CHAPTER I
There was little doubt that the Lone Star claim was "played out." Notdug out, worked out, washed out, but PLAYED out. For two years itsfive sanguine proprietors had gone through the various stages of miningenthusiasm; had prospected and planned, dug and doubted. They hadborrowed money with hearty but unredeeming frankness, established acredit with unselfish abnegation of all responsibility, and had bornethe disappointment of their creditors with a cheerful resignation whichonly the consciousness of some deep Compensating Future could give.Giving little else, however, a singular dissatisfaction obtained withthe traders, and, being accompanied with a reluctance to make furtheradvances, at last touched the gentle stoicism of the proprietorsthemselves. The youthful enthusiasm which had at first lifted themost ineffectual trial, the most useless essay, to the plane of actualachievement, died out, leaving them only the dull, prosaic record ofhalf-finished ditches, purposeless shafts, untenable pits, abandonedengines, and meaningless disruptions of the soil upon the Lone Starclaim, and empty flour sacks and pork barrels in the Lone Star cabin.
They had borne their poverty, if that term could be applied to alight renunciation of all superfluities in food, dress, or ornament,ameliorated by the gentle depredations already alluded to, withunassuming levity. More than that: having segregated themselves fromtheir fellow-miners of Red Gulch, and entered upon the possession of thelittle manzanita-thicketed valley five miles away, the failure of theirenterprise had assumed in their eyes only the vague significance of thedecline and fall of a general community, and to that extent relievedthem of individual responsibility. It was easier for them to admitthat the Lone Star claim was "played out" than confess to a personalbankruptcy. Moreover, they still retained the sacred right of criticismof government, and rose superior in their private opinions to their owncollective wisdom. Each one experienced a grateful sense of the entireresponsibility of the other four in the fate of their enterprise.
On December 24, 1863, a gentle rain was still falling over the lengthand breadth of the Lone Star claim. It had been falling for severaldays, had already called a faint spring color to the wan landscape,repairing with tender touches the ravages wrought by the proprietors, orcharitably covering their faults. The ragged seams in gulch and canyonlost their harsh outlines, a thin green mantle faintly clothed the tornand abraded hillside. A few weeks more, and a veil of forgetfulnesswould be drawn over the feeble failures of the Lone Star claim. Thecharming derelicts themselves, listening to the raindrops on the roofof their little cabin, gazed philosophically from the open door, andaccepted the prospect as a moral discharge from their obligations. Fourof the five partners were present. The Right and Left Bowers, UnionMills, and the Judge.
It is scarcely necessary to say that not one of these titles was thegenuine name of its possessor. The Right and Left Bowers were twobrothers; their sobriquets, a cheerful adaptation from the favorite gameof euchre, expressing their relative value in the camp. The mere factthat Union Mills had at one time patched his trousers with an old floursack legibly bearing that brand of its fabrication, was a temptingbaptismal suggestion that the other partners could not forego. TheJudge, a singularly inequitable Missourian, with no knowledge whateverof the law, was an inspiration of gratuitous irony.
Union Mills, who had been for some time sitting placidly on thethreshold with one leg exposed to the rain, from a sheer indolentinability to change his position, finally withdrew that weather-beatenmember, and stood up. The movement more or less deranged the attitudesof the other partners, and was received with cynical disfavor. It wassomewhat remarkable that, although generally giving the appearance ofhealthy youth and perfect physical condition, they one and all simulatedthe decrepitude of age and invalidism, and after limping about for a fewmoments, settled back again upon their bunks and stools in their formerpositions. The Left Bower lazily replaced a bandage that he had wornaround his ankle for weeks without any apparent necessity, and the Judgescrutinized with tender solicitude the faded cicatrix of a scratch uponhis arm. A passive hypochondria, born of their isolation, was the lastludicrously pathetic touch to their situation.
The immediate cause of this commotion felt the necessity of anexplanation.
"It would have been just as easy for you to have stayed outside withyour business leg, instead of dragging it into private life in thatobtrusive way," retorted the Right Bower; "but that exhaustiveeffort isn't going to fill the pork barrel. The grocery man at Daltonsays--what's that he said?" he appealed lazily to the Judge.
"Said he reckoned the Lone Star was about played out, and he didn't wantany more in his--thank you!" repeated the Judge with a mechanical effortof memory utterly devoid of personal or present interest.
"I always suspected that man, after Grimshaw begun to deal with him,"said the Left Bower. "They're just mean enough to join hands againstus." It was a fixed belief of the Lone Star partners that they werepursued by personal enmities.
"More than likely those new strangers over in the Fork have been payingcash and filled him up with conceit," said Union Mills, trying to dryhis leg by alternately beating it or rubbing it against the cabin wall."Once begin wrong with that kind of snipe and you drag everybody downwith you."
This vague conclusion was received with dead silence. Everybody hadbecome interested in the speaker's peculiar method of drying his leg,to the exclusion of the previous topic. A few offered criticism, no oneassistance.
"Who did the grocery man say that to?" asked the Right Bower, finallyreturning to the question.
"The Old man," answered the Judge.
"Of course," ejaculated the Right Bower sarcastically.
"Of course," echoed the other partners together. "That's like him. TheOld Man all over!"
It did not appear exactly what was like the Old Man, or why it was likehim, but generally that he alone was responsible for the grocery man'sdefection. It was put more concisely by Union Mills.
"That comes of letting him go there! It's just a fair provocation toany man to have the Old Man sent to him. They can't, sorter, restrainthemselves at him. He's enough to spoil the credit of the Rothschilds."
"That's so," chimed in the Judge. "And look at his prospecting. Why, hewas out two nights last week, all night, prospecting in the moonlightfor blind leads, just out of sheer foolishness."
"It was quite enough for me," broke in the Left Bower, "when the otherday, you remember when, he proposed to us white men to settle down toplain ground sluicing, making 'grub' wages just like any Chinaman. Itjust showed his idea of the Lone Star claim."
