The Everlasting Whisper

't be gone more than

lderness. The street into which they had ridden was deserted save for a couple of dogs making each other's acqu

I have can be done in fifteen minutes if it can be d

ke around. It will be fun to see

double doors. She had dropped down on a box in the sun; he thought that there was a little droop to he

" he asked s

like a soldier's; she jumpe

red," she tol

m for you at the hotel; you could l

stered parcel. Further, she marked that the postmaster appeared curious about the package so heavily insured until over Mark's shoulder he caught a glimpse of her, and that thereafter, craning his neck

t had a couple of crazy windows cut crookedly into its sides and a stovepipe thrust up, also crookedly, through the shake roof, and was known as the McQuarry place. Here one might count on finding Swen Brodie at such times as he favoured Coloma with his hulking presence; here foregathered his hangers-on. An idle crowd for the most

f Swen Brodie have forgotten or have failed now in quick recognition. Brodie's mouth, when he spoke, dripped the vilest of vocabularies that had ever been known in these mountains, very much as old Honeycutt's toothless mouth, ever screwed up in rotary chewing and sucking movements, drooled tobacco juice upon his unclean shirt. Brodie at m

moment and hurled it like a challenge to the man he did not

ow. It's for me or Mark King to get

ean-spirited dog. King had never heard him whine like that; Honeycutt was more given to chucklings and clackings

e hideous in its contortions as at once he gloated and threatened. In Brodie's hands, which were twice the size of an ordinary man's, was a little wooden box, to which Honeycutt's rheumy eyes were g

se. Brodie, however, turned his small, restless eyes, that were like two shiny bright-blue buttons, upon the intruder. His great mouth stood open showing his teeth. On that lower, deformed, un

er's father. The elder Brodie had come from Iceland, had lived with a squaw, had sired the first "Swen" Brodie. And this last scion of a house of outlawry and depravity, the Blue Devil, as many called him, stood six or eight clear inches above Mark King, who was well above six feet. Whatever pride was in him went f

atedly up and down as he swallowed inarticulately. This old Honeycutt saw. He jerked about and quick lights sprang up in his despairing eyes. He beg

u to come in

e," cried old Honeycutt,

e was for doin' f

r. There lay a heavy i

ie done it. He wa

et," growled Brodie. "And yo

r trouble. King had stepped in at a moment when Brodie

ing flashed back at him. "And from the look of thin

at," shouted Brodie threate

sharply, "I'm ready to take you on, an

he back door, neither of his two visitor

ve it by law if I gave the snap of a finger for what the law deals out, hit or miss. Was there a King with Gus In

aughed

ie? Since you got back this last trip, figur

at do you me

ether on the cliffs. I saw Andy go overboard. What

; his little blue eyes rounded, and h

a liar," he said thickl

, and he too laughed,

can't lie no more, an

eak. So if your nosing

is cursed ne

already I came for a talk wi

d Brodie, all of his first baffled rage sweeping

uch for a spring. It was just then that both remembered old Honeycutt. For the old m

your'n, Swen Brodie. Hi

ugly head off'n

hough the thing wavered considerably, its end was not six feet from Brodie's head, and both hammers were back, while

d drew back, his

ol; put it down!" he cri

cackled in

he announced triumphantly

table. He drew further away,

ied old H

ck into Brodie's lungs as he came

As for you, King, you and me ain't done. I'll get you where there

fifty pounds of brawn there, every ounce of it packed with power and the cunning of brutish battle. If h

e had his business with Honeycutt. He left the door wide open so t

cutt," he said quietly. "

an' bulldoze me. Not me, he cain't. No, nor if Swen Brodie cain't git

King. "Maybe you'll want to put it a

ith both hammers still back, and shambled to the table. He caught

ing, knowing well that the old mi

re was money?

