The Blue Goose Read online

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  The BLUE GOOSE

  FRANK LEWIS NASON

  AUTHOR OF TO THE END OF THE TRAIL

  COPYRIGHT, 1903, BYMcCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.NEW YORK

  Published, March, 1903, RSecond Impression

  * * * * *

  "_So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was anoise and behold a shaking, and the bones came together bone to bone._

  "_And, lo, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, but there was nobreath in them._

  "_Son of man, prophesy unto the wind. Come from the four winds, Obreath, and breathe upon these that they may live._

  "_And the breath came into them and they lived._"

  To MY FRIEND OF TWENTY-ONE YEARS, CHARLES EMERSON BEECHER,

  who, with infinite skill and patience, has breathed the breath of lifeinto the dry bones of Earth's untold ages of upward struggle, who hasmade them speak of the eternity of their past, and has made themprophesy hope for the eternity to come, this book is dedicated by theauthor.

  CONTENTS

  I. THE BLUE GOOSE

  II. THE OLD MAN

  III. ELISE

  IV. THE WATCHED POT BEGINS TO BOIL

  V. BENNIE OPENS THE POT AND FIRMSTONE COMES IN

  VI. THE FAMILY CIRCLE

  VII. MR. MORRISON TACKLES A MAN WITH A MIND OF HIS OWN AND A MAN WITHOUT ONE

  VIII. MADAME SEEKS COUNSEL

  IX. THE MEETING AT THE BLUE GOOSE

  X. ELISE GOES FORTH TO CONQUER

  XI. THE DEVIL'S ELBOW

  XII. FIGS AND THISTLES

  XIII. THE STORK AND THE CRANES

  XIV. BLINDED EYES

  XV. BENDING THE TWIG

  XVI. AN INSISTENT QUESTION

  XVII. THE BEARDED LION

  XVIII. WINNOWED CHAFF

  XIX. THE FLY IN THE OINTMENT

  XX. THE RIVER GIVES UP ITS PREY

  XXI. THE SWORD THAT TURNS

  XXII. GOOD INTENTIONS

  XXIII. AN UNEXPECTED RECRUIT

  XXIV. THE GATHERING TO ITS OWN

  XXV. A DIVIDED HOUSE

  XXVI. THE DAY OF RECKONING

  XXVII. PASSING CLOUDS

  THE BLUE GOOSE

  CHAPTER I

  _The Blue Goose_

  "_Mais oui!_ I tell you one ting. One big ting. Ze big man wiz ze glasseyes, he is vat you call one slik stoff. Ze big man wiz ze glass eyes."

  "The old man?"

  "Zat's him! One slik stoff! _Ecoutez!_ Listen! One day, you mek ze gran'trip. Look hout!" Pierre made a gesture as of a dog shaking a rat.

  The utter darkness of the underground laboratory was parted in solidmasses, by bars of light that spurted from the cracks of a fiercelyglowing furnace. One shaft fell on a row of large, unstoppered bottles.From these bottles fumes arose, mingled, and fell in stifling clouds offleecy white. From another bottle in Pierre's hands a dense red smokewelled from a colourless liquid, crowded through the neck, wriggledthrough the bar of light, and sank in the darkness beneath. The darknesswas uncanny, the fumes suffocating, the low hum of the furnace forcingout the shafts of light from the cracks of the imprisoning wallsinfernally suggestive.

  Luna shivered. He was ignorant, therefore superstitious, andsuperstition strongly suggested the unnatural. He knew that furnaces andretorts and acids and alkalies were necessary to the refinement of gold.He feared them, yet he had used them, but he had used them where thefull light of day robbed them of half their terrors. In open air acidsmight smoke, but drifting winds would brush away the fumes. Furnacesmight glow, but their glow would be as naught in sunlight. There was nodarkness in which devils could hide to pounce on him unawares, no wallsto imprison him. The gold he retorted on his shovel was his, and he hadno fear of the law. In the underground laboratory of Pierre the elementof fear was ever present. The gold that the furnace retorted was stolen,and Luna was the thief. There were other thieves, but that did notmatter to him. He stole gold from the mill. Others stole gold from themine. It all came to Pierre and to Pierre's underground furnace. Hestood in terror of the supernatural, of the law, and, most of all, ofPierre. In the darkness barred with fierce jets of light, imprisoned bywalls that he could not see, cut off from the free air of open day,stifled by pungent gases that stung him, throat and eye, he felt anuncanny oppression, fear of the unknown, fear of the law, most of allfear of Pierre.

