LUCKY'S LUCK.

Cheerful, erect, recreated in body and spirit, Durant came to Gumboot Annie's hostelry, where he had made an appointment to meet Walter Pierce. Not seeing the young man, and having his own reasons for not letting it be known that there was anything of a business nature between them, he refrained from making inquiries; ordered a cup of coffee, and, lighting a pipe, seated himself in a sheltered nook outside the tent to wait.

He had not been there long when the altercation between Dandy Raish and Gelly interrupted the banquet then in progress, bringing the diners from the tent, Nick, closely guarded by Barney, in the van.

Gelly, acting on Raish's instructions, had gone speeding down the trail, but the Dandy still lingered, to keep his secret tryst with Evelyn.

Catching sight of him, the Bully, handcuffed as he was, made a furious lunge at him. "Thet thar's the snake I've swore ter kill!" he shouted. "Let me free!"

"No, sorr!" Barney restrained him. "No cheatin' av the extry-edition, if ye please."

Every one began to talk at once, his followers urging the Bully to vengeance or forgiveness, according to their natural dispositions, at present heightened by conviviality, while Raish, fearing lest the former policy should prevail, held up a hand for truce. "It's all right, Nick. You don't understand. Stand back, you fellows, can't you, and give me a word alone with Nick."

"Aye!" acquiesced the Bully. "I don't need help to curse ye, Raish. When I'm through with him, lads, I'll leave him to you ter skin him fer the skunk he is, d'ye see?"

"Can't you leave us?" inquired Raish of Barney, who still stood his ground by Nick.

"No, sorr, I cannot."

"But it's a private matter."

"Bedad, thin, that takes me in all right, since I'm a private meself till promoted."

"Oh, very well! Only I didn't like to drag in a woman's name before a third person," explained the Dandy. "What I want to say, Nick, is this: I'm awfully sorry for all the trouble I've brought on you. It's not entirely my fault, the way women do pursue a fellow. But never mind all that," he hastened to add as the Bully began to growl ominously. "I want you to know that I intend to do the square thing. I'm going to marry Gelly."

"Eh?" cried Nick, unable to believe his ears. "You'll right my gal! Honest, Raish?"

"On my honor as a gentleman—that is, if she'll have me. Now, don't get angry, Nick, till I explain. Something has turned her against me of late. Suppose you write her a little note, advising her to do it."

"Advisin' her! I'll skin her if she kicks!" threatened Nick. "Here, boy," he turned to Barney, "get me quit of these bracelets while I write ter my darter."

"No, sorr, I wull not!"

"I tell ye it's my last words—good-by—to my darter."

"First or last, sure ye can dictate your autography."

"Oh, hang!" ejaculated the Bully.

"Sure, thin, that's for what I'm saving ye!"

"Thar ain't no word profane enough ter describe ye, d'ye see?" Nick told his keeper. "Here, boys, which one of ye kin write?" he called over to his followers.

"Don't make her name common with that gang," cautioned the Dandy, whose alert mind was actively evolving a new piece of villainy as the situation developed. "Ask an older man; a gentleman."

"You've never done a thing ter her name, hev yer?" inquired the Bully, wrathfully, yet not wholly rejecting the advice. "Here, Sandy, man, come write a message for me. You've had schoolin'."

"Ou, aye!" assented the Scotchman, "ower muckle schoolin'. Mon, mon, when I reflect on a' this sma' head contains! I'll e'en gie ye a selection fra' Marmion—or a wee bit o' Rabbit Burruns." Being, however, far gone in conviviality, he maundered off into protestations of undying affection for his leader, assuring him he'd e'en gie his proper copposeetion to see him hangit decently.

Disgusted, Nick shoved Sandy aside, and in so doing caught a glimpse of Durant in his corner, smoking peaceably. "Thar's old man Lucky!" he exclaimed, even as Raish had foreseen. "Might ask him ter help us out. Hi, Lucky! Want ter do me a good turn?"

"Willingly." Rising, Durant joined him. "What is it, Nick?"

"Waal, the government thinks so much of me these days I hev to employ a secretary fer me correspondence, d'ye see? Say, will you write down a message fer me to my gal?"

"With all the pleasure in the world," assented Durant, heartily.

"Babper an' envelobe, two bits. Ben an' ink, two bits. Plotter, two bits, bostache-shtamp, two bits!" At Nick's order, Ikey set writing materials before them on the counter.

"Say, Nick," Raish prompted, in an undertone, while Durant was removing his snow-spectacles and chafing his stiff fingers, "best not enter into details. Best let bygones be bygones. Best just say you want your daughter to let me bring her as my wife to pay you a visit during your enforced captivity—perhaps to say good-by."

"You let me choose my own words, and be damned to yer."

"Oh, very well! Only I don't see why you should be in a hurry to shame me and Gelly before an outsider."

"My gal has shamed herself, and thar ain't no shamin' you!" Nick, however, acted on the advice. "Ready, Lucky? Say, I don't know how to start it. I kin jaw her fluent ter her face, but I never wrote her afore." He hesitated, embarrassed.