"Well, I never said it afore," added Union Mills, "but when that oneof the Mattison boys came over here to examine the claim with an eye topurchasin', it was the Old Man that took the conceit out of him. He justas good as admitted that a lot of work had got to be done afore any payore could be realized. Never even asked him over to the shanty here tojine us in a friendly game; just kept him, so to speak, to himself. Andnaturally the Mattisons didn't see it."
A silence followed, broken only by the rain monotonously falling onthe roof, and occasionally through the broad adobe chimney, where itprovoked a retaliating hiss and splutter from the dying embers of thehearth. The Right Bower, with a sudden access of energy, drew the emptybarrel before him, and taking a pack of well-worn cards from his pocket,began to make a "solitaire" upon the lid. The others gazed at him withlanguid interest.
"Makin' it for anythin'?" asked Mills.
The Right Bower nodded.
The Judge and Left Bower, who were partly lying in their respectivebunks, sat up to get a better view of the game. Union Mills slowlydisengaged himself from the wall and leaned over the "solitaire" player.The Right Bower turned the last card in a pause of almost thrillingsuspense, and clapped it down on the lid with fateful emphasis.
"It went!" said the Judge in a voice of hushed respect. "What did youmake it for?" he almost whispered.
"To know if we'd make the break we talked about and vamose the ranch.It's the FIFTH time today," co
ntinued the Right Bower in a voice ofgloomy significance. "And it went agin bad cards too."
"I ain't superstitious," said the Judge, with awe and fatuity beamingfrom every line of his credulous face, "but it's flyin' in the face ofProvidence to go agin such signs as that."
"Make it again, to see if the Old Man must go," suggested the LeftBower.
The suggestion was received with favor, the three men gatheringbreathlessly around the player. Again the fateful cards were shuffleddeliberately, placed in their mysterious combination, with the sameominous result. Yet everybody seemed to breathe more freely, as ifrelieved from some responsibility, the Judge accepting this manifestexpression of Providence with resigned self-righteousness.
"Yes, gentlemen," resumed the Left Bower, serenely, as if a calm legaldecision had just been recorded, "we must not let any foolishness orsentiment get mixed up with this thing, but look at it like businessmen. The only sensible move is to get up and get out of the camp."
"And the Old Man?" queried the Judge.
"The Old Man--hush! he's coming."
The doorway was darkened by a slight lissome shadow. It was the absentpartner, otherwise known as "the Old Man." Need it be added that he wasa BOY of nineteen, with a slight down just clothing his upper lip!
"The creek is up over the ford, and I had to 'shin' up a willow on thebank and swing myself across," he said, with a quick, frank laugh; "butall the same, boys, it's going to clear up in about an hour, you bet.It's breaking away over Bald Mountain, and there's a sun flash on a bitof snow on Lone Peak. Look! you can see it from here. It's for all theworld like Noah's dove just landed on Mount Ararat. It's a good omen."
From sheer force of habit the men had momentarily brightened up atthe Old Man's entrance. But the unblushing exhibition of degradingsuperstition shown in the last sentence recalled their just severity.They exchanged meaning glances. Union Mills uttered hopelessly tohimself: "Hell's full of such omens."
Too occupied with his subject to notice this ominous reception, the OldMan continued: "I reckon I struck a fresh lead in the new grocery manat the Crossing. He says he'll let the Judge have a pair of boots oncredit, but he can't send them over here; and considering that the Judgehas got to try them anyway, it don't seem to be asking too much for theJudge to go over there. He says he'll give us a barrel of pork and a bagof flour if we'll give him the right of using our tail-race and cleanout the lower end of it."
"It's the work of a Chinaman, and a four days' job," broke in the LeftBower.
"It took one white man only two hours to clean out a third of it,"retorted the Old Man triumphantly, "for I pitched in at once with a pickhe let me have on credit, and did that amount of work this morning, andtold him the rest of you boys would finish it this afternoon."
A slight gesture from the Right Bower checked an angry exclamation fromthe Left. The Old Man did not notice either, but, knitting his smoothyoung brow in a paternally reflective fashion, went on: "You'll haveto get a new pair of trousers, Mills, but as he doesn't keep clothing,we'll have to get some canvas and cut you out a pair. I traded off thebeans he let me have for some tobacco for the Right Bower at the othershop, and got them to throw in a new pack of cards. These are aboutplayed out. We'll be wanting some brushwood for the fire; there's a heapin the hollow. Who's going to bring it in? It's the Judge's turn, isn'tit? Why, what's the matter with you all?"
The restraint and evident uneasiness of his companions had at lasttouched him. He turned his frank young eyes upon them; they glancedhelplessly at each other. Yet his first concern was for them, his firstinstinct paternal and protecting. He ran his eyes quickly over them;they were all there and apparently in their usual condition. "Anythingwrong with the claim?" he suggested.
Without looking at him the Right Bower rose, leaned against the opendoor with his hands behind him and his face towards the landscape, andsaid, apparently to the distant prospect: "The claim's played out, thepartnership's played out, and the sooner we skedaddle out of this thebetter. If," he added, turning to the Old Man, "if YOU want to stay, ifyou want to do Chinaman's work at Chinaman's wages, if you want to hangon to the charity of the traders at the Crossing, you can do it, andenjoy the prospects and the Noah's doves alone. But we're calculatin' tostep out of it."
"But I haven't said I wanted to do it ALONE," protested the Old Man witha gesture of bewilderment.
"If these are your general ideas of the partnership," continued theRight Bower, clinging to the established hypothesis of the otherpartners for support, "it ain't ours, and the only way we can prove itis to stop the foolishness right here. We calculated to dissolve thepartnership and strike out for ourselves elsewhere. You're no longerresponsible for us, nor we for you. And we reckon it's the square thingto leave you the claim and the cabin, and all it contains. To preventany trouble with the traders, we've drawn up a paper here--"
"With a bonus of fifty thousand dollars each down, and the rest to besettled on my children," interrupted the Old Man, with a half-uneasylaugh. "Of course. But--" he stopped suddenly, the blood dropped fromhis fresh cheek, and he again glanced quickly round the group. "I don'tthink--I--I quite sabe, boys," he added, with a slight tremor of voiceand lip. "If it's a conundrum, ask me an easier one."
