Luck favored Silver in the execution of his first domestic duties for Lorens. He took the rifle of Lorens, a beautiful weapon, and walked ten minutes, straight through the woods, when a stag sprang out of a covert hardly twenty yards from him. Silver let it run until his bead was perfect. and then sank the bullet behind the shoulder.
The stag was young, but when all the less choice parts were discarded, there remained more than two hundred pounds of good, edible meat. Silver loaded himself with half of it and brought it close to the shack of Lorens. He went back and got the other half. After resting, he put the whole crushing burden on his shoulders. He stepped out from among the trees and came up to the shack with a swinging stride.
Lerons was sitting cross-legged under a tree, smoking a pipe. He sprang up with an exclamation.
“Venison, man? Venison, Juan?”
“It is not veal,” said Silver, putting down the load.
“That’s something Jose could never get for me,” said Lorens. “He said that the deer were all frightened out of the valley, long ago.”
“You know, señor,” said Silver, “that we never find what we do not hope for. But I, Juan, will keep you in venison.”
“There’s enough there for a whole camp!” exclaimed Lorens.
He tried to pick up the burden, and it slipped out of his straining hands.
“Great guns!” said Lorens under his breath, and with profound awe stared at Silver askance. He had heard the rifle crack in the far distance; he had seen his new man come swinging in with a light, long stride, carrying that weight and hardly breathing under it. He began to look now at the lean shanks of Silver.
“Some men are different,” Silver heard him mutter. “The way mules are smaller and stronger than horses, or cats are stronger than dogs!”
On venison steaks broiled to crust outside and of a melting tenderness within, they dined that night, with potatoes fried crisp, and cress from the edge of the running water, and thick, strong black coffee. And Lorens declared that he had not properly eaten since he had left—
The name of the city remained unspoken, but Silver did not think it would be hard to fit in the name of the metropolis where this gambler had been plying his trade. For all his good looks, the man had the manner and something of the look of a rat that had lived underground most of its days.
He said, as they sipped coffee — Silver sitting farther from the fire than his employer as though out of respect, but in reality because he wished to have his face studied as little as possible: “Juan, tell me something of your old life down there in Mexico, will you?”
Silver pretended a distress which was not altogether unreal. Then he said: “Ask me for my blood, señor, but do not ask me for my past. The old days are rope that is made: the new days are rope that is in the winding; my past may not please you, but the new rope may be what you want.”
“For hanging myself?” asked Lorens.
The question was so apt that Silver started, but Lorens was already laughing at his own remark.
“You’re right, Juan,” said Lorens. “The fellow who talks about his past is not likely to have much of a future. Here’s a poor devil who’s had a past, I suppose. A batch of these posters came to town to-day. Fast work on the printing press, eh?”
He put on the ground before Silver a picture of a man of not more than thirty, with a strong, dignified, even a refined face, with every capacity of thought and feeling indicated in it. But the big print offered a reward of five thousand dollars for the apprehension of this man dead or alive. The name was David Holman, and Silver remembered hearing that this was the criminal who had recently broken out of the penitentiary, less than a hundred miles away.
“What d’you think of that face?” asked Lorens.
“He is too strong to be only a little good, or a little bad,” said Silver. “He must be everything or nothing.”
Lorens picked up the poster, and looked from it suddenly and piercingly at Silver.
“You’re no fool, Juan,” he said.
Then he added, half to himself: “Dead or alive! Dead or alive! Think of that! These fellows around here will hunt for a week, every day, for the sake of bagging a timber wolf that only has a ten-dollar bounty on his scalp. Dead or alive, and five thousand dollars for the lucky fellow who draws a dead bead and pulls the trigger! Eh, Juan?” he said, making his voice suddenly cheerful. “That would be a handsome bit of money to have down yonder in Mexico, where things are cheaper!”
Silver shook his head with real distaste.
“Blood money, señor!” said he. “I have killed men, but never for money.”
“No?” said Lorens.
“No,” said Silver. “Never for money. And I never shall.”
“But five thousand dollars! That’s a fortune!”
“It would all taste of blood!” said Silver.
Lorens began to brood again, the lower part of his face propped up in the flat of his hand, and his eyes lifting suddenly, now and again, to his companion. At last he said: “Juan, I have to be in two places at once to-night.”
“Yes, señor,” said Silver.
“One place is in Kirby Crossing. One is right here in this camp. Understand?”
“A man’s body cannot be in two places at once,” said Silver.
“One of me will have to be you.”
“Yes, señor.”
“Juan, I’ve known you only for a few hours, but I’m going to trust you. I want you to go into Kirby Crossing and at ten o’clock stand across the street from the hotel. You hear me? At ten o’clock. And stay there the rest of the night if you have to. Can you do that without closing your eyes?”
“Once,” said Silver dreamily, “for four days there were men around a little nest of rocks. If I so much as nodded, they knew it and crawled closer.”
Lorens grinned, a quick contortion of the face that became still again at once.
“As you wait there,” said Lorens, “two or three times an hour you’ll be smoking a cigarette.”
“Yes, señor.”
“Well, then, every time you light a cigarette, take two matches under your finger and scratch them both — so that the two will burn at the same time.”
“I hear you, señor.”
“After a time — I don’t know when — I think that a woman will come up to you. She will ask for Charlie. You’ll tell her that you come in his name.”
“Does she speak Spanish, señor?”
“Enough to understand that.”
“How shall I know that she is the right woman?”
“If she’s young, pretty, and holds her head high, with her chin up a bit, you’ll know that she’s the right one.”
“I understand,” said Silver, his heart beginning to beat fast. For who could it be except Edith Alton Kenyon, that cunning trickster? And he wished, in a sudden moment of savage rage, that poor Ned Kenyon could be sitting here to listen to the words from Lorens.
“You can go now,” said Lorens. “Buy two horses and two saddles. How much will they cost — two mighty good ones?”
“Five hundred dollars apiece,” said Silver.
Lorens grunted. “That’s worse than blood money. I mean something around a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“It can be done, señor. There are horses for gentlemen and there are horses for Juan. I shall buy two horses for Juan.”
“That’s it. Put the girl on one of ‘em, and bring her out here.”
He took out a wallet and counted the money, while Silver scowled at the fire. He liked this very little. The man was, in fact, trusting him. And to betray the trust even of a fellow who had tried to put a bullet through his head, went sore against the grain.
“Here’s four hundred,” said Lorens. “And that’s a lot of money for me just now. Do your best with it.”
“I shall bring a hundred dollars back,” said Silver, “And still you’ll be satisfied.”
“I don’t want a hundred back. Spend all of it. Or if you can satisfy me with less, put the change in your pocket. You can go now. Buy the horses, and be opposite the hotel at ten o’clock, ready to wait there until the morning, if it should so happen you have to.”
“In all things, as you please, señor,” said Silver.
He took the money and counted it, and rose to his feet.
“One more thing,” cautioned Lorens harshly. “I’m giving you enough money to tempt you a little, perhaps. But you remember this: You’ve been a big man in your own country, but you’re not a big man in this one. And if you try to run out on me, I’ll have the scalp off your head and the marrow out of your bones — I’ll have it, and there are plenty who’ll help me to get it!”
His thin face wrinkled like an old leaf with sudden malice as the mere thought of his promised vengeance passed through his mind.
“Señor,” said Silver, “only a fool promises. A wise man waits to have judgment passed on his deeds.”
“All right, all right,” muttered Lorens. “You sound like a copy book. I’ll see what you bring home to me from Kirby Crossing!”