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  Title: The Highgrader

  Author: William MacLeod Raine

  Illustrator: D. C. Hutchison

  Release Date: September 12, 2007 [EBook #22583]

  Language: English

  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HIGHGRADER ***

  Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed

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  KILMENY'S ALERT EYES SWEPT AGAIN AND AGAIN THE TRAIL LEADING UP THE GULCH. HE DID NOT INTEND TO BE CAUGHT NAPPING BY THE OFFICERS.

  Frontispiece, p. 67

  THE

  HIGHGRADER

  BY

  WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE

  Author of "Wyoming," "Ridgway of Montana," "Bucky O'Connor,"

  "A Texas Ranger," "Mavericks," "Brand Blotters,"

  "Crooked Trails and Straight,"

  "The Vision Splendid," "The Pirate of Panama,"

  "A Daughter of the Dons," Etc.

  ILLUSTRATIONS BY

  D. C. HUTCHISON

  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

  PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

  Copyright, 1915, by

  G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

  The Highgrader

  * * *

  Contents

  CHAPTER PAGE

  I The Campers 11

  II Mr. Verinder Complains 18

  III Night Fishing 28

  IV Fugitives From Justice 44

  V "I'm Here, Neighbor" 56

  VI Lord Farquhar Gives Moya a Hint 71

  VII Moya's Highwayman 84

  VIII The Bad Penny Again 102

  IX "An Out and Out Rotter" 113

  X Old Friends 123

  XI A Blizzard 141

  XII Out of the Storm a Man 157

  XIII Shot to the Core with Sunlight 170

  XIV "Prove It!... Prove It!" 180

  XV A Highgrader—in Principle 189

  XVI One Maid—Two Men 201

  XVII A Warning 218

  XVIII Two Ambushes 237

  XIX Mr. Verinder is Treated to a Surprise 243

  XX Colter Takes a Hand 250

  XXI Spirit Rapping? 264

  XXII The Acid Test 274

  XXIII Captain Kilmeny Retires 284

  XXIV Two in a Bucket 291

  XXV Homing Hearts 309

  * * *

  Illustrations

  PAGE

  Kilmeny's alert eyes swept again and again the trail leading up the gulch. He did not intend to be caught napping by the officers. . . . Frontispiece 67

  "He's hooked pretty fast. take your time about getting him into your net. These big fellows are likely to squirm away." 33

  They rode through a world shot to the core with sunlight. The snow sparkled and gleamed with it. 177

  * * *

  THE HIGHGRADER

  PRELUDE

  A young idealist, ætat four, was selling stars to put in the sky. She had cut them with her own scissors out of red tissue paper, so that she was able to give a guarantee.

  "But you'll have to get the ladder out of our bedroom to put 'em up wiv," she told purchasers honestly.

  The child was a wild dark creature, slim and elfish, with a queer little smile that flashed sudden as an April sun.

  It was evening, on the promenade deck of an ocean liner. The sea was like glass and the swell hardly perceptible. Land was in sight, a vague uneven line rising mist-like on the horizon. Before morning the Victorian would be running up the St. Lawrence. Even for the most squeamish the discomforts of the voyage lay behind. A pleasant good fellowship was in the air. In some it took the form of an idle contentment, a vague regret that ties newly formed must so soon be broken. In others it found an expression more buoyant. Merry voices of shuffleboard players drifted forward. Young couples paced the deck and leaned over the rail to watch the phosphorescent glow. The open windows of the smoking-room gave forth the tinkle of glasses and the low rattle of chips. All sounds blended into a mellow harmony.

  "What's your price on a whole constellation with a lovers' moon thrown in?" inquired a young man lounging in a deck chair.

  The vendor of stars looked at him in her direct serious fashion. "I fink I tan't sell you all 'at, but I'll make you a moon to go wiv the stars—not a weally twuly one, jus' a make-believe moon," she added in a whisper.

  An irritated voice made itself heard. "Steward, have you seen that child anywhere? The naughty little brat has run away again—and I left her only a minute."