Any lingering doubt he might have had of their meaning was dispelled bythe Judge. "It's about the softest thing you kin drop into, Old Man,"he said confidentially; "if I hadn't promised the other boys to go withthem, and if I didn't need the best medical advice in Sacramento for mylungs, I'd just enjoy staying with you."
"It gives a sorter freedom to a young fellow like you, Old Man, likegoin' into the world on your own capital, that every Californian boyhasn't got," said Union Mills, patronizingly.
"Of course it's rather hard papers on us, you know, givin' upeverything, so to speak; but it's for your good, and we ain't goin' backon you," said the Left Bower, "are we, boys?"
The color had returned to the Old Man's face a little more quickly andfreely than usual. He picked up the hat he had cast down, put it oncarefully over his brown curls, drew the flap down on the side towardshis companions, and put his hands in his pockets. "All right," he said,in a slightly altered voice. "When do you go?"
"To-day," answered the Left Bower. "We calculate to take a moonlightpasear over to the Cross Roads and meet the down stage at about twelveto-night. There's plenty of time yet," he added, with a slight laugh;"it's only three o'clock now."
There was a dead silence. Even the rain withheld its continuous patter,a dumb, gray film covered the ashes of the hushed hearth. For the firsttime the Right Bower exhibited some slight embarrassment.
"I reckon it's held up for a spell," he said, ostentatiously examiningthe weather, "and we might as well take a run round the claim to seeif we've forgotten nothing. Of course, we'll be back again," he addedhastily, without looking at the Old Man, "before we go, you know."
The others began to look for their hats, but so awkwardly and with suchevident preoccupation of mind that it was not at first discovered thatthe Judge had his already on. This raised a laugh, as did also a clumsystumble of Union Mills against the pork barrel, although that gentlemantook refuge from his confusion and secured a decent retreat by a grossexaggeration of his lameness, as he limped after the Right Bower. TheJudge whistled feebly. The Left Bower, in a more ambitious effort toimpart a certain gayety to his exit, stopped on the threshold and said,as if in arch confidence to his companions, "Darned if the Old Mandon't look two inches higher since he became a proprietor," laughedpatronizingly, and vanished.
If the newly-made proprietor had increased in stature, he had nototherwise changed his demeanor. He remained in the same attitude untilthe last figure disappeared behind the fringe of buckeye that hid thedistant highway. Then he walked slowly to the fire-place, and, leaningagainst the chimney, kicked the dying embers together with his foot.Something dropped and spattered in the film of hot ashes. Surely therain had not yet ceased!
His high color had already fled except fo
r a spot on either cheek-bonethat lent a brightness to his eyes. He glanced around the cabin. Itlooked familiar and yet strange. Rather, it looked strange BECAUSEstill familiar, and therefore incongruous with the new atmosphere thatsurrounded it--discordant with the echo of their last meeting, andpainfully accenting the change. There were the four "bunks," or sleepingberths, of his companions, each still bearing some traces of theindividuality of its late occupant with a dumb loyalty that seemed tomake their light-hearted defection monstrous. In the dead ashes of theJudge's pipe, scattered on his shelf, still lived his old fire; inthe whittled and carved edges of the Left Bower's bunk still were thememories of bygone days of delicious indolence; in the bullet-holesclustered round a knot of one of the beams there was still the record ofthe Right Bower's old-time skill and practice; in the few engravingsof female loveliness stuck upon each headboard there were the proofs oftheir old extravagant devotion--all a mute protest to the change.
He remembered how, a fatherless, truant schoolboy, he had drifted intotheir adventurous, nomadic life, itself a life of grown-up truancy likehis own, and became one of that gypsy family. How they had taken theplace of relations and household in his boyish fancy, filling it withthe unsubstantial pageantry of a child's play at grown-up existence,he knew only too well. But how, from being a pet and protege, he hadgradually and unconsciously asserted his own individuality and takenupon his younger shoulders not only a poet's keen appreciation of thatlife, but its actual responsibilities and half-childish burdens, henever suspected. He had fondly believed that he was a neophyte in theirways, a novice in their charming faith and indolent creed, and they hadencouraged it; now their renunciation of that faith could only be anexcuse for a renunciation of HIM. The poetry that had for two yearsinvested the material and sometimes even mean details of their existencewas too much a part of himself to be lightly dispelled. The lesson ofthose ingenuous moralists failed, as such lessons are apt to fail; theirdiscipline provoked but did not subdue; a rising indignation, stirred bya sense of injury, mounted to his cheek and eyes. It was slow to come,but was none the less violent that it had been preceded by the benumbingshock of shame and pride.
I hope I shall not prejudice the reader's sympathies if my duty as asimple chronicler compels me to state, therefore, that the sober secondthought of this gentle poet was to burn down the cabin on the spot withall its contents. This yielded to a milder counsel--waiting for thereturn of the party, challenging the Right Bower, a duel to the death,perhaps himself the victim, with a crushing explanation in extremis,"It seems we are ONE too many. No matter; it is settled now. Farewell!"Dimly remembering, however, that there was something of this in the lastwell-worn novel they had read together, and that his antagonist mightrecognize it, or even worse, anticipate it himself, the idea was quicklyrejected. Besides, the opportunity for an apotheosis of self-sacrificewas past. Nothing remained now but to refuse the proffered bribe ofclaim and cabin by letter, for he must not wait their return. He tore aleaf from a blotted diary, begun and abandoned long since, and essayedto write. Scrawl after scrawl was torn up, until his fury had cooleddown to a frigid third personality. "Mr. John Ford regrets to inform hislate partners that their tender of house, of furniture," however, seemedtoo inconsistent with the pork-barrel table he was writing on; a moreeloquent renunciation of their offer became frivolous and idiotic from acaricature of Union Mills, label and all, that appeared suddenly on theother side of the leaf; and when he at last indited a satisfactory andimpassioned exposition of his feelings, the legible addendum of "Oh,ain't you glad you're out of the wilderness!"--the forgotten first lineof a popular song, which no scratching would erase--seemed too like anironical postscript to be thought of for a moment. He threw aside hispen and cast the discordant record of past foolish pastime into the deadashes of the hearth.
