CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MURPHY HAS A HUMOROUS MOOD
Though Fred and the professor shouldered pick and shovel at sunriseevery morning and laid them down thankfully at dusk every night, theycould not hope to work out the assessment upon eight mining claims ina year. The professor was not a success as a pick-and-shovel man,though he did his best. He acquired a row of callouses on each handand a chronic ache in his back, but beyond that he did not accomplishvery much. Fred was really the brawn of the undertaking, and in apractical way he was the brains also. Fred saw at once that the taskrequired more muscle than he and the professor could furnish, so hehired a couple of men and set them to work on the claims of thespeculators.
Two little old Irishmen, these were; men who had dried down to puremuscle and bone as to their bodies, and to pure mining craft andtenacious memory for the details of their narrow lives as to brains.The mountains produce such men. In the barren plains country theywould be called desert rats, but in the mountains they are calledprospectors.
They set up their own camp half a mile down the creek, so that Kateand Marion seldom saw them. They did their own cooking and dividedtheir work to suit themselves, and they did not charge as much fortheir labor as Fred charged the claim-owners for the work, so Fredconsidered that he had done very well in hiring them. He could turnhis attention to his own claim and the claims of Marion and Kate, andlet the professor peck away at a hole in the hillside where he vaguelyhoped to find gold. Why not? People did, in these mountains. Why,nuggets of gold had been picked up in the main street of Quincy, sothey told him. One man in town had solemnly assured him that all thesehills were "lousy with gold"; and while the professor did not like thephrase, he did like the heartening assurance it bore to his wistfulheart, and he began examining his twenty-acre claim with a newinterest. Surely the early-day miners had not gleaned all the gold!Why, nearly every time he talked with any of the natives he heard offresh strikes. Old prospectors like Murphy and Mike were always comingin town for supplies and then hurrying back to far canyons where theyfully expected to become rich.
The professor got a book on mineralogy and read it faithfully. Certainpoints which he was not sure that he understood he memorized and meantto ask Murphy, who had a memory like a trap and had mined from Mexicoto Alaska and from Montana to the sea.
Murphy poised his shovel, since he happened to be working, twinkledhis eyes at the professor through thick, silver-rimmed glasses, anddemanded: "For why do ye be readin' a buke about it? For why don't yeget down wit yer pick, man, and _see_ what's in the ground? My gorry,I been minin' now for forty-wan year, ever sence I come from the auldcountry, an' _I_ never read no buke t' see what I had in me claim. Igot down inty the ground, an' I seen for meself what I got there--an'whin I found out, my gorry, I didn't need no _buke_ t' tell me was shewort' the powder I'd put inty 'er. An' them that made their millionsouty their mines, _they_ didn't go walkin' around wit' a buke in theirhands! My gorry, they hired jackasses like me an' Mike here t' dig ferall they wanted t' know about.
"And if ye want to find out what's there in yer claim, I'd advise yet' throw away yer buke, young feller, an' git busy wit' yer two hands,an' ye'll be like t' know a dom sight more than wit' all yer readin'.An' if ye like to bring me a sample of what ye git, I'll be the wan t'tell ye by sight what ye have, and I don't need no _buke_ t' tell itby nayther."
Whereat Mike, who was silly from being struck on the head with arailroad tie somewhere down the long trail of years behind him, gulpedhis lean Adam's apple into a laugh, and began to gobble a long,rambling tale about a feller he knew once in Minnesota who couldlocate mines with a crooked stick, and wherever he pinted the stickyou could dig....
Murphy sat down upon him then--figuratively speaking--and remindedMike that they were not talking about crooked sticks ner no kind ofsticks, ner they didn't give a dom what happened in Minnesota fiftyyear ago--if it ever had happened, which Murphy doubted. So Mike lefthis story in the middle and went off to the water jug under a stubbycedar, walking bowlegged and swinging his arms limply, palms turnedbackward, and muttering to himself as he went.