  The dealer in celestial supplies came to earth.

  "I'm goin' to be smacked," she announced with grave conviction.

  An unvoiced conspiracy formed itself instantly in her behalf. A lady in a steamer chair gathered the child under the shelter of her rug. An eight-year-old youngster knotted his fists valiantly. The young man who had priced a constellation considered the chances of a cutting-out expedition.

  "She should have been in bed long ago. I just stepped out to speak to our room steward and when I came back she was gone," the annoyed governess was explaining.

  Discovery was imminent. The victim prepared herself for the worst.

  "I don't care," she protested to her protector. "It's ever so nicer to stay up, an' if it wasn't runnin' away it would be somefing else."

  At this bit of philosophy the lounger chuckled, rose swiftly, and intercepted the dragon.

  "When do I get that walk you promised me, Miss Lupton? What's the matter with right now?"

  The governess was surprised, since it was the first she had heard of any walk. Flattered she was, but still faithful to duty.

  "I'm looking for Moya. She knows she must always go to her room after tea and stay there. The naughty child ran away."

  "She's all right. I saw her snuggled under a rug with Mrs. Curtis not two minutes ago. Just a turn or two in this lovely night."

  Drawn by the magnet of his manhood, Moya slipped into the chair beside the eight-year-old.

  "I'd kick her darned shins if she spanked me," boasted he of the eight years.

  Moya admired his courage tremendously. Her dark eyes followed the retreating figure of her governess. "I'm 'fraid."

  "Hm! Bet I wouldn't be. Course, you're only a girl."

  His companion pleaded guilty with a sigh and slipped her hand into his beneath the steamer rug.

  "It's howwid to be a dirl," she confided.

  "Bet I wouldn't be one."

  "You talk so funny."

  "Don't either. I'm a Namerican. Tha's how we all talk."

  "I'm Irish. Mith Lupton says 'at's why I'm so naughty," the sinner confessed complacently.

  Confidences were exchanged. Moya explained that she was a norphan and had nobody but a man called Guardy, and he was not her very own. She lived in Sussex and had a Shetland pony. Mith Lupton was horrid and was always smacking her. When she said her prayers she always said in soft to herself, "But pleathe, God, don't bless Mith Lupton." They were taking a sea voyage for Moya's health, and she had been seasick just the teentiest weentiest bit. Jack on his part could proudly affirm that he had not missed a meal. He lived in Colorado on a ranch with his father, who had just taken him to England and Ireland to visit his folks. He didn't like England one little bit, and he had told his cousin Ned so and they had had a fight. As he was proceeding to tell details Miss Lupton returned from her stroll.

  She brought Moya to her feet with a jerk. "M
y goodness! Who will you pick up next? Now walk along to your room, missie."

  "Yes, Mith Lupton."

  "Haven't I told you not to talk to strangers?"

  "He isn't stwanger. He's Jack," announced Moya stanchly.

  "I'll teach you to run away as soon as my back is turned. You should have been in bed an hour ago."

  "I tan't unbutton myself."

  "A likely reason. Move along, now."

  Having been remiss in her duty, Miss Lupton was salving her conscience by being extra severe now. She hurried her charge away.

  Suddenly Moya stopped. "Pleathe, my han'erchif."

  "Have you lost it? Where is it?"

  "I had it in the chair."

  "Then run back and get it."

  Moya's thin white legs flashed along the deck. Like a small hurricane she descended upon the boy. Her arms went around his neck and for an instant he was smothered in her embrace, dark ringlets flying about his fair head.

  "Dood-night, Jack."

  A kiss fell helter-skelter on his cheek and she was gone, tugging a little handkerchief from her pocket as she ran.

  The boy did not see her again. Before she was up he and his father left the boat at Quebec. Jack wondered whether she had been smacked, after all. Once or twice during the day he thought of her, but the excitement of new sights effaced from his mind the first romance his life had known.

  But for nearly a week Moya added a codicil silently to her prayer. "And, God, pleathe bless Jack."

