The sight of those tents, the thought of what one of them contained, inspired me with new courage, and, releasing my grip upon the rein, I allowed my patient horse to proceed. Shortly after this I passed the divide--that is where the water sheds both ways--then the descent began. It was zigzag, just as the climb had been, but I preferred the climb. I did not have the unfathomable spaces so constantly before me, nor was my imagination so active. It was fixed on heights to be attained rather than on valleys to roll into. However, I did not roll.
The Mexican saddle held me securely at whatever angle I was poised, and once the bottom was reached I found that I could face, with considerable equanimity, the corresponding ascent.
Only, as I saw how steep the climb bade fair to be, I did not see how I was ever to come down again. Going up was possible, but the descent--
However, as what goes up must in the course of nature come down, I put this question aside and gave my horse his head, after encouraging him with a few blades of grass, which he seemed to find edible enough, though they had the look and something of the feel of spun glass.
How we got there you must ask this good animal, who took all the responsibility and did all the work. I merely clung and balanced, and at times, when he rounded the end of a zigzag, for instance, I even shut my eyes, though the prospect was magnificent. At last even his patience seemed to give out, and he stopped and trembled. But before I could open my eyes on the abyss beneath he made another effort. I felt the brush of tree branches across my face, and, looking up, saw before me the ledge or platform dotted with tents, at which I had looked with such longing from the opposite hillsides.
Simultaneously I heard voices, and saw approaching a bronzed and bearded man with strongly-marked Scotch features and a determined air.
"The doctor!" I involuntarily exclaimed, with a glance at the small and curious tent before which he stood guard.
"Yes, the doctor," he answered in unexpectedly good English. "And who are you? Have you brought the mail and those medicines I sent for?"
"No," I replied with as propitiatory a smile as I could muster up in face of his brusk forbidding expression. "I came on my own errand. I am a representative of the New York--,and I hope you will not deny me a word with Mr. Fairbrother."
With a gesture I hardly knew how to interpret he took my horse by the rein and led us on a few steps toward another large tent, where he motioned me to descend. Then he laid his hand on my shoulder and, forcing me to meet his eye, said:
"You have made this journey--I believe you said from New York--to see Mr. Fairbrother. Why?"
"Because Mr. Fairbrother is at present the most sought-for man in America," I returned boldly. "His wife--you know about his wife--
"
"No. How should I know about his wife? I know what his temperature is and what his respiration is--but his wife? What about his wife? He don't know anything about her now himself; he is not allowed to read letters."
"But you read the papers. You must have known, before you left Santa Fe, of Mrs. Fairbrother's foul and most mysterious murder in New York. It has been the theme of two continents for the last ten days."
He shrugged his shoulders, which might mean anything, and confined his reply to a repetition of my own words.
"Mrs. Fairbrother murdered!" he exclaimed, but in a suppressed voice, to which point was given by the cautious look he cast behind him at the tent which had drawn my attention. "He must not know it, man. I could not answer for his life if he received the least shock in his present critical condition. Murdered? When?"
"Ten days ago, at a ball in New York. It was after Mr.
Fairbrother left the city. He was expected to return, after hearing the news, but he seems to have kept straight on to his destination. He was not very fond of his wife,--that is, they have not been living together for the last year. But he could not help feeling the shock of her death which he must have heard of somewhere along the route."
"He has said nothing in his delirium to show that he knew it. It is possible, just possible, that he didn't read the papers. He could not have been well for days before he reached Santa Fe."
"When were you called in to attend him?"
"The very night after he reached this place. It was thought he wouldn't live to reach the camp. But he is a man of great pluck.
He held up till his foot touched this platform. Then he succumbed."
"If he was as sick as that," I muttered, "why did he leave Santa Fe? He must have known what it would mean to be sick here."
"I don't think he did. This is his first visit to the mine. He evidently knew nothing of the difficulties of the road. But he would not stop. He was determined to reach the camp, even after he had been given a sight of it from the opposite mountain. He told them that he had once crossed the Sierras in midwinter. But he wasn't a sick man then."
"Doctor, they don't know who killed his wife."
"He didn't."
"I know, but under such circumstances every fact bearing on the event is of immense importance. There is one which Mr.
Fairbrother only can make clear. It can be said in a word--"
The grim doctor's eye flashed angrily and I stopped.
"Were you a detective from the district attorney's office in New York, sent on with special powers to examine him, I should still say what I am going to say now. While Mr. Fairbrother's temperature and pulse remain where they now are, no one shall see him and no one shall talk to him save myself and his nurse."
I turned with a sick look of disappointment toward the road up which I had so lately come. "Have I panted, sweltered, trembled, for three mortal hours on the worst trail a man ever traversed to go back with nothing for my journey? That seems to me hard lines.
Where is the manager of this mine?"
The doctor pointed toward a man bending over the edge of the great hole from which, at that moment, a line of Mexicans was issuing, each with a sack on his back which he flung down before what looked like a furnace built of clay.