  Pierre watched him through his mantle of darkness. He thrust forward hishead, and a bar of light smote him across his open lips. It showed hisgleaming teeth white and shut, his black moustache, his swarthy lipsparted in a sardonic smile; that was all. A horrible grin on abackground of inky black.

  Luna shrank.

  "Leave off your devil's tricks."

  "_Moi?_"

  Pierre replaced the bottle of acid on the shelf and picked up a pair oftongs. As he raised the cover of the glowing crucible a suddentransformation took place. The upper part of the laboratory blazed outfiercely, and in this light Pierre moved with gesticulating arms, thelower part of his body wholly hidden. He lifted the crucible, shook itfor a moment with an oscillatory motion, then replaced it on the fire.He turned again to Luna.

  "Hall ze time I mek ze explain. Hall ze time you mek ze question._Comment?_"

  Luna's courage was returning in the light.

  "You're damned thick-headed, when it suits you, all right. Well, I'llexplain. Last clean-up I brought you two pounds of amalgam if it was anounce. All I got out of it was fifty dollars. You said that was myshare. Hansen brought you a chunk of quartz from the mine. He showed itto me first. If I know gold from sulphur, there was sixty dollars in it.Hansen got five out of it."

  Pierre interrupted.

  "You mek mention ze name."

  "There's no one to hear in this damned hell of yours."

  "_Non_," Pierre answered. "You mek mention in zis hell. Bimby you mekmention," Pierre gave an expressive upward jerk with his thumb, thenshrugged his shoulders.

  "I'll look out for that," Luna answered, impatiently. "I'm aftersomething else now. I'm getting sick of pinching the mill and bringingthe stuff here for nothing. So are the rest of the boys. We ain't got nohold on you and you ain't playing fair. You've got to break even or thisthing's going to stop."

  Pierre made no reply to Luna. He picked up the tongs, lifted thecrucible from the fire, and again replaced it. Then he brought out aningot mould and laid it on a ledge of the furnace. The crucible wasagain lifted from the fire, and its contents were emptied in the mould.Pierre and Luna both watched the glowing metal. As it slowly cooled,iridescent sheens of light swept over its surface like the changingcolours of a dying dolphin. Pierre held up the mould to Luna.

  "How much she bin?"

  Luna looked covetously at the softly glowing metal. "Two hundred."

  "_Bien._ She's bin ze amalgam, ze quart', ze hozer stoff. Da's hall."

  Luna looked sceptical.

  "That's too thin. How many times have you fired up?"

  "Zis!" Pierre held up a single emphasizing finger.

  "We'll let that go," Luna answered; "but you listen now. One of thebattery men is off to-night. I'm going to put Morrison on substitute.He's going to break a stem or something. The mortar's full to the dies.We're going to clean it out. I know how much it will pan. It's coming toyou. You divide fair or it's the last you'll get. I'll hide it out
inthe usual place."

  "Look hout! Da's hall!"

  The other laughed impatiently.

  "Getting scared, Frenchy? Where's your nerve?"

  "Nerf! Nerf!" Pierre danced from foot to foot, waving his arms. "_Sacreplastron!_ You mek ze fuse light. You sit on him, heh? Bimeby, prettysoon, you got no nerf. You got noddings. You got one big gris-spot on zerock. Da's hall." Pierre subsided, with a gesture of intense disgust.

  Luna snapped his watch impatiently.

  "It's my shift, Frenchy. I've got to go in a few minutes."

  "_Bien!_ Go!" Pierre spoke without spirit. "Mek of yourself one gran'_folie_. _Mais_, when ze shot go, an' you sail in ze air, don' come downon ze Blue Goose, on me, Pierre. I won't bin here, da's hall."

  Luna turned.

  "I tell you I've got to go now. I wish you'd tell me what's the matterwith the old man."

  Pierre roused himself.

  "Noddings. Ze hol' man has noddings ze mattaire. It is you! You! Ze hol'man, he go roun' lak he kick by ze dev'. He mek his glass eyes to shinehere an' twinkle zere, an' you mek ze gran' chuckle, 'He see noddings.'He see more in one look dan you pack in your tick head! I tol' you lookhout; da's hall!"

  Luna jammed his watch into his pocket and rose.

