The Candidate: A Political Romance
"Gentlemen," he said, "there's a snow-storm comin' soon. I didn't expect
one so early, even on the mountains, but it's comin', anyhow, an' if we
keep on for Crow's Wing they'll have to dig our bones out o' the meltin'
drifts next summer. We've got to make for Queen City."
"Queen City!" exclaimed Mr. Heathcote. "I didn't know there was another
town anywhere near here."
"She's a-standin' all the same," replied the guide, brusquely, "an' I
wouldn't never hev started on the trip to Crow's Wing if there hadn't
been such a stoppin'-place betwixt an' between, in case o' trouble with
the weather. An' let me whisper to you, Queen City's quite a sizable
place. We'll pass the night there. It's got a fine hotel, the finest
an' biggest in the mountains."
He looked grimly at Mr. Heathcote, as much as to say, "Ask me as much
more as you please, but I'll answer you nothing." Then he added,
glancing at Sylvia:
"It's a wild night for a gal."
"But you said that the biggest and finest hotel in the mountains was
waiting for me," replied Sylvia, with spirit.
The guide bowed his head admiringly, and said no more.
Something cold and damp touched Harley's cheek. He looked up, and
another flake of snow, descending softly, settled upon his face. The
clouds rolled over them, heavy and dark, and shut out all the mountains
save a little island where they stood. The snow, following the first few
flakes, fell softly but rapidly.
"It's Queen City or moulderin' in the drifts till next summer!" cried
Jim, and he turned his horse into a side-path. The others followed
without a word, willing to accept his guidance through the greatest
peril they had yet faced in an arduous campaign. Despite the danger,
which he knew to be heavy and pressing, and his anxiety for Sylvia,
Harley's curiosity was aroused, and he wished to ask more of Queen City,
but the saturnine face of the guide was not inviting. Nevertheless, he
risked one question.
"How far is this place, Queen City?" he asked.
"Bout two miles," replied Jim, with what seemed to Harley a derisive
grin, "an' it's tarnal lucky for us that it's so near."
Harley said no more, but he was satisfied with nothing in the guide's
reply save the fact that the town was only two miles away; any shelter
would be welcome, because he saw now that a snow-storm on the wild
mountains was a terrible thing.
The guide led on; Jimmy Grayson, with bent head, followed; Mr.
Heathcote, shrunk in his saddle, came next; then "King" Plummer; and
after him Sylvia and Harley, who were as nearly side by side as the
narrow path would permit.
"It won't be far, Miss Morgan," said Harley; the others could not hear.
She felt rather than heard the note of apprehension in his voice, and
she knew it was for her. A thrill of singular sweetness passed over her.
It was pleasant for some one, _the_ one, to be afraid for her sake. She
looked out at the driving snow and the dim peaks, but she had no fear
for herself. She was glad, too, that she had come.
"I know the way of the mountains," she replied. "The guide will take us
in safety to this city of his, of which he speaks so highly."
Harley saw her smile through the snow. The others rode on before, heads
bowed, and did not look back. He and she felt a powerful sense of
comradeship, and once, when he leaned over to detach her bridle rein
from the horse's mane, he touched her hand, which was so soft and warm.
Again the electric thrill passed through them both, and they looked into
each other's eyes.
Now and then the vast veil of snow parted before the wind, as if cleft
down the centre by a sword-blade, and Harley and Sylvia beheld a grand
and awful sight. Before them were all the peaks and ridges, rising in
white cones and pillars against the cloudy sky, and the effect was of
distance and sublimity. From the clefts and ravines came a desolate
moaning. Harley felt that he was much nearer to the eternal here than he
could ever be in the plains. Then the rent veil would close again, and
he saw only his comrades and the rocks twenty feet away.
They turned around the base of a cliff rising hundreds of feet above
them, and Harley caught the dull-red glare of brick walls, showing
through the falling snow. He was ready to raise a shout of joy. This he
knew was Queen City, lying snugly in its wide valley. There was the
typical, single mountain street, with its row of buildings on either
side; the big one near-by was certainly the hotel, and the other big one
farther on was as certainly the opera-house. But nobody was in the
streets, and the whole place was dark; not a light appeared at a single
window, although the night had come.
"We're here," Harley said to Sylvia, "but I confess that this does not
look promising. Certainly there is nobody running to meet us."
She was gazing with curiosity.
"It's like no other town that I ever saw," she said.
Harley rode up by the side of the guide.
"The place looks lonesome," he said.
"Maybe they've all gone to bed; there ain't anythin' here to keep 'em
awake," replied the guide, with the old puzzling and derisive smile.
Harley turned coldly away. He did not like to have any one make fun of
him, and that he saw clearly was the guide's intention. Jimmy Grayson
was still thinking of things far off, and Mr. Heathcote, chilled and
shrunk, seemed to have lost the power of speech. "King" Plummer, for
reasons of his own, was silent too.
The guide rode slowly towards the large brick building that Harley took
to be the hotel, and, at that moment, the snow slackened for a little
while; the last rays of the setting sun struck upon the dun walls and
gilded them with red tracery; some panes of glass gave back the ruddy
glare, but mostly the windows were bare and empty, like eyeless sockets.
