第24章 CHAPTER V(2)

He returned to his office,and,putting the envelope that had been lying on Slinn's desk in his pocket,threw a serape over his shoulders,and locked the front door of the house behind him.It was well that the way was a familiar one to him,and that his feet instinctively found the trail,for the night was very dark.At times he was warned only by the gurgling of water of little rivulets that descended the hill and crossed his path.Without the slightest fear,and with neither imagination nor sensitiveness,he recalled how,the winter before,one of Don Caesar's vaqueros,crossing this hill at night,had fallen down the chasm of a landslip caused by the rain,and was found the next morning with his neck broken in the gully.Don Caesar had to take care of the man's family.Suppose such an accident should happen to him?

Well,he had made his will.His wife and children would be provided for,and the work of the mine would go on all the same;he had arranged for that.Would anybody miss him?Would his wife,or his son,or his daughter?No.He felt such a sudden and overwhelming conviction of the truth of this that he stopped as suddenly as if the chasm had opened before him.No!It was the truth.If he were to disappear forever in the darkness of the Christmas night there was none to feel his loss.His wife would take care of Mamie;his son would take care of himself,as he had before--relieved of even the scant paternal authority he rebelled against.A more imaginative man than Mulrady would have combated or have followed out this idea,and then dismissed it;to the millionaire's matter-of-fact mind it was a deduction that,having once presented itself to his perception,was already a recognized fact.For the first time in his life he felt a sudden instinct of something like aversion towards his family,a feeling that even his son's dissipation and criminality had never provoked.He hurried on angrily through the darkness.

It was very strange;the old house should be almost before him now,across the hollow,yet there were no indications of light!It was not until he actually reached the garden fence,and the black bulk of shadow rose out against the sky,that he saw a faint ray of light from one of the lean-to windows.He went to the front door and knocked.After waiting in vain for a reply,he knocked again.

The second knock proving equally futile,he tried the door;it was unlocked,and,pushing it open,he walked in.The narrow passage was quite dark,but from his knowledge of the house he knew the "lean-to"was next to the kitchen,and,passing through the dining-room into it,he opened the door of the little room from which the light proceeded.It came from a single candle on a small table,and beside it,with his eyes moodily fixed on the dying embers of the fire,sat old Slinn.There was no other light nor another human being in the whole house.

For the instant Mulrady,forgetting his own feelings in the mute picture of the utter desolation of the helpless man,remained speechless on the threshold.Then,recalling himself,he stepped forward and laid his hand gayly on the bowed shoulders.

"Rouse up out o'this,old man!Come!this won't do.Look!I've run over here in the rain,jist to have a sociable time with you all.""I knew it,"said the old man,without looking up;"I knew you'd come.""You knew I'd come?"echoed Mulrady,with an uneasy return of the strange feeling of awe with which he regarded Slinn's abstraction.

"Yes;you were alone--like myself--all alone!""Then,why in thunder didn't you open the door or sing out just now?"he said,with an affected brusquerie to cover his uneasiness.

"Where's your daughters?"

"Gone to Rough-and-Ready to a party."

"And your son?"

"He never comes here when he can amuse himself elsewhere.""Your children might have stayed home on Christmas Eve.""So might yours."He didn't say this impatiently,but with a certain abstracted conviction far beyond any suggestion of its being a retort.

Mulrady did not appear to notice it.

"Well,I don't see why us old folks can't enjoy ourselves without them,"said Mulrady,with affected cheerfulness."Let's have a good time,you and me.Let's see--you haven't any one you can send to my house,hev you?""They took the servant with them,"said Slinn,briefly."There is no one here.""All right,"said the millionaire,briskly."I'll go myself.Do you think you can manage to light up a little more,and build a fire in the kitchen while I'm gone?It used to be mighty comfortable in the old times."He helped the old man to rise from his chair,and seemed to have infused into him some of his own energy.He then added,"Now,don't you get yourself down again into that chair until I come back,"and darted out into the night once more.

In a quarter of an hour he returned with a bag on his broad shoulders,which one of his porters would have shrunk from lifting,and laid it before the blazing hearth of the now lighted kitchen.

"It's something the old woman got for her party,that didn't come off,"he said,apologetically."I reckon we can pick out enough for a spread.That darned Chinaman wouldn't come with me,"he added,with a laugh,"because,he said,he'd knocked off work 'allee same,Mellican man!'Look here,Slinn,"he said,with a sudden decisiveness,"my pay-roll of the men around here don't run short of a hundred and fifty dollars a day,and yet I couldn't get a hand to help me bring this truck over for my Christmas dinner.""Of course,"said Slinn,gloomily.