"A-ah, there goes a liar if ever there was one--him and his crookedsthick!" Murphy brought out a plug of tobacco the length of his handand pried off a corner with his teeth. "Mebby it was a railroad tie, Idunno, that give him the dint in his head where he should havebrains--but I misdoubt me if iver there was more than the prospect ofa hole there, and niver a color to pay fer the diggin'." He looked atthe professor and winked prodigiously, though Mike was out of earshot."Him an' his crooked sthick!" he snorted, nudging the professor withhis elbow. "'S fer me, I'd a dom sight ruther go be yer buke, youngfeller--and more I cannot say than thot."
The professor went back to his ledge on the hillside and began to peckaway with his pick, getting a sample for Murphy to look at. He ratherliked Murphy, who had addressed him as young feller--a term sweet tothe ears of any man when he had passed forty-five and was still going.By George! an old miner like Murphy ought to know a fair prospect whenhe saw it! The professor hoped that he might really find gold on hisclaim. Gold would not lessen the timber value, and it would magnifythe profits. They expected to make somewhere near six thousand dollarsoff each twenty acres; perhaps more, since they were noble trees andgood, honest pine that brought the best price from the mills. Sixthousand dollars was worth while, certainly; but think of the fortuneif they could really find gold. He would have a more honest right tothe claim, then. He wondered what Murphy thought of the shaft he wassinking over there, where Fred had perfunctorily broken through theleaf mold with a "prospect" hole, and had ordered Murphy and Mike todig to bed-rock, and stop when they had the assessment work finished.
What Murphy thought of it Murphy was succinctly expressing just thento Mike, with an upward twinkle of his thick, convex glasses, and acontemptuous fling of his shovelful of dirt up over the rim of thehole.
"My gorry, I think this mine we're workin' on was located by thebake," he chuckled. "Fer if not that, will ye tell me why else theywant 'er opened up? There's as much gold here as I've got in mepocket, an' not a dom bit more."
"Well, that man I knowed in Minnesota, he tuk a crooked sthick,"gobbled Mike, whose speech, as well as his mind had been driven askewby the railroad tie; but Murphy impatiently shut him up again.
"A-ah, an' that's about as much as ye iver did know, I'm thinkin',le's have no more av yer crooked sthick. Hand me down that other pick,fer this wan is no sharper than me foot."
He worked steadily after that, flinging up the moist soil with anasperated "a-ah" that punctuated regularly each heave of his shouldermuscles. In a little he climbed out and helped Mike rig a windlassover the hole. Mike pottered a good deal, and stood often staringvacantly, studying the next detail of their work. When he was notusing them, his hands drooped helplessly at his sides, a sign ofmental slackness never to be mistaken. He was willing, and what Murphytold him to do he did. But it was Murphy who did the hard work, whoplanned for them both.
Presently Mike went bowlegging to camp to start their dinner, andMurphy finished spiking the windlass to the platform on which itrested. He still whispered a sibilant "a-ah!" with every blow of thehammer, and the perspiration trickled down his seamed temples inlittle rivulets to his chin that looked smaller and weaker than itshould because he had lost so many of his teeth and had a habit ofpinching his lower jaw up against his upper.
The professor came back with his sample of rock--with a pocketful ofsamples--just as Murphy had finished and was wiping his thick glasseson a soiled, blue calico handkerchief with large white polka-dots onthe border and little white polka-dots in the middle. He turned towardthe professor inquiringly, warned by the scrunching footsteps thatsome one approached. But he was blind as a bat--so hedeclared--without his glasses, so he finished polishing them andplaced them again before his bleared, powder-burned eyes before heknew who was coming.
"An' it's you back already," he greeted, in his soft Irish voice, thattilted up at the end o
f every sentence, so that, without knowing whatwords he spoke, one would think he was asking question after questionand never making a statement at all. "An' what have ye dug outy yerbuke now?"
"No, by George, I dug this out of the ground," the professor declared,going forward eagerly. "I want you to tell me frankly just what youthink of it."