  "It's all right, Frenchy. I'll give you another chance. To-day'sThursday. Saturday they'll clean up at the mill. It will be a big one. Iwant my rake-off. The boys want theirs. It all comes to the Blue Goose,one way or another. You think you're pretty smooth stuff. That's allright; but let me tell you one thing: if there's any procession headingfor Canon City, you'll be in it, too."

  Canon City was the State hostelry. Occasionally the law selectedunwilling guests. It was not over-large, nor was it overcrowded. Had itsheltered all deserving objects, the free population of the State wouldhave been visibly diminished.

  Pierre only shrugged his shoulders. He followed Luna up the stairs tothe outer door, and watched the big mill foreman as he walked down thetrail to the mill. Then, as was his custom when perturbed in mind,Pierre crossed the dusty waggon trail and seated himself on a boulder,leaning his back against a scrubby spruce. He let his eyes restcontentedly on a big, square-faced building. Rough stone steps led up toa broad veranda, from which rose, in barbaric splendour, great sheets ofshining plate-glass, that gave an unimpeded view of a long mahogany barbacked by tiers of glasses and bottles, doubled by reflection frompolished mirrors that reached to the matched-pine ceiling.

  Across the room from the bar, roulette and faro tables, bright withvarnish and gaudy with nickel trimmings, were waiting with invitationsto feverish excitement. The room was a modern presentation of Scylla andCharybdis. Scylla, the bar, stimulated to the daring of Charybdis acrossthe way, and Charybdis, the roulette, sent its winners to celebratesuccess, or its victims to deaden the pain of loss.

  At the far end of the room a glass-covered arcade stood in advance ofdoors to private club-rooms. At the arcade an obliging attendant passedout gold and silver coins, for a consideration, in exchange for crumpledtime-checks and greasy drafts.

  Pierre grinned and rubbed his hands. Above the plate glass on theoutside a gorgeous rainbow arched high on the painted front. Inscribedwithin, in iridescent letters, was: "The Blue Goose. Pierre La Martine."Beneath the spring of the rainbow, for the benefit of those who couldnot read, was a huge blue goose floating aimlessly in a sheet of bluerwater.

  This was all of the Blue Goose that was visible to the eyes of theuninitiated; of the initiated there were not many.

  Beneath the floor was a large cellar, wherein was a fierce-lookingfurnace, which on occasion grew very red with its labours. There werepungent jars and ghostly vessels and a litter of sacks, and muchsparkling dust on the earthen floor. All this Pierre knew, and a fewothers, though even these had not seen it.

  Beneath the shadow of the wings of the Blue Goose dwelt a very plainwoman, who looked chronically frightened, and a very beautiful girl whodid not. The scared woman was Madame La Martine; the unscared girlpassed for their daughter, but about the daughter no one asked questionsof Pierre. About the Blue Goose, its bar, and its gaming-tables Pierrewas eloquent, even with strangers. About his daughter and other thingshis acquaintances had learned to keep silence; as for strangers, theysoon learned.

  Obviously the mission of the Blue Goose was to entertain; with themultitude this mission passed current at its face value, but there werea few who challenged it. Now and then a grocer or a butcher made gloomycomments as he watched a growing accumulation of books that would notprove attractive to the most confirmed bibliophile. Men went to the BlueGoose with much money, but came out with none, for the bar and rouletterequired cash settlements. Their wives went in to grocers and butcherswith no money but persuasive tongues, and came forth laden with spoils.

  Pandora could raise no taxes for schools, so there were none. Preacherscame and offered their wares without money and without price, but therewere no churches. For the wares of the preachers flushed no faces andburned no throats, nor were there rattles even in contribution boxes,and there was no whirr of painted wheels. Even the hundred rumblingstamps of the Rainbow mill might as well have pounded empty air orclashed their hard steel shoes on their hard steel dies for all theprofit that came to the far-away stockholders of the great Rainbow mineand mill.

  So it came to pass that many apparently unrelated facts were gatheredtogether by the diligent but unprosperous, and, being thus gathered,pointed to a very inevitable conclusion. Nothing and no one wasprosperous, save Pierre and his gorgeous Blue Goose. For Pierre was apower in the land. He feared neither God nor the devil. The devil wasthe bogie-man of the priest. As for God, who ever saw him? But of somemen Pierre had much fear, and among the same was "the hol' man" at themill.