How quiet it was. With the cessation of the rain the wind too had gonedown, and scarcely a breath of air came through the open door. He walkedto the threshold and gazed on the hushed prospect. In this listlessattitude he was faintly conscious of a distant reverberation, a merephantom of sound--perhaps the explosion of a distant blast in thehills--that left the silence more marked and oppressive. As he turnedagain into the cabin a change seemed to have come over it. It alreadylooked old and decayed. The loneliness of years of desertion seemed tohave taken possession of it; the atmosphere of dry rot was in thebeams and rafters. To his excited fancy the few disordered blanketsand articles of clothing seemed dropping to pieces; in one of the bunksthere was a hideous resemblance in the longitudinal heap of clothing toa withered and mummied corpse. So it might look in after years when somepassing stranger--but he stopped. A dread of the place was beginningto creep over him; a dread of the days to come, when the monotonoussunshine should lay bare the loneliness of these walls; the long, longdays of endless blue and cloudless, overhanging solitude; summer dayswhen the wearying, incessant trade winds should sing around that emptyshell and voice its desolation. He gathered together hastily a fewarticles that were especially his own--rather that the free communionof the camp, from indifference or accident, had left wholly to him. Hehesitated for a moment over his rifle, but, scrupulous in his woundedpride, turned away and left the familiar weapon that in the dark dayshad so often provided the dinner or breakfast of the little household.Candor compels me to state that his equipment was not large noreminently practical. His scant pack was a light weight for even hisyoung shoulders, but I fear he thought more of getting away from thePast than providing for the Future.
With this vague but sole purpose he left the cabin, and almostmechanically turned his steps towards the creek he had crossedthat morning. He knew that by this route he would avoid meeting hiscompanions; its difficulties and circuitousness would exercise hisfeverish limbs and give him time for reflection. He had determined toleave the claim, but whence he had not yet considered. He reached thebank of the creek where he had stood two hours before; it seemed to himtwo years. He looked curiously at his reflection in one of the broadpools of overflow, and fancied he looked older. He watched the rush andoutset of the turbid current hurrying to meet the South Fork, andto eventually lose itself in the yellow Sacramento. Even in hispreoccupation he was impressed with a likeness to himself and hiscompanions in this flood that had burst its peaceful boundaries. Inthe drifting fragments of one of their forgotten flumes washed from thebank, he fancied he saw an omen of the disintegration and decay of theLone Star claim.
The strange hush in the air that he had noticed before--a calm soinconsistent with that hour and the season as to seem portentous--becamemore marked in contrast to the feverish rush of the turbulentwater-course. A few clouds lazily huddled in the west apparently hadgone to rest with the sun on beds of somnolent poppies. There was agleam as of golden water everywhere along the horizon, washing out thecold snowpeaks, and drowning even the rising moon. The creek caught ithere and there, until, in grim irony, it seemed to bear their brokensluice-boxes and useless engines on the very Pactolian stream they hadbeen hopefully created to direct and carry. But by some peculiar trickof the atmosphere, the perfect plenitude of that golden sunset glorywas lavished on the rugged sides and tangled crest of the Lone Starmountain. That isolated peak, the landmark of their claim, the gauntmonument of their folly, transfigured in the evening splendor, kept itsradiance unquenched long after the glow had fallen from the encompassingskies, and when at last the rising moon, step by step, put out the firesalong the winding valley and plains, and crept up the bosky sides ofthe canyon, the vanishing sunset was lost only to reappear as a goldencrown.
The eyes of the young man were fixed upon it with more than a momentarypicturesque interest. It had been the favorite ground of his prospectingexploits, its lowest flank had been scarred in the old enthusiastic dayswith hydraulic engines, or pierced with shafts, but its central positionin the claim and its superior height had always given it a commandingview of the extent of their valley and its approaches, and it was thispractical pre-eminence that alone attracted him at that moment.
He knewthat from its crest he would be able to distinguish the figures of hiscompanions, as they crossed the valley near the cabin, in the growingmoonlight. Thus he could avoid encountering them on his way to the highroad, and yet see them, perhaps, for the last time. Even in his sense ofinjury there was a strange satisfaction in the thought.
The ascent was toilsome, but familiar. All along the dim trail he wasaccompanied by gentler memories of the past, that seemed, like the faintodor of spiced leaves and fragrant grasses wet with the rain and crushedbeneath his ascending tread, to exhale the sweeter perfume in his effortto subdue or rise above them. There was the thicket of manzanita, wherethey had broken noonday bread together; here was the rock beside theirmaiden shaft, where they had poured a wild libation in boyish enthusiasmof success; and here the ledge where their first flag, a red shirtheroically sacrificed, was displayed from a long-handled shovel tothe gaze of admirers below. When he at last reached the summit, themysterious hush was still in the air, as if in breathless sympathy withhis expedition. In the west, the plain was faintly illuminated, butdisclosed no moving figures. He turned towards the rising moon, andmoved slowly to the eastern edge. Suddenly he stopped. Another stepwould have been his last! He stood upon the crumbling edge of aprecipice. A landslip had taken place on the eastern flank, leavingthe gaunt ribs and fleshless bones of Lone Star mountain bare in themoonlight. He understood now the strange rumble and reverberation he hadheard; he understood now the strange hush of bird and beast in brake andthicket!
Although a single rapid glance convinced him that the slide had takenplace in an unfrequented part of the mountain, above an inaccessiblecanyon, and reflection assured him his companions could not have reachedthat distance when it took place, a feverish impulse led him to descenda few rods in the track of the avalanche. The frequent recurrence ofoutcrop and angle made this comparatively easy. Here he called aloud;the feeble echo of his own voice seemed only a dull impertinence to thesignificant silence. He turned to reascend; the furrowed flank of themountain before him lay full in the moonlight. To his excited fancy, adozen luminous star-like points in the rocky crevices started intolife as he faced them. Throwing his arm over the ledge above him, hesupported himself for a moment by what appeared to be a projection ofthe solid rock. It trembled slightly. As he raised himself to its level,his heart stopped beating. It was simply a fragment detached from theoutcrop, lying loosely on the ledge but upholding him by ITS OWN WEIGHTONLY. He examined it with trembling fingers; the encumbering soil fellfrom its sides and left its smoothed and worn protuberances glisteningin the moonlight. It was virgin gold!