  * * *

  CHAPTER I

  THE CAMPERS

  Inside the cabin a man was baking biscuits and singing joyously, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary." Outside, another whistled softly to himself while he arranged his fishing tackle. From his book he had selected three flies and was attaching them to the leader. Nearest the rod he put a royal coachman, next to it a blue quill, and at the end a ginger quill.

  The cook, having put his biscuits in the oven, filled the doorway. He was a big, strong-set man, with a face of leather. Rolled-up sleeves showed knotted brown arms white to the wrists with flour. His eyes were hard and steady, but from the corners of them innumerable little wrinkles fell away and crinkled at times to mirth.

  "First call to dinner in the dining-car," he boomed out in a heavy bass.

  Two men lounging under a cottonwood beside the river showed signs of life. One of them was scarcely more than a boy, perhaps twenty, a pleasant amiable youth with a weak chin and eyes that held no steel. His companion was nearer forty than thirty, a hard-faced citizen who chewed tobacco and said little.

  "Where you going to fish to-night, Crumbs?" the cook asked of the man busy with the tackle.

  "Think I'll try up the river, Colter—start in above the Narrows and work down, mebbe. Where you going?"

  "Me for the Meadows. I'm after the big fellows. Going to hang the Indian sign on them with a silver doctor and a Jock Scott. The kid here got his three-pounder on a Jock Scott."

  The man who had been called Crumbs put his rod against the side of the house and washed his hands in a tin pan resting on a stump. He was a slender young fellow with lean, muscular shoulders and the bloom of many desert suns on his cheeks and neck.

  "Going to try a Jock Scott myself after it gets dark."

  The boy who had come up from the river's bank grinned. "Now I've shown you lads how to do it you'll all be catching whales."

  "Once is a happenstance, twice makes a habit. Do it again, Curly, and we'll hail you king of the river," Colter promised, bringing to the table around which they were seating themselves a frying pan full of trout done to a crisp brown. "Get the coffee, Mosby. There's beer in the icebox, kid."

  They ate in their shirtsleeves, camp fashion, on an oil cloth scarred with the marks left by many hot dishes. They brought to dinner the appetites of outdoors men who had whipped for hours a turbid stream under an August sun. Their talk was strong and crisp, after the fashion of the mining West. It could not be printed without editing, yet in that atmosphere it was without offense. There is a time for all things, even for the elemental talk of frontiersmen on a holiday.

  Dinner finished, the fishermen lolled on the grass and smoked.

  A man cantered out of the patch of woods above and drew up at the cabin, disposing himself for leisurely gossip.

  "Evening, gentlemen. Heard the latest?" He drew a match across his chaps and lit the cigarette he had rolled.

  "We'll know after you've told us what it is," Colter suggested.

  "The Gunnison country ce'tainly is being honored, boys. A party of effete Britishers are staying at the Lodge. Got in last night. I seen them when they got off the train—me lud and me lady, three young ladies that grade up A1, a Johnnie boy with an eyeglass, and another lad who looks like one man from the ground up. Also, and moreover, there's a cook, a hawss wrangler, a hired girl to button the ladies up the back, and a valley chap to say 'Yes, sir, coming, sir,' to the dude."

  "You got it all down like a book, Steve," grinned Curly.

  "Any names?" asked Colter.

  "Names to burn," returned the native. "A whole herd of names, honest to God. Most any of 'em has five or six, the way the Denver Post tells it. Me, I can't keep mind of so many fancy brands. I'll give you the A B C of it. The old parties are Lord James and Lady Jim Farquhar, leastways I heard one of the young ladies call her Lady Jim. The dude has Verinder burnt on about eight trunks, s'elp me. Then there's a Miss Dwight and a Miss Joyce Seldon—and, oh, yes! a Captain Kilmeny, and an Honorable Miss Kilmeny, by ginger."

  Colter flashed a quick look at Crumbs. A change had come over that young man's face. His blue eyes had grown hard and frosty.