at down on it, thrusting the box out of si

said. He glanced at hi

as though it were a question of now or never; Brodie would return despite the shotgun, and Brodie might now be looked to for rough-shod methods. So, in face of the bris

r. At Lookout Ridge, Honeycutt." He stressed the words significantly while keenly watch

wailed. "I wish to God I'd

to hang you, Honeycutt. Better leave well enough alone. But listen to me: Brodie told y

tenderest spot. "It'll be me! Me, I tell you. I'm the on

han any other man. It's treasure-trove, Honeycutt

ingly and clenched a pair of palsied fists. "I'm feelin' right pe

Brodie has gone as far as Lookout Ridge? That means he's

n' pesterin' me for? If

bly, is Brodie. Now, look here, Honeycutt; I haven't come to browbeat you as Brodie did. I am for making you a

the money-not enou

'fel

ith his pocket-knife Honeycutt looked on curiously. King stepped to the table, standing so th

money enough to last you as long as you live. A

eaming its lure into the covetous old eyes. Another followed it and another. King regretted that th

s. Right in that pile," he s

n' some of it gold. New-

feel of one of

d Honeycutt's fingers dived after it and hel

nt on c

this pile," he said.

eyc

is mouth puckered, his cheeks sunken in. He got up and shambled on his can

out the las

dollars." He ste

and dollars all on my table." His thin voice was a hushed whisper n

ver see that much again. Un

like claws, standing apart. Slowly the hands descended; the fingers began gathering the few gold pieces, stacking them, lingering with each separate one, smoothing at it. Gold spoke directly and eloquen

, Mark," he whispered

ce. His whole argum

*

ve that is burning desire, that quenches all other spark of the spirit, that is boundless; love of a hideously grotesque and deformed sort; love defiled, twisted, misshapen as though Eros had become an ugly, malformed, leering monstrosity. That love which is the expression of the last degree of selfish greed, since it demands all and gives nothing; that love which is

imself what he and Brodie were doing! The lure of gold. The thing had hypnotized him; he wished that he were out in the mountains riding among the pines and cedars; listening to the voice of the wilderness. It was cle

den trail it was clean-heartedly; that it was the game itself that counted ever with him and no such poisonous emotions as grew within the wretched breast of Loony Honeycutt. And these golden trails, t

nk, groping for his shotgun. He started guiltily, vei

gold, now," said H

ence to Honeycutt'

ing as gold," he said. "Th

busted. There ain't nothin' else like gold. You can tie to it. It won't burn on you an' it won't rust." He sh

to San Francisco. And there I'll undertake to get you the whole thing in gold

sucking and mouth

ngs here," he said with a look of great cunning, "I

ng those thi

ied out shar

bers that would be after me like hounds runnin' down a

tience de

e time on you. I have offered to pay you three thousand dollars for what you know-

hen that happened? Wouldn't I of been one to go, if it hadn't of been that I had a big knife-cut in my side you could of shoved a cat in-give to me by a slant-eyed cuss name of Baldy Winch. Didn't I watch 'em go, the whole seven

"And Baldy Winch, the

d mouth emitte

y was the only man to git back. With my side just healin'

bin on

pistol an' knife. Phoo! What good did it do him? An

ol

the question; the bleary e

," jibed Honeycutt, "wha

ot already know. He came back to the

tood that the glittering coins were to be taken away. "Let's talk

t everything excepting five twenty-dollar gold pieces. These he left standing in a little pile

mbled back to his bunk, his han

" he clacked. "You'd ro

die

im sternly. "If I wanted to rob you I'd

knew that. He battled with himself,

ruptly. "Stand back. An'

lingeringly, fought his battle all over again, and again went down before the hundred dollars. He

get. The nugget, he estimated roughly, would be worth five hundred dollars were it all that it looked from a dozen feet away. The parc

cutt

ght in his hands," he gloated, "he'd never o

have your last chance to talk business with

rk King. I got another place; a better place; a

*

e again. Soon. It began to look as though Brodie had the bulge on the situation. For that which Mark King co

ard her; she waved. He saw that Brodie and two men with him were looking out of a window

by a new anger which he did not stop to reason over. He