Looking back upon that moment afterwards, he remembered that he was notdazed, dazzled, or startled. It did not come to him as a discovery or anaccident, a stroke of chance or a caprice of fortune. He saw it all inthat supreme moment; Nature had worked out their poor deduction. Whattheir feeble engines had essayed spasmodically and helplessly againstthe curtain of soil that hid the treasure, the elements had achievedwith mightier but more patient forces. The slow sapping of the winterrains had loosened the soil from the auriferous rock, even while theswollen stream was carrying their impotent and shattered engines to thesea.
What mattered that his single arm could not lift the treasure he hadfound! What mattered that to unfix those glittering stars would stilltax both skill and patience! The work was done, the goal was reached!even his boyish impatience was content with that. He rose slowly to hisfeet, unstrapped his long-handled shovel from his back, secured it inthe crevice, and quietly regained the summit.
It was all his own! His own by right of discovery under the law of theland, and without accepting a favor from THEM. He recalled even the factthat it was HIS prospecting on the mountain that first suggested theexistence of gold in the outcrop and the use of the hydraulic. HE hadnever abandoned that belief, whatever the others had done. He dweltsomewhat indignantly to himself on this circumstance, and halfunconsciously faced defiantly towards the plain below. But it wassleeping peacefully in the full sight of the moon, without life ormotion. He looked at the stars; it was still far from midnight. Hiscompanions had no doubt long since returned to the cabin to prepare fortheir midnight journey. They were discussing him, perhaps laughing athim, or worse, pitying him and his bargain. Yet here was his bargain! Aslight laugh he gave vent to here startled him a little, it soundedso hard and so unmirthful, and so unlike, as he oddly fancied, what hereally THOUGHT. But WHAT did he think?
Nothing mean or revengeful; no, they never would say THAT. When he hadtaken out all the surface gold and put the mine in working order, hewould send them each a draft for a thousand dollars. Of course, if theywere ever ill or poor he would do more. One of the first, the very firstthings he should do would be to send them each a handsome gun and tellthem that he only asked in return the old-fashioned rifle that once washis. Looking back at the moment in after years, he wondered that, withthis exception, he made no plans for his own future, or the way heshould dispose of his newly acquired wealth. This was the more singularas it had been the custom of the five partners to lie awake at night,audibly comparing with each other what they would do in case they madea strike. He remembered how, Alnaschar-like, they nearly separated onceover a difference in the disposal of a hundred thousand dollars thatthey never had, nor expected to have. He remembered how Union Millsalways began his career as a millionnaire by a "square meal" atDelmonico's; how the Right Bower's initial step was always a trip home"to see his mother"; how the Left Bower would immediately placate theparents of his beloved with priceless gifts (it may be parentheticallyremarked that the parents and the beloved one were as hypotheticalas the fortune); and how the Judge would make his first start as acapitalist by breaking a certain faro bank in Sacramento. He himself hadbeen equally eloquent in extravagant fancy in those penniless days,he who now was quite cold and impassive beside the more extravagantreality.
How different it might have been! If they had only waited a day longer!if they had only broken their resolves to him kindly and parted in goodwill! How he would long ere this have rushed to greet them with thejoyful news! How they would have danced around it, sung themselveshoarse, laughed down their enemies, and run up the flag triumphantly onthe summit of the Lone Star Mountain! How they would have crowned him"the Old Man," "the hero of the camp!" How he would have told them thewhole story; how some strange instinct had impelled him to ascend thesummit, and how another step on that summit would have precipitated himinto the canyon! And how--but what if somebody else, Union Mills or theJudge, had been the first discoverer? Might they not have meanly keptthe secret from him; have selfishly helped themselves and done--
"What YOU are doing now."
The hot blood rushed to his cheek, as if a strange voice were at hisear. For a moment he could not believe that it came from his own palelips until he found himself speaking. He rose to his feet, tingling withshame, and began hurriedly to descend the mountain.
He would go to them, tell them of his discovery, let them give him hisshare, and leave them forever. It was the only thing to be done, strangethat he had not thought of it at once. Yet it was hard, very hard andcruel to be forced to meet them again. What had he done to suffer thismortification? For a moment he actually hated this vulgar treasure thathad forever buried under its gross ponderability the light and carelesspast, and utterly crushed out the poetry of their old, indolent, happyexistence.
He was sure to find them waiting at the Cross Roads where the coachcame past. It was three miles away, yet he could get there in time if hehastened. It was a wise and practical conclusion of his evening's work,a lame and impotent conclusion to his evening's indignation. No matter.They would perhaps at first think he had come to weakly follow them,perhaps they would at first doubt his story. No matter. He bit his lipsto keep down the foolish rising tears, but still went blindly forward.
He saw not the beautiful night, cradled in the dark hills, swathed inluminous mists, and hushed in the awe of its own loveliness! Here andthere the moon had laid he
r calm face on lake and overflow, and goneto sleep embracing them, until the whole plain seemed to be liftedinto infinite quiet. Walking on as in a dream, the black, impenetrablebarriers of skirting thickets opened and gave way to vague distancesthat it appeared impossible to reach, dim vistas that seemedunapproachable. Gradually he seemed himself to become a part of themysterious night. He was becoming as pulseless, as calm, as passionless.
What was that? A shot in the direction of the cabin! yet so faint, soecholess, so ineffective in the vast silence, that he would have thoughtit his fancy but for the strange instinctive jar upon his sensitivenerves. Was it an accident, or was it an intentional signal to him? Hestopped; it was not repeated, the silence reasserted itself, but thistime with an ominous death-like suggestion. A sudden and terriblethought crossed his mind. He cast aside his pack and all encumberingweight, took a deep breath, lowered his head and darted like a deer inthe direction of the challenge.
