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Updated: June 9, 2025
She did not know the hills or ravines, the canyons descended or acclivities so toilsomely climbed, and, therefore, had not a guide in the world to raise or depress her hope. There was nothing to do but sustain the weary march and await the survey's end. All day in Goldite, meanwhile, Van had been working towards an end.
Since then Van had pushed him to the limit of his strength and speed, in the effort to reach Goldite with the smallest possible delay. If a sober expression of sympathy came for a second in the horseman's steady eyes, as he glanced where his pony was standing, it quickly gave way to something more inscrutable as he looked up at Beth, in advancing once more to the fore.
Outside it all was the desert silence the silence of a world long dead. Van would gladly have mounted his horse and ridden away far off, no matter where. Goldite, bizarre and tragic a microcosm of the world that man has fashioned was a blot of discordant life, he felt, upon an otherwise peaceful world. As a matter of fact it had only begun its evening's story.
J. Searle Bostwick into the hands of the convicts, recently escaped, packed off his charges, Miss Beth Kent and her maid, and brought them to Goldite by way of the Monte Cristo mine, in time to behold the discomfited entrance of the said J. Searle Bostwick in prisoner's attire. Mr. Bostwick was described as having been "on his ear" towards Van Buren ever since.
"I'm gratified to meet you, Señorita, I'm sure." He extended his hand. Beth knew not what to do, wherefore she gave him her own. "How do you do, Mr. Van?" she answered tremulously, and she drew her fingers back again at once. "If you don't mind," she added, "we really must continue on to Goldite as soon as possible." A fleeting look of doubt and alarm had swept all the mirth from her eyes.
Her mind had refused to work. Only her heart was sensible of life and emotions, for there lay her wound, burning fiercely all the long hours through. That Van had made excuses to his partners and disappeared on "business" was a matter of which she received no account. In the morning the unexpected happened. Her brother Glen arrived in Goldite, having driven from Starlight with a friend.
Goldite lay far below in the old dead theatre of past activities, dotting the barren immensity with its softened lights like the little thing it was. How remote it seemed already, with its vices, woes, and joys, its comedy and tragedy, its fevers, strifes, and toil, disturbing nothing of the vast serenity of the planet, ever rolling on its way. How coldly the moon seemed looking on the scene.
"Dear Old Sis: Say, what in the dickens are you doing out here in the mines, by all that's holey? and what's all this story in the Goldite News about one Bronson Van Buren doing the benevolent brigand stunt with you and your maid, and shunting Searle off with the Cons? Why couldn't you let a grubber know you were hiking out here to the desert?
Early in the afternoon the body of the girl who had never been known in Goldite by any name save that of Queenie, was buried on a hillside, already called into requisition as a final resting place for such as succumbed in the mining-camp, too far from friends, or too far lost, to be carried to the world outside the mountains. Half a dozen women attended the somewhat meager rites.
Then out of his newly-acquired knowledge of the boundaries of the reservation the hounds of his mind jumped up a half-mad plan. His cold eyes glittered as he looked across to where Van and his partners were toiling. His lips were compressed in a smile. He rode to Goldite hurriedly and sought out his friend McCoppet.
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