Smiling reassuringly, Durant pointed to the words he already had mechanically set down. "My dear daughter—that's how I begin to my own girl."

"Darter don't look as if it was spelled right," criticized the Bully. "But you know best, Lucky. Fire away! Make it affectionate, but firm, d'ye see? Tell her I'll cuss her in this life and skin her in the next ef she don't let Raish bring her ter me as his wife ter say good-by. No trimmin's, mind! Blow the signiture! She'll know fast enough it comes from me."

"Your loving dad," Durant concluded. "That's how I end off when I'm writing to Evelyn."

"Pop ud 'a' sounded more nateral," remarked the Bully. "But mebbe dad is dockimentary. So let her go."

"Add a postscript," in a hurried whisper Raish enjoined Durant. "Tell her this is just a matter of form, and that I promise on my honor not to hold her to the arrangement permanently, if it is distasteful to her. Tell her——"

Durant looked up, surprised. "Surely all that lies wholly between you and the young woman."

"True," admitted Raish, "but as I don't mind confiding in you that the young woman is tired of me, I want her to feel secure that in satisfying her father's scruples I don't intend to take an unfair advantage of her. Suppose I set that down myself." He did so, writing rapidly, but clearly. "Now, Mr. Durant," he handed the other the pen, "you will add to your kindness to me more than you dream by placing your signature as witness to my pledge."

Durant did as he was asked, feeling that, little as he understood the matter, he was probably serving the best interests of the unfortunate Gelly.

"As witness only," he, however, stated. "It is an arrangement in which I take no moral responsibility."

"Thanks. I understand your scruples and respect them. The responsibility is mine entirely. Just at present I cannot explain, but later the whole position will be made clear."

"What's all them goin's-on?" suddenly demanded Nick, whose attention had been momentarily distracted by an argument between Mops and Sandy on the poetic merits of Rabbit Burruns. "No monkeyin' with dockiments over thar."

"I'm only directing it," explained the Dandy, who had folded the letter and inclosed it in an envelope.

Nick looked over his shoulder, breathing heavily with interest. "By gum," he ejaculated, wrathfully, "ef ye hevn't blotted my gal's name, Raish, and not fer the fust time!"

"DARTER DON'T LOOK AS IF IT WAS SPELLED RIGHT," CRITICIZED BULLY.

"Oh, I'll make that all right!" The Dandy put the letter in his breast and walked away.

"Ef yer don't may yer sizzle!" Nick called after him. Turning to Durant: "Pard, I'm grateful," he declared, with feeling. "Pard, the best wish I kin give ye is, may ye never need no one ter do the same by you."

"Thanks, Nick. That's all right." Durant looked about him, and seeing that Raish was out of earshot and Blenksoe not in sight, went closer to the Bully and his followers. "Friends, there's something I want to say to you," he began. "It's just this: You've all done me a kindness to my dying day I shan't forget. A fortnight ago, when my girl came into camp expecting to find me living in a diamond-encrusted palace, and I stood there so forlorn she didn't recognize me, a broken-hearted beggar, you who by one word might have pricked the bubble and humiliated me before her and her before the world, by your silence protected her and me. It was the noblest thing——" His voice broke; he wiped his eyes.

"Thet's all right, Lucky! Brace up, old man!" came from one and another of the group.

"Aye, but now I want you all to hear my good news!" cried Durant, detaining them as they were preparing to go back into the dining-tent to resume their interrupted feast. "It has all come true! With so many grafters and claim-jumpers round I daren't be explicit, but I want you to know that my luck has turned for good and all. Oh, this time it's no pocket; it's the big strike of which I've always dreamed. I don't deserve it, some may think, after playing with my girl's credulity, yet for her sake I thank God with all my heart that I've won out! Till it's staked and recorded I know you'll all keep my secret—but, boys, every one of you is in it, the Rainbow Mine!"

The same wonderful delicacy that had marked their treatment of Evelyn did not fail her father. The Bully and his gang listened to this speech in respectful silence, at its conclusion crying, "Great! Good for you, old man! You done grand! Allus knew you'd git thar fer keeps! Sure! Betcherlife! That's what!" with every evidence of conviction and spontaneous joy. But as he walked off, Durant laughed. He did not need to look back to know that fingers were being pointed after him, winks interchanged and foreheads tapped significantly, with comment that found food for mirth, even while it deplored: "Off his nut fer fair. Balmy on the crumpet. Bats in his belfry. Qualifying for Queer Street. Plumb crazy. Poor old Lucky!"

Well, let them think so, bless them, since another day would set them right and prove him all he claimed to be. And then nothing gold could procure would be too good for them, nothing—this rough crew, more beast than man, that had yet behaved like more than man to his deceived, defenceless girl.