CHAPTER II
The exodus of the seceding partners of the Lone Star claim had beenscarcely an imposing one. For the first five minutes after quitting thecabin, the procession was straggling and vagabond. Unwonted exertion hadexaggerated the lameness of some, and feebleness of moral purpose hadpredisposed the others to obtrusive musical exhibition. Union Millslimped and whistled with affected abstraction; the Judge whistled andlimped with affected earnestness. The Right Bower led the way with someshow of definite design; the Left Bower followed with his hands inhis pockets. The two feebler natures, drawn together in unconscioussympathy, looked vaguely at each other for support.
"You see," said the Judge, suddenly, as if triumphantly concludingan argument, "there ain't anything better for a young fellow thanindependence. Nature, so to speak, points the way. Look at the animals."
"There's a skunk hereabouts," said Union Mills, who was supposed to begifted with aristocratically sensitive nostrils, "within ten milesof this place; like as not crossing the Ridge. It's always my luckto happen out just at such times. I don't see the necessity anyhow oftrapesing round the claim now, if we calculate to leave it to-night."
Both men waited to observe if the suggestion was taken up by the Rightand Left Bower moodily plodding ahead. No response following, the Judgeshamelessly abandoned his companion.
"You wouldn't stand snoopin' round instead of lettin' the Old Man getused to the idea alone? No; I could see all along that he was takin' itin, takin' it in, kindly but slowly, and I reckoned the best thing forus to do was to git up and git until he'd got round it." The Judge'svoice was slightly raised for the benefit of the two before him.
"Didn't he say," remarked the Right Bower, stopping suddenly and facingthe others, "didn't he say that that new trader was goin' to let himhave some provisions anyway?"
Union Mills turned appealingly to the Judge; that gentleman was forcedto reply, "Yes; I remember distinctly he said it. It was one of thethings I was particular about on his account," responded the Judge,with the air of having arranged it all himself with the new trader. "Iremember I was easier in my mind about it."
"But didn't he say," queried the Left Bower, also stopping short,"suthin' about it's being contingent on our doing some work on therace?"
The Judge turned for support to Union Mills, who, however, under thehollow pretense of preparing for a long conference, had luxuriouslyseated himself on a stump. The Judge sat down also, and replied,hesitatingly, "Well, yes! Us or him."
"Us or him," repeated the Right Bower, with gloomy irony. "And you ain'tquite clear in your mind, are you, if YOU haven't done the work already?You're just killing yourself with this spontaneous, promiscuous, andpremature overwork; that's what's the matter with you."
"I reckon I heard somebody say suthin' about it's being a Chinaman'sthree-day job," interpolated the Left Bower, with equal irony, "but Iain't quite clear in my mind about that."
"It'll be a sorter distraction for the Old Man," said Union Mills,feebly--"kinder take his mind off his loneliness."
Nobody taking the least notice of the remark, union Mills stretched outhis legs more comfortably and took out his pipe. He had scarcely done sowhen the Right Bower, wheeling suddenly, set off in the direction of thecreek. The Left Bower, after a slight pause, followed without a word.The Judge, wisely conceiving it better to join the stronger party,ran feebly after him, and left Union Mills to bring up a weak andvacillating rear.
Their course, diverging from Lone Star Mountain, led them now directlyto the bend of the creek, the base of their old ineffectual operations.Here was the beginning of the famous tail-race that skirted the newtrader's claim, and then lost its way in a swampy hollow. It was chokedwith debris; a thin, yellow stream that once ran through it seemed tohave stopped work when they did, and gone into greenish liquidation.
They had scarcely spoken during this brief journey, and had received noother explanation from the Right Bower, who led them, than that affordedby his mute example when he reached the race. Leaping into it without aword, he at once began to clear away the broken timbers and driftwood.Fired by the spectacle of what appeared to be a new and utterlyfrivolous game, the men gayly leaped after him, and were soon engagedin a fascinating struggle with the impeded race. The Judge forgot hislameness in springing over a broken sluice-box; Union Mills forgot hiswhistle in a happy imitation of a Chinese coolie's song. Nevertheless,after ten minutes of this mild dissipation, the pastime flagged; UnionMills was beginning to rub his leg when a distant rumble shook theearth. The men looked at each other; the diversion was complete; alanguid discussion of the probabilities of its being an earthquake or ablast followed, in the midst of which the Right Bower, who was workinga little in advance of the others, uttered a warning cry and leaped fromthe race. His companions had barely time to follow before a sudden andinexplicable rise in the waters of the creek sent a swift irruption ofthe flood through the race. In an instant its choked and impeded channelwas cleared, the race was free, and the scattered debris of logs andtimber floated upon its easy current. Quick to take advantage of thislabor-saving phenomenon, the Lone Star partners sprang into the water,and by disentangling and directing the eddying fragments completed theirwork.
"The Old Man oughter been here to see this," said the Left Bower; "it'sjust one o' them climaxes of poetic justice he's always huntin' up. It'seasy to see what's happened. One o' them high-toned shrimps over in theExcelsior claim has put a blast in too near the creek. He's tumbled thebank into the creek and sent the back water down here just to wash outour race. That's what I call poetical retribution."
"And who was it advised us to dam the creek below the race and make itdo the thing?" asked the Right Bower, moodily.
"That was one of the Old Man's ideas, I reckon," said the Left Bower,dubiously.
"And you remember," broke in the Judge with animation, "I allus said,'Go slow, go slow. You just hold on and suthin' will happen.' And," headded, triumphantly, "you see suthin' has happened. I don't want to takecredit to myself, but I reckoned on them Excelsior boys bein' fools, andtook the chances."
"And what if I happen to know that the Excelsior boys ain't blastin'to-day?" said the Right Bower, sarcastically.
