"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; it seemed that she could never remember his request; but she had warned him.