That hour—its memory was seared upon his very soul—the hour of Evelyn's arrival in camp that had witnessed the deepest degradation, followed immediately by the crowning justification and triumph of his career. He visualized it now, as he walked: In the Klondike Delmonico's, in her rÔle of Lady Bountiful, Evelyn was dispensing hospitality right and left. He alone, her father, dared not enter in. Crushed, crazed, he walked back to the spot where he had left young Pierce. Him he found still brooding beneath the huge pine, dazed, amid the ruin of his own air castles. Then for one bad moment Durant went really mad. Picking up the gun he had dropped when an irresistible force drew him to go watch the incoming stage, he turned its deadly charge against his fevered brain.

With a cry, Walter sprang forward, but not before old Blenksoe, who had been watching his associate's actions curiously, seized him, capturing the gun. "No yer don't, blast yer!"

"Give it to me, Blenksoe! Of what use is my life to you?"

"Lucky you've been afore, and lucky you may be yet, and when the luck turns I'm in it, see?"

"Give it to me!" With a madman's fury, Durant leaped at the other's throat, only to be met by a blow that sent him reeling to the ground with such force that a young willow bush he clutched at was partially uprooted. For a few seconds he lay prone, foaming at the mouth and clawing the soil with frenzied impotency. Then of a sudden he paused, raised himself, face still downturned, and burst into insane laughter that made Pierce's blood run cold.

"Mad! Stark, starin' mad!" Blenksoe turned on his heel.

"There's a squirrel on yonder tree I could bring down for the dogs' supper if you'd give me back my gun, Blenksoe," his laughter spent, Durant meekly suggested as he scrambled to a sitting posture.

"Fetch her with a stun," was the succinct reply, as, retaining his partner's weapon, Blenksoe re-entered the tent.

Acting on the suggestion, Durant gathered up a handful of clots, selecting them carefully, and with deliberate aim took long shots at the chattering creature on the bough.

"Sit here, beside me, close, Walter," in an undertone he bade the young clerk, who still was gazing at him in horrified bewilderment. "But don't start or show the slightest surprise at what I am going to say. Oh, tut, tut, lad, never fear!" For Pierce seemed disinclined to comply with his command. "I am not mad. That is all over, thank God! with all the struggle, the heartbreak. The luck has turned, do you hear? Yes, turned for good and all! Every clot that I am throwing contains gold!—careful!" For involuntarily Walter had given vent to an ejaculation of amazed incredulity. "Oh, I'm an old prospector, and I see indications, and read signs where these grafters pass them by. I've always believed in this locality, and now I'm justified. In uprooting that willow I unearthed a bonanza!" Pausing in his speech, he renewed his attempts on the squirrel's life, and then went on: "Yes, each dull handful of earth I throw is a priceless witness that beneath us, on this spot, lies the Rainbow Mine——" Breaking off, as he observed old Blenksoe watching him narrowly, he rose as if discouraged, with a sigh. "My hand shakes. I'm no match to-day even for a squirrel. I'll have to give it up." Then, cleverly simulating the foolishly detailed actions of one who, having lost his grasp on the great things of life, clutches at the trivialities, he set about replanting the willow, stamping down the disordered earth about its roots, meanwhile in a pregnant undertone continuing his conversation with Walter.

The latter, so between them it was arranged, was to hang about the locality, watching for a chance, unobserved, to pick up the valuable clots, and these he was to have exchanged for their cash value, for current expenses, at a bank so distant that their source could not be predicated with any degree of accuracy—a precaution that Durant deemed essential in a district where even officialdom was likely to be corrupted by the lust for gold. He himself, meanwhile, would watch his opportunity, and disappear, without leaving a trace, from Lost Shoe Creek, as if madness had indeed possessed him, in order to throw Blenksoe off the scent and cause him also to move on, since, as Durant rightly conjectured, the pastmaster of graft would not be likely to remain in any spot which he thought Lucky had turned down. To-day Walter was to meet him here, return with him to the scene of his discovery, aid him in staking it, by stealth; journey to the nearest office where recording-books were opened, to file the claim with the necessary fee, while Durant himself would remain, defending the stakes, if need be, with his life. Once his rights legally safeguarded, all the world might know. Again Durant laughed in joyful anticipation of his meeting with Evelyn, when confession and revelation would come in the same breath. Then, impatiently, he looked up and down the trail, wondering at Pierce's delay on this day of days, when he heard a low moan among the bushes, and, turning, beheld the young man on whose co-operation such high hopes depended, lying, bedded in furs, upon a sled, swathed in bandages, pallid—a dying man.

"My God! Walter, my poor lad, what does this mean?" exclaimed Durant, in horrified accents.

Another moan was the only answer, but reading in the glazing eyes a wish to speak, Durant knelt down and bent so that his ear touched the stiff lips.

"What is it, Walter?"

"The samples," the young man at last managed to articulate. "The mine——"

"Aye, the mine—the samples!" cried Durant, with frantic eagerness. But Walter's confession never reached the man he had betrayed. A sudden darkness came over Durant. He struggled, but his grasp was pinioned from behind. He tried to cry aloud, but his voice was muffled. Swift, treacherous hands seized him, gagged him, bound him fast, bore him off, blind, mute, a prisoner!

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