Harley looked farther, and all the other buildings--the opera-house, the
stores, and the residences--were the same, desolate and decaying. About
the place were snow-covered heaps, evidently the refuse of mining
operations, but they saw no human being.
The effect upon all save the guide was startling. Harley saw the look of
chilled wonder grow on Jimmy Grayson's face. Mr. Heathcote raised
himself in his saddle and stared, uncomprehending. Harley had been deep
in the desert, but never before had he seen such desolation and ruin,
because here was the body, but all life had gone from it. He felt as one
alone with ghosts. Sylvia was silent, her confidence gone for the
moment. The guide laughed dryly.
"You guessed it," he said, looking at Harley. "It's a dead city. Queen
City has been as dead as Adam these half-dozen years. When the mines
played out, it died; there was no earthly use for Queen City any longer,
and by-and-by everybody went away. But I've seen the old town when it
was alive. Five thousand people here. Money a-flowin', drinks passin'
over the counter one way and the coin the other, the gamblin'-houses an'
the theatre chock-full, an' women, any kind you please. But there ain't
a soul left now."
The snow thinned still more, and the buildings rose before them gaunt
and grim.
"We'll stop to-night at the Grand Hotel--that is, if they ain't too much
crowded; it'll be nice for the lady," said the guide, who had had his
little joke and who now wished to serve his employers as best he could;
"but first we'll take the horses into the dinin'-room; nobody will
object; I've done it afore."
He rode towards a side-door, but over the main entrance Harley saw in
tessellated letters the words "Grand Hotel," and he tried to shake off
the feeling of weirdness that it gave him.
The door to the dining-room, which was almost level with the ground, was
gone, and with some driving the horses were persuaded to enter. They
were tethered there, sheltered from the storm, and, when they moved,
their feet rumbled hollowly on the wooden floor. Sylvia, the candidate,
and his friends, driven by the same impulse, turned back into the snow
and re-entered the house by the front door.
They passed into a wide hall, and at the far end they saw the clerk's
desk. Lying upon it were some fragments of paper fastened to a chain,
and Harley knew that it was what was left of the hotel register. It
spoke so vividly of both life and death that the five stopped.
"Would you like to register, Mr. Grayson?" asked Harley, wishing to
relieve the tension.
The candidate laughed mirthlessly.
"Not to-night, Harley," he said; "but, gloomy as the place is, we ought
to be thankful that we have found it. See how the storm is rising."
He glanced at Sylvia, and deep gratitude swelled up in his breast.
Grewsome as it might look, Queen City was now, indeed, a place of
refuge. But he had no word of reproach for her, because she had insisted
upon coming. He knew that a snow-storm had not entered into her
calculations, as it had not entered into his, and, moreover, no one in
the party had shown more courage or better spirits.
The snow drove in at the unsheltered windows, and a long whine arose as
the wind whirled around the old house. The guide came in with cheerful
bustle and stamp of feet.
"Don't linger here, gentlemen and ladies," he said. "The house is yours.
Come into the parlor. We've had a piece of luck. Now and then a lone
tramp or a miner seeks shelter in this town, just as we have done; they
come mostly to the hotel, and some feller who gathered up wood failed to
burn it all. I'll have a fire in the parlor in five minutes, and then we
can ring for hot drinks for the men, a lemonade for the lady, and a warm
dinner for all. I'll take straight whiskey, an' after that I ain't
partic'ler whether I get patty-de-foy-graw or hummin'-bird tongues."
His good-humor was infectious, and they were thankful, too, for the
shelter, desolate though the place was. All the wood had been stripped
away except the floors, and the brick walls were bare. In the great
parlor they had nothing to sit on save their saddles, but it was a noble
apartment, many feet square, built for a time when there was life in
Queen City.
"I've heard the Governor of Montana speak to more than two hundred
people in this very room," said Jim, reminiscently. "He was to have
spoke in the public square, but snow come up, an' Bill Fosdick, who run
the hotel, and run her wide open, invited 'em all right in here, an'
they come."
Harley could well believe it, knowing, as he did, the miners and the
mountains, and, by report, early Montana.
At one end of the room was an immense grate, and in this Jim heaped the
wood so generously left by the unknown tramp or miner, igniting it with
a ready match. The ruddy blaze leaped upward and threw generous shadows
on the floor. The travellers, sitting close to it, felt the grateful
warmth and were content.
All the saddle blankets also had been brought in and piled on one of the
saddles. On these Sylvia sat and spread out her hands to the ruddy
blaze. To Harley, with the flame of the firelight on her face and the
glow of the coals throwing patches of red and gold on her hair, she
seemed some brilliant spirit come to light up the gloomy place. Here all
was warmth and brightness; outside, the storm moaned through the
mountains and the darkness.
"Do you know, I enjoy this," she said, as she looked into the crackling
fire.
"So Queen City ain't so bad, ma'am?" said the guide, with dry
satisfaction.
"Not bad at all, but very good," she replied, gayly. "Don't you think
so, Mr. Harley?"
"I certainly agree with you," replied Harley, devoutly, "but I'm glad
that Queen City is just where it is."
She laughed.
"Daddy has been many a time in the mountains without his Queen
City--haven't you, daddy?"
"Often," said "King" Plummer, looking at her with a pleased smile. But
he wished that she would not call him "daddy," at least before Harley;