"An' I will do that--though it's many the fight I've been in becauseof speakin' me mind," Murphy stated, grinning a little. "An' now le'ssee what ye got there. My gorry, I've been thinkin' they're all avthim buke mines that ye have here," he bantered, peering into theprofessor's face, before he took the largest piece of rock and turnedit over critically in his hands. In a minute he handed it back with aquizzical glance.
"They's nawthin' there," he said softly. "If thot was gold-bearin'rock, my gorry, we'd all of us be rollin' in wealth, fer the mountainsis made of such. Young feller, ye're wastin' yer time an' ivery dollarye're sinkin' in these here claims ye've showed me--and thot's no lieI'm tellin' ye, but the truth, an' if ye believe it I'll soon behuntin' another job and ye'll be takin' the train back where ye comefrom."
The professor eyed him uncertainly. He looked at the great, singingpines that laced their branches together high over their heads. Fred,he thought, had made a mistake when he hired experienced miners to dothis work. It might be better to let Murphy in....
"Still the timber on the claims is worth proving up, and more," heventured cautiously, with a sharp glance at Murphy's spectacles.
"A-ah, and there yer right," Murphy assented with the upward tilt tohis voice. "An' if it's the timber ye be wantin', I'll say no moreabout the mine. Four thousand acres minin' claims no better than yerown have I seen held fer the trees on thim--an' ain't it the way someof these ole fellers thot goes around now wit' their two hands intheir pants pockets an' no more work t' do wit' 'em than to light uptheir seegars--ain't it wit' the timber on their minin' claims thatthey made their pile? A-ah--but them was the good times fer them thathad brains. A jackass like me an' Mike, here, we're the fellers thotwent on a lookin' fer gold an' givin' no thought to the trees thatstood above. An' thim that took the gold an' the trees, they're theones thot's payin' wages now to the likes of Mike an' me."
He straightened his back and sent a speculative glance at the forestaround him. "'Tis long sence the thrick has been worked through," hemused, turning his plug of tobacco over in his hand, looking for alikely place to sink his stained old teeth. "Ye'll be kapin' mum aboutwhat's in yer mind, young feller, ef ye don't want to bring the domForest Service on yer trail. Ef it was me, I'd buy me a bag of saltfer me mines--I would thot."
"Well, by George!" The professor stared. "What has salt--?"
"A-ah, an' there's where ye're ign'rant, young feller, wit' all yerbuke l'arnin'. 'Tis gold I mean--gold thot ye can show t' thim thotgits cur'us. But if it was me, I'd sink me shaf' in a likelier spotthan what this spot is--I wuddn't be bringing up durt like this, an'be callin' the hole a mine! I kin show ye places where ye kin git thecolor an' have the luke of a mine if ye haven't the gold. There'sbetter men than you been fooled in these hills. I spint me a wintermeself, cuttin' timbers fer me mine--an' no more than a mile from thisspot it was--an' in the spring I sinks me shaf' an' not a dom ounce ofgold do I git fer me pains!"
"Well, by George! I'll speak to Fred about it. I--I suppose you can betrusted, Murphy?"
Murphy spat far from him and hitched up his sagging overalls. "Kin anyman be trusted?" he inquired sardonically. "He kin, says I, if it's tohis intrust. I'm gittin' my wages fer the diggin', ain't I? Then it'sto me intrust to kape on diggin'! Sure, me tongue niver wagged mebelly outy a grub-stake yit, young feller! I'm with ye on this, an'thot's me true word I'm givin' ye."
The professor hurried off to find Fred and urge him to let Murphyadvise them upon the exact sites of their mines. Murphy hung hishammer up in the forked branches of a young oak, and went off to hisdinner. Arriving there, he straightway discovered that Mike, besidesfrying bacon and making a pot of muddy coffee and stirring up abannock, had been engaged also in what passed with him for thinking.
"Them fellers don't know nothin' about minin'," he began when he hadpoured himself a cup of coffee and turned the pot with the handletoward Murphy. "They's no gold there, where we're diggin', I knowthere's no gold! They's no sign of gold. They can dig a hunnerd feetdown, an' they won't find no gold! Why, in Minnesota, that time--"
"A-ah, now, le's have none av Minnesota," Murphy broke in upon Mike'sgobbling--no other word expresses Mike's manner of speech, or comesanywhere near to giving any idea of his mushy mouthing of words. "An'who iver said they was after gold, now?"
Mike's jaw went slack while he stared dully at his partner. "An' ifthey ain't after gold, what they diggin' fer, then?" he demanded, whenhe had collected what he could of his scattered thoughts.
"A-ah, now, an' thot's a diffrunt story, Mike, me boy." Murphy brokeoff a piece of bannock, on the side least burned, and nodded his headin a peculiarly knowing manner. "Av ye could kape yer tongue quietfr'm clappin' all ye know, Mike, I cud tell ye somethin'--I cud thot."
"Wh-why, nobudy ever heard _me_ talkin' things that's tol' in secret,"Mike made haste to asseverate. "Why, one time in Minnesota, they was afeller, he tol' _me_, min' yuh, things 't he wouldn't tell his ownmthrrr!" Mike, poor man, could not say mother at all. He just buzzedwith his tongue and let it go at that. But Murphy was used to hispeculiarities and guessed what he meant.
"An' there's where he showed respick fer the auld lady," he commendeddrily, and winked at his cup of coffee.
"An' he tol' _me_, mind yuh, all about a mrrer" (which was as close ashe could come to murder) "an' he _knew_, mind ye, who it was, an' hetol' _me_--an' why, _I_ wouldn't ever say nothin' an' he knew it--Idoctrrrred his eyes, mind ye, mind ye, an' the doctrrrs they couldn'tdo nothin'--an' we was with this outfit that was puttin' in a bridge"(only he couldn't say bridge to save his life) "this was 'way back inMinnesota--"
"A-ah, now ye come back to Minnesota, ye better quit yer travelin' an'eat yer dinner," quelled Murphy impatiently. "An' le's hear no more'bout it."
Mike laid a strip of scorched bacon upon a chunk of scorched bannockand bit down through the mass, chewed meditatively and stared into thecoals of his camp fire. "If they ain't diggin' fer gold, then what arethey _diggin'_ fer?" he demanded aggressively, and so suddenly thatMurphy started.
"A-ah, now, I'll tell ye what they're diggin' fer, but it's a secret,mind ye, and ye must nivver spheak a word av it. They're diggin' feranguintum, me boy. An' thot's wort' more than gold, an' the likes avme 'n you wadden't know if we was to wade through it, but it's used inthe war, I dunno, t' make gas-bags t' kill the inimy, and ye're t' saynawthin' t' nobody er they'll likely take an' hang ye fer a spy on thegovernment, but ye're sa-afe, Mike, s' long as ye sthick t' me an' yerjob an' say nawthin' t' nobody, d' ye see."
"They'd nivver hang _me_ fer a spy," Mike gobbled excitedly. "They'llnivver hang me--why I knowed--"
"A-ah, av yer ivver did ye've fergot it intirely," Murphy squelchedhim pitilessly.
Mike gulped down a mouthful and took a swallow of muddy coffee. "Theybetter look out how they come around _me_," he threatened vaguely."They can't take me for a spy. I'd git the lawyers after 'em, an' I'dmake 'em trouble. They wanta look out--I'd spend ivvery cent I makeon lawyers an' courts if they took and hung me fer a spy. I'd _lawsue_'em!"
Murphy laughed. "A-ah, would ye, now!" he cried admiringly. "My gorry,it takes a brain like yours t' think av things. Now, av they hung me,I'd be likes to let 'er sthand thot way. I'd nivver a thought t'lawsue 'em fer it--I wad not!"