  "It's a plumb waste of money to take a newspaper when you're around, Steve," drawled Colter, in amiable derision. "Happen to notice the color of the ladies' eyes?"

  The garrulous cowpuncher was on the spot once more. "Sure, I did, leastways one of them. I want to tell you lads that Miss Joyce Seldon is the prettiest skirt that ever hit this neck of the woods—and her eyes, say, they're like pansies, soft and deep and kinder velvety."

  The fishermen shouted. Their mirth was hearty and uncontained.

  "Go to it, Steve. Tell us some more," they demanded joyously.

  Crumbs, generally the leader in all the camp fun, had not joined in the laughter. He had been drawing on his waders and buckling on his creel. Now he slipped the loop of the landing net over his head.

  "We want a full bill of particulars, Steve. You go back and size up the eyes of the lady lord and the other female Britishers," ordered Curly gayly.

  "Go yore own self, kid. I ain't roundin' up trouble for no babe just out of the cradle," retorted the grinning rider. "What's yore hurry, Crumbs?"

  The young man addressed had started away but now turned. "No hurry, I reckon, but I'm going fishing."

  Steve chuckled. "You're headed in a bee line for Old Man Trouble. The Johnnie boy up at the Lodge is plumb sore on this outfit. Seems that you lads raised ructions last night and broken his sweet slumbers. He's got the kick of a government mule coming. Why can't you wild Injuns behave proper?"

  "We only gave Curly a chapping because he let the flapjacks burn," returned Crumbs with a smile. "You see, he's come of age most, Curly has. He'd ought to be responsible now, but he ain't. So we gave him what was coming to him."

  "Well, you explain that to Mr. Verinder if he sees you. He's sure on his hind laigs about it."

  "I expect he'll get over it in time," Crumbs said dryly. "Well, so-long, boys. Good fishing to-night."

  "Same to you," they called after him.

  "Some man, Crumbs," commented Steve.

  "He'll stand the acid," agreed Colter briefly.

  "What's his last name? I ain't heard you lads call him anything but Crumbs. I reckon that's a nickname."

  Curly answered the question of the cowpuncher. "His name 's Kilmeny—Jack Kilmeny. His folks used to live across the water. Maybe this Honorable Miss Kilmeny and her brother are some kin of his
."

  "You don't say!"

  "Course I don't know about that. His dad came over here when he was a wild young colt. Got into some trouble at home, the way I heard it. Bought a ranch out here and married. His family was high moguls in England—or, maybe, it was Ireland. Anyhow, they didn't like Mrs. Kilmeny from the Bar Double C ranch. Ain't that the way of it, Colter?"

  The impassive gaze of the older man came back from the rushing river. "You know so much about it, Curly, I'll not butt in with any more misinformation," he answered with obvious sarcasm.

  Curly flushed. "I'd ought to know. Jack's father and mine were friends, so's he and me."

  "How come you to call him Crumbs?"

  "That's a joke, Steve. Jack's no ordinary rip-roaring, hell-raisin' miner. He knows what's what. That's why we call him Crumbs—because he's fine bred. Pun, see. Fine bred—crumbs. Get it?"

  "Sure I get it, kid. I ain't no Englishman. You don't need a two-by-four to pound a josh into my cocoanut," the rider remonstrated.

  * * *

  CHAPTER II

  MR. VERINDER COMPLAINS

  Jack Kilmeny followed the pathway which wound through the woods along the bank of the river. Occasionally he pushed through a thick growth of young willows or ducked beneath the top strand of a neglected wire fence.

  Beyond the trees lay a clearing. At the back of this, facing the river, was a large fishing lodge built of logs and finished artistically in rustic style. It was a two-story building spread over a good deal of ground space. A wide porch ran round the front and both sides. Upon the porch were a man in an armchair and a girl seated on the top step with her head against the corner post.

  A voice hailed Kilmeny. "I say, my man."

  The fisherman turned, discovered that he was the party addressed, and waited.

  "Come here, you!" The man in the armchair had taken the cigar from his mouth and was beckoning to him.