CHAPTER XIX--A GOOD DEAL OF A MAN
During the ensuing weeks the cabaret singer went often to see Betty atthe hotel. They even rode together, for Joe Hurley suddenly became sobusy at the Great Hope Mine that he was forced to excuse himself, so hesaid, from accompanying the Eastern girl on those pleasant jaunts whichboth had so enjoyed.
The two girls actually enjoyed each other's society and found more thana riding habit in which to feel a mutual interest. The friendship grewout of a hunger in the hearts of both Nell and Betty.
The parson did not make a third in their rambles, nor was he often insight when Nell called on Betty. The latter would not have encouragedany intimacy between the mining-camp girl and Hunt under anycircumstances. She did not dream that her brother felt more than passinginterest in the half-wild Nell.
The latter never attended the services held in Tolley's old dance hall.But the Passonians in general came to accept the religious exercises asan institution and supported them fairly in point of contributions andattendance. There was yet, however, strong opposition to the parson andhis work. Nor did it all center around Boss Tolley.
Nell, soon after the beginning of her acquaintance with Betty, stoppedsinging "This Is No Place for a Minister's Son" and took up no otherditty aimed in any particular at the Reverend Willett Ford Hunt and hiswork.
As for Hunt himself, he went forward, accepting both praise and blamewith equal equanimity. But he began to be worried secretly about JoeHurley.
Hunt supplemented the morning preaching with a Sunday school in theafternoon and a general service in the evening, at which he usually gavea helpful talk on more secular lines than his morning sermon.
Hunt would have been glad to have had more and better singing; butalthough Rosabell Pickett did her best, the song service was far fromsatisfactory. The parson never passed Colorado Brown's place in theevening and heard Nell's sweet voice that he was not covetous. He wouldnever be satisfied--but he whispered this not even to Betty--until heheard that voice leading his congregation in the meeting room.
The rougher element that had at first attended the meetings mainly outof curiosity soon drifted away.
Hunt was not, however, above carrying his work out into the highways andbyways of the town. If the men would not come to his services, hecarried a measure of his helpful efforts to them. He did more than visitthe homes of Canyon Pass. He went, especially at the noon hour, to wherethe men were at work.
Hunt never made himself offensive. He did not join the workmen at themines or washings as a parson, but as another man, interested in theirlabor and in themselves.
Once a mule-drawn ore wagon broke down on the road to the ore-crushers.It blocked the way of other teams. The parson took off his coat, helpedraise the wagon-body so the axle could be blocked, and aided in gettingon another wheel in place of the broken one.
A man working alone in a ditch some distance from the Oreode was sounfortunate as to bring a rock down and get caught by the leg. Hisshouts for help were first heard by Hunt, who was striding along thewagon track. Without other aid the parson pried up the rock and drew theman out from under it. Then he carried the fellow, with his laceratedleg, to his shack, where he lived with his partner; and between thepartner and Hunt the injured man was nursed as long as he neededattention at all.
This incident was the spark that started the idea of the hospital forCanyon Pass in Hunt's mind. He began to talk hospital to everybody, evento Slickpenny Norris. The banker threw up his hands and began to squealat last.
"That's just it! That's just it!" he cried. "I knew one thing would leadto another if a parson come into this town. I told that crazy Joe Hurleyso. He had no business ever to have brought you here."
"What has my coming to Canyon Pass got to do with it?" Hunt askedmildly. "The need of a hospital--there are always accidents happening atthe mines--was here long before I came. If a man is hurt badly he diesbefore help can get here. Doctor Peterby is no surgeon--and you know, Mr.Norris, he is not always to be trusted. This towns needs a place wherean injured man can get surgical treatment and proper nursing."
"I don't see why," muttered Norris. "We were getting along quite wellenough before you butted in."
Hurley, however, agreed with his friend. In spite of the fact that heseemed to have "fallen from grace" a good bit, the owner of the GreatHope was strong for all secular improvement of the town, whatever mayhave been his private emotions regarding the religion that Huntrepresented. The movement for a hospital took form and grew.
It was not these things, however, that endeared Hunt to the hearts ofthe rougher element of Canyon Pass. And in time--and that beforefall--some of the toughest hard-rock men and muckers working in the minesand at the Eureka Washings openly praised the Reverend Willett FordHunt.