As the Judge had evidently based his hypothesis on the alleged fact ofa blast, he deftly evaded the point. "I ain't saying the Old Man's headain't level on some things; he wants a little more sabe of the world.He's improved a good deal in euchre lately, and in poker--well! he's gotthat sorter dreamy, listenin'-to-the-angels kind o' way that you can'texactly tell whether he's bluffin' or has got a full hand. Hasn't he?"he asked, appealing to Union Mills.
But that gentleman, who had been watching the dark face of the RightBower, preferred to take what he believed to be his cue from him. "Thatain't the question," he said virtuously; "we ain't takin' this step tomake a card sharp out of him. We're not doin' Chinamen's work in thisrace to-day for that. No, sir! We're teachin' him to paddle his owncanoe." Not finding the sympathetic response he looked for in the RightBower's face, he turned to the Left.
"I re
ckon we were teachin' him our canoe was too full," was the LeftBower's unexpected reply. "That's about the size of it."
The Right Bower shot a rapid glance under his brows at his brother.The latter, with his hands in his pockets, stared unconsciously at therushing waters, and then quietly turned away. The Right Bower followedhim. "Are you goin' back on us?" he asked.
"Are you?" responded the other.
"No!"
"NO, then it is," returned the Left Bower quietly. The elder brotherhesitated in half-angry embarrassment.
"Then what did you mean by saying we reckoned our canoe was too full?"
"Wasn't that our idea?" returned the Left Bower, indifferently.Confounded by this practical expression of his own unformulated goodintentions, the Right Bower was staggered.
"Speakin' of the Old Man," broke in the Judge, with characteristicinfelicity, "I reckon he'll sort o' miss us, times like these. We wereallers runnin' him and bedevilin' him, after work, just to get himexcited and amusin', and he'll kinder miss that sort o' stimulatin'. Ireckon we'll miss it too, somewhat. Don't you remember, boys, the nightwe put up that little sell on him and made him believe we'd struck itrich in the bank of the creek, and got him so conceited, he wanted to gooff and settle all our debts at once?"
"And how I came bustin' into the cabin with a pan full of iron pyritesand black sand," chuckled Union Mills, continuing the reminiscences,"and how them big gray eyes of his nearly bulged out of his head. Well,it's some satisfaction to know we did our duty by the young fellow evenin those little things." He turned for confirmation of their generaldisinterestedness to the Right Bower, but he was already striding away,uneasily conscious of the lazy following of the Left Bower, like alaggard conscience at his back. This movement again threw Union Millsand the Judge into feeble complicity in the rear, as the processionslowly straggled homeward from the creek.
Night had fallen. Their way lay through the shadow of Lone StarMountain, deepened here and there by the slight, bosky ridges that,starting from its base, crept across the plain like vast roots of itsswelling trunk. The shadows were growing blacker as the moon began toassert itself over the rest of the valley, when the Right Bower haltedsuddenly on one of these ridges. The Left Bower lounged up to him, andstopped also, while the two others came up and completed the group.
"There's no light in the shanty," said the Right Bower in a low voice,half to himself and, half in answer to their inquiring attitude. The menfollowed the direction of his finger. In the distance the black outlineof the Lone Star cabin stood out distinctly in the illumined space.There was the blank, sightless, external glitter of moonlight on its twowindows that seemed to reflect its dim vacancy, empty alike of light,and warmth, and motion.
"That's sing'lar," said the Judge in an awed whisper.
The Left Bower, by simply altering the position of his hands in histrousers' pockets, managed to suggest that he knew perfectly the meaningof it, had always known it; but that being now, so to speak, in thehands of Fate, he was callous to it. This much, at least, the elderbrother read in his attitude. But anxiety at that moment was thecontrolling impulse of the Right Bower, as a certain superstitiousremorse was the instinct of the two others, and without heeding thecynic, the three started at a rapid pace for the cabin.
They reached it silently, as the moon, now riding high in the heavens,seemed to touch it with the tender grace and hushed repose of a tomb.It was with something of this feeling that the Right Bower softly pushedopen the door; it was with something of this dread that the two otherslingered on the threshold, until the Right Bower, after vainly tryingto stir the dead embers on the hearth into life with his foot, struck amatch and lit their solitary candle. Its flickering light revealed thefamiliar interior unchanged in aught but one thing. The bunk thatthe Old Man had occupied was stripped of its blankets; the few cheapornaments and photographs were gone; the rude poverty of the bare boardsand scant pallet looked up at them unrelieved by the bright face andgracious youth that had once made them tolerable. In the grim ironyof that exposure, their own penury was doubly conscious. The littleknapsack, the teacup and coffee-pot that had hung near his bed, weregone also. The most indignant protest, the most pathetic of the lettershe had composed and rejected, whose torn fragments still littered thefloor, could never have spoken with the eloquence of this empty space!The men exchanged no words: the solitude of the cabin, instead ofdrawing them together, seemed to isolate each one in selfish distrust ofthe others. Even the unthinking garrulity of Union Mills and the Judgewas checked. A moment later, when the Left Bower entered the cabin, hispresence was scarcely noticed.
The silence was broken by a joyous exclamation from the Judge. He haddiscovered the Old Man's rifle in the corner, where it had been at firstoverlooked. "He ain't gone yet, gentlemen--for yer's his rifle," hebroke in, with a feverish return of volubility, and a high excitedfalsetto. "He wouldn't have left this behind. No! I knowed it from thefirst. He's just outside a bit, foraging for wood and water. No, sir!Coming along here I said to Union Mills--didn't I?--'Bet your life theOld Man's not far off, even if he ain't in the cabin.' Why, the moment Istepped foot--"
"And I said coming along," interrupted Union Mills, with equallyreviving mendacity, "Like as not he's hangin' round yer and lyin' lowjust to give us a surprise.' He! ho!"
"He's gone for good, and he left that rifle here on purpose," said theLeft Bower in a low voice, taking the weapon almost tenderly in hishands.
"Drop it, then!" said the Right Bower. The voice was that of hisbrother, but suddenly changed with passion. The two other partnersinstinctively drew back in alarm.
"I'll not leave it here for the first comer," said the Left Bower,calmly, "because we've been fools and he too. It's too good a weapon forthat."
"Drop it, I say!" said the Right Bower, with a savage stride towardshim.
