of you. But that's Connie Elliott, every day in the week. She's got a heartful of her own just now, too, I take it, but that doesn't make any difference. She's everybody's sister, just the same."

"A—a heartful of her own, you say? I don't quite understand." Jeffard was staring intently down the empty railway yard, and the glistening lines of steel were blurred for him.

It was a situation for a bit of merciful diplomacy, but Bartrow the tactless blundered on remorselessly.

"Why, yes,—with Lansdale, you know. I don't know just how far it has gone, but if I were going to put money on it, I'd say she would let her life be shortened year for year if his could be spun out in proportion."

Jeffard brought himself up with a savage turn. Who was he that he should be privileged as those who are slain in any honorable cause?

"Lansdale is no better, then?"

"I don't know. Sometimes he thinks he is. But I guess it's written in the book; and I'm sorry—for his sake and hers. There comes your automobile."

A big engine was clanking up through the yard, but Jeffard did not turn to look at it. He was wringing Bartrow's hand, and trying vainly to think of some message to send to the woman he loved. And at the end of it, it went unsaid. One of the clerks was waiting with the train-order when the engine steamed up; and Jeffard was fain to clamber to his place in the cab, full to the lips with tender embassies, which would by no means array themselves in words.

Bartrow waited till he could fling his God-speed up to the cab window. It took the form of a parting injunction, and neither of them suspected how much it would involve.

"If you need backing in Aspen, look up Mark Denby. He's a good friend of mine; an all-around business man, and a guardian angel to fellows with holes in the ground and no ready money. Hunt him up. I'll wire your introduction and have it there ahead of you. Off you go—good luck to you!"

And at the word the big engine lifted its voice with a shout and a bell-clang, and shook itself free for the race.