Hunt one noon had given the men who gathered in a quiet place to eattheir lunches a little talk on first aid to the injured. He had sent toDenver for several first-aid kits and was now going about from mine tomine explaining the more important uses of the articles in the box.
The men understood the helpfulness of this. Neglected wounds meantblood-poisoning, one of the most painful scourges a prospector or minerworking far beyond the reach of surgeon and hospital, can have. It waswell to know, too, how to make a proper tourniquet, and how to lay abandage so that it would hold well.
The whistle blew and the great engine was started. The men drifted awayto their several jobs. There were three pipes at work tearing down thebank on the upper bench at the Eureka Washings, and others below. Theforce of the water thrown from the nozzles of these pipes rocked themighty hydraulic "guns" and caused the men astride of them to hold onwith both hands. It took a husky fellow to guide that stream spoutingfrom between his knees.
Hunt had returned the kit to the superintendent's office and climbed tothe upper bench, intending to go over the highland to the Great HopeMine, which was nearer the West Fork River. Hi Brownell, who straddledthe middle gun up here, risked waving a cordial hand at the parson whenhe saw the latter departing. The noise of the hurtling streams drownedHi's voice, of course.
Just as Hunt returned a smiling salute to the young fellow--one in whomthe parson was deeply interested, for Hi was really a worth-whileboy--the accident happened that was fated to mark this day as one long tobe remembered at Canyon Pass. Incidentally the occasion, more than anyother one thing, brought about the establishment of the new hospital.
The whine and splash of the streams of water drowned most other sounds.But of a sudden, as Hunt was turning his back on the scene, he heard asharp crack--a sound that would have penetrated the thunderous rumble ofa railroad train.
Hunt wheeled. He saw Hi Brownell thrown high into the air as though froma viciously bucking broncho, come down sprawling, and the savage streamfrom his pipe strike the man and carry him, as though he were a leaf ona torrent, into the cavity in the bank, against which the nozzle of thepipe was aimed.
The flapping limbs and struggling torso of Brownell were visible for amoment only; then down upon the spot roared soil, gravel, and largerstones, of which the bank's strata were built.
Unguided, the shooting stream from the gun swept first one way along thebench, then the other. It corrugated the face of the bank deeply foryards in either direction. For a moment Hunt saw again the strugglingbody of the injured man at the edge of the fallen rubble. Then cameanother slide to cover it completely!
The broken hydraulic gun fell over on its side. The parting of somesection of it was what had thrown Brownell into the air and into thepath of its stream.
But before the other gunners on the bench who saw Brownell's accidentcould shut off their streams, Hunt had acted. Some muckers tried to runin to seize Brownell or dig him out from under the gravel that hadfallen, but the stream from the writhing pipe swept them aside likechips. Half a dozen were rolling in the mud of the bench.
Hunt sprang directly for the seat of the trouble. That hose-pipe had tobe controlled before a thing could be done to help the buri
ed Brownell.Precious moments were lost signaling to the engineer below to shut offpower.
Hunt had not played football on his college team for nothing. He made anextremely low "tackle," for he went down on his knees and then slidalong through the mud to grapple with the writhing pipe that had brokenaway from its fastenings. He got hold of it and wrestled with it for afew seconds as two men might wrestle on the mat. When the other men camerunning from below Hunt had conquered the formidable thing, and thestream was shooting into the air, where all the harm it did was toshower some of the men as it fell back to earth.
For thirty seconds or more he held it so, until the stream was shut offbelow. The others ran for the pile that had overwhelmed Brownell. Theydug into it with their bare hands, got hold of one leg, and dragged himforth like a wet rag out of a pan of dishwater!
He was alive; nor were there many bones broken. But he was a terriblesight, and they had to work over him for some minutes before he breathedagain. Hunt went at this task, too, as coolly as did the superintendent.That first-aid kit came in very handily at this juncture.
The men stood around for a little while and watched and talked. Theaccident had come near being a tragedy.
"Believe me," said one rough fellow, "that parson is a good deal of aman. I'm for him, strong!"
"You'd even go to church for him, would you, Jack?" chuckled his mate.
"Church? I'd go to a hotter place than that for him!" was the prompt andemphatic reply.