The younger brother brought the rifle to a half charge with a white facebut a steady eye.
"Stop where you are!" he said collectedly. "Don't row with ME, becauseyou haven't either the grit to stick to your ideas or the heart toconfess them wrong. We've followed your lead, and--here we are! Thecamp's broken up--the Old Man's gone--and we're going. And as for thed----d rifle--"
"Drop it, do you hear!" shouted the Right Bower, clinging to that oneidea with the blind pertinacity of rage and a losing cause. "Drop it!"
The Left Bower drew back, but his brother had seized the barrelwith both hands. There was a momentary struggle, a flash through thehalf-lighted cabin, and a shattering report. The two men fell back fromeach other; the rifle dropped on the floor between them.
The whole thing was over so quickly that the other two partners had nothad time to obey their common impulse to separate them, and consequentlyeven now could scarcely understand what had passed. It was over soquickly that the two actors themselves walked back to their places,scarcely realizing their own act.
A dead silence followed. The Judge and Union Mills looked at each otherin dazed astonishment, and then nervously set about their former habits,apparently in that fatuous belief common to such natures, that they wereignoring a painful situation. The Judge drew the barrel towards him,picked up the cards, and began mechanically to "make a patience,"on which Union Mills gazed with ostentatious interest, but with eyesfurtively conscious of the rigid figure of the Right Bower by thechimney and the abstracted face of the Left Bower at the door. Tenminutes had passed in this occupation, the Judge and Union Millsconversing in the furtive whispers of children unavoidably butfascinatedly present at a family quarrel, when a light step was heardupon the crackling brushwood outside, and the bright panting face ofthe Old Man appeared upon the threshold. There was a shout of joy; inanother moment he was half-buried in the bosom of the Right Bower'sshirt, half-dragged into the lap of the Judge, upsetting the barrel,and completely encompassed by the Left Bower and Union Mills. With theenthusiastic utterance of his name the spell was broken.
Happily unconscious of the previous excitement that had provoked thisspontaneo
us unanimity of greeting, the Old Man, equally relieved, atonce broke into a feverish announcement of his discovery. He painted thedetails, with, I fear, a slight exaggeration of coloring, due partlyto his own excitement, and partly to justify their own. But he wasstrangely conscious that these bankrupt men appeared less elated withtheir personal interest in their stroke of fortune than with his ownsuccess. "I told you he'd do it," said the Judge, with a recklessunscrupulousness of statement that carried everybody with it; "look athim! the game little pup." "Oh no! he ain't the right breed, is he?"echoed Union Mills with arch irony, while the Right and Left Bower,grasping either hand, pressed a proud but silent greeting that was halfnew to him, but wholly delicious. It was not without difficulty that hecould at last prevail upon them to return with him to the scene ofhis discovery, or even then restrain them from attempting to carryhim thither on their shoulders on the plea of his previous prolongedexertions. Once only there was a momentary embarrassment. "Then youfired that shot to bring me back?" said the Old Man, gratefully. In theawkward silence that followed, the hands of the two brothers soughtand grasped each other, penitently. "Yes," interposed the Judge, withdelicate tact, "ye see the Right and Left Bower almost quarreled to seewhich should be the first to fire for ye. I disremember which did"--"Inever touched the trigger," said the Left Bower, hastily. With a hurriedbackward kick, the Judge resumed, "It went off sorter spontaneous."
The difference in the sentiment of the procession that once more issuedfrom the Lone Star cabin did not fail to show itself in each individualpartner according to his temperament. The subtle tact of Union Mills,however, in expressing an awakened respect for their fortunate partnerby addressing him, as if unconsciously, as "Mr. Ford" was at firstdiscomposing, but even this was forgotten in their breathless excitementas they neared the base of the mountain. When they had crossed the creekthe Right Bower stopped reflectively.
"You say you heard the slide come down before you left the cabin?" hesaid, turning to the Old Man.
"Yes; but I did not know then what it was. It was about an hour and ahalf after you left," was the reply.
"Then look here, boys," continued the Right Bower with superstitiousexultation; "it was the SLIDE that tumbled into the creek, overflowedit, and helped US clear out the race!"
It seemed so clear that Providence had taken the partners of theLone Star directly in hand that they faced the toilsome ascent of themountain with the assurance of conquerors. They paused only on thesummit to allow the Old Man to lead the way to the slope that held theirtreasure. He advanced cautiously to the edge of the crumbling cliff,stopped, looked bewildered, advanced again, and then remained white andimmovable. In an instant the Right Bower was at his side.
"Is anything the matter? Don't--don't look so, Old Man, for God's sake!"
The Old Man pointed to the dull, smooth, black side of the mountain,without a crag, break, or protuberance, and said with ashen lips:--
"It's gone!"
*****
And it was gone! A SECOND slide had taken place, stripping the flank ofthe mountain, and burying the treasure and the weak implement that hadmarked its side deep under a chaos of rock and debris at its base.
"Thank God!" The blank faces of his companions turned quickly to theRight Bower. "Thank God!" he repeated, with his arm round the neck ofthe Old Man. "Had he stayed behind he would have been buried too." Hepaused, and, pointing solemnly to the depths below, said, "And thank Godfor showing us where we may yet labor for it in hope and patience likehonest men."
The men silently bowed their heads and slowly descended the mountain.But when they had reached the plain one of them called out to the othersto watch a star that seemed to be rising and moving towards them overthe hushed and sleeping valley.
"It's only the stage coach, boys," said the Left Bower, smiling; "thecoach that was to take us away."
In the security of their new-found fraternity they resolved to waitand see it pass. As it swept by with flash of light, beat of hoofs, andjingle of harness, the only real presence in the dreamy landscape, thedriver shouted a hoarse greeting to the phantom partners, audible onlyto the Judge, who was nearest the vehicle.
"Did you hear--DID you hear what he said, boys?" he gasped, turning tohis companions. "No! Shake hands all round, boys! God bless you all,boys! To think we didn't know it all this while!"
"Know what?"
"Merry Christmas!"
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends