Part 12

After a time the hole would be deep enough. The operators would load it, touch the fuse, scamper for shelter. The earth would become cumbered with broken vein matter, and this had to be removed laboriously with pick and shovel. When the shaft grew deeper, the fuse was cut a little longer, and the miners would climb out as fast as they could on a notched pole. Cases have been known when that was not fast enough; as the time old Brady, the paralytic, was blown out along with the vein filling, and died almost before the horse was saddled to go for the doctor at Custer, fifteen miles away.

The rock was hard and the immediate results invisible. Well earned was the title of Optimist, for that these coarse, untrained men should so devote themselves to a futurity certainly indicated optimism, and of a fine sort. If the capitalist should not come! The net result would be a few acres of hilly stony land, a well hole where there was no water, and an exhausted pocket-book.

At noon some of the miners ate a lunch which they had brought with them, heating coffee over the little fire used to warm the powder; while others picked up something in their own cabins. Bill Martin's table entertained only the gambler, Graham, Cheyenne Harry, and two other men, whom the camp laughingly designated as "proud." About four or five o'clock, the workers returned from the claims. At six sharp Black Jack served dinner to the entire camp. Then came the Little Nugget, a quiet smoke, a glass or so of whiskey, and a sound night's sleep.

Sometimes there was a celebration. One or two members of the little community were inclined to become a trifle over joyous too often for their health. The standard of humor and manners was not one of the most quiet and delicate. But, on the whole, Copper Creek was no worse nor better than a hundred other similar prospecting camps in the West.

Naturally, to such a community, in the hobbledehoy stage of its development, as it were, the advent of so strange a phenomenon as a woman was in the nature of an event. Later, when it had become used to the sex and its possibilities and limitations, the personal relation might become the motive of much very complicated action; but now it accepted Molly as a bright spot of color on a gray canvas, as a holiday, as a fortuitous bit of music, as an unexpected burst of sunshine in the winter. For all her strong feminine charm, she was to most of them as sexless as a boy. They were too many; and she was alone. The spectacle of one gigantic rivalry for her favor would have been grotesque, and no one has a keener instinctive sense of the ridiculous than the Westerner. They accepted her fascination as a real but impersonal influence. In her they honored the great abstraction, woman; and in himself each individual saw, not his own single personality, but the blended apotheosis of the man of Copper Creek. Molly was held in partnership, each miner making not only his own impression for her good graces, but the camp's as well.

And this without mawkish sentimentality or comic opera delicacy of conduct. It must not be understood that the newcomer became any romantic idol of the camp, or that the men displayed the old-fashioned courtesy affected by the miners in Western romances. These were pioneers. Their lives were rough, and their conduct matched their lives. When angry, they said very emphatic things in inelegant language. When facetious, their jokes were apt to be as broad as the prairies themselves. When at their ease, they chewed tobacco, or ate with their knives, or forgot to wash their shirts that week, or sat in their shirt sleeves with the collars of said garment wide open. But they never equalled the frankness of a Parisian soiree in talking of or joking at some natural but usually unmentioned functions of life; nor were they ever without that solid bedrock of good nature which is the American's saving grace. Molly Lafond led a safe life among them because she trusted them. In the face of that trust no one of them conceived the possibility of harming her. This feeling was personal however. Nobody would have felt called upon to protect her against anyone who did conceive the possibility. In other words, she took just the independent position in the community which would have been accorded to a man coming in from outside. She was a good comrade.

In her elation at finally escaping the restrictions and petty bickerings of her life at the Indian agency, Molly had turned eagerly first of all to the conquest of the masculine heart. This was theory, built up from a long course of romantic reading. The heroine always "ruled her little court." Molly would like to rule her little court also. She felt the genuineness of her fascination, the possession of which she realized to the full degree--that sort of fascination which succeeds where beauty, intellect, spirituality fail. It was a power, great, untried, unmeasured. Naturally her first impulse was to test it, to use it. She luxuriated in it. Nothing could be more delightful than to command and be obeyed; to smile into answering, smiling faces; to frown and see swiftly, as in a mirrored reflection, the countenances about her become dark. That was natural.

But after a little she found herself tiring of it. The game was too easy. Even from the first evening, when she had astounded and subdued the whole community at one fell blow, she had never experienced the slightest difficulty in getting these men to like her. Why should she? She was young and pretty and dainty, and delicately commanding and winsome, and she knew instinctively each man's weak point. One and all gave her unqualified approbation. There is no fun in asserting yourself, if everyone agrees with you; and to be a queen you must maintain your dignity and aloofness. It was a pose. You cannot be hail-fellow with your subjects.

So little by little, as the joy of out door life got into her veins, as it does into the veins of every healthy young creature in the open air of the Hills, she dropped the coquette. Then she first began to appreciate the real charm of things, and she was perfectly happy. Not a tiny cloud of regret veiled the tiniest corner of her skies.

The cabin had been finished within the week, but under the advice of the builders she did not move into it until nearly a month later.

A new shack never dries thoroughly in less than three weeks; and, besides, the sawdust from the new insect borings always pours down from the walls and ceilings in aggravating abundance. A dozen other houses were placed at her disposal. The men were only too glad to double up temporarily. But the summer air was warm, and Molly was by now as used to the narrow confines of her canvas-top, as a yachtsman to the cabin of his boat. She declined their offers and continued to live in the wagon. She was quite content to wait thus. In the meantime she took much delight in fixing up various curtains, chaircovers and tablecloths from light fabrics unearthed at the New York Emporium, and in cultivating carefully boxes of geraniums, almost the only garden flower in the hills. Curiously enough she enjoyed this. Perhaps it was a hereditary bequest from her unsuspected New England ancestry.

Jack Graham lent her many books, which she perused greedily. She had never seen a large city, or a boat, or a trolley car, or a tailor-made gown; but that counted little. Such things are not so much matters of actual experience as of natural aptitude. Some people can go to Europe and get less out of it than do those who read steamer advertisements at home. Molly Lafond was keen of intellect and vivid of imagination, by the aid of which two qualities she constructed for herself a culture--real, in spite of the fact that it was somewhat ill-balanced.

She spent much of her time out of doors, but the road and the gulch saw little of her. Her delight was to strike directly back across the brook, and up the overgrown hill, to the vast pine-clad heights above. There the castellated dikes frowned like mediaeval ramparts; the pine needles were soft and slippery and fragrant underfoot; the breeze swept by on swift wings, humming songs of the distant prairie; the little squirrels chattered and the big squirrels barked; the sun shone silver clear; and below, far down, the summits of other hills dropped away and away like the tiers of some enormous amphitheatre, until the brown prairie suddenly flowed out from underneath and rose to the level of the eye. It was very far from everything up there. And then one could go through the dikes down into Juniper Gulch, where one would find a whole group of claims and one's friends at work on them.

Molly grew to be an expert in the dip of quartz. She was accustomed to perch on a neighboring dikelet, near a claim, where she could enjoy the breeze, and converse without too much effort. There she looked charming, and bothered the workers a little. All workers like to be bothered a little. It is a wise woman who does not bother them too much. The attention is flattering as long as it is not annoying. When the men were below the surface of the ground she shouted down the shaft and insisted on a ride in the bucket. Or she rambled long delicious hours with Peter and the Kid, from whom she learned the philosophy of hindsights and the pregnant possibilities of holes under tree roots. These two adored her beyond all measure. The homely, bristle-whiskered animal was always at her heels; the Kid was ever ready to waste precious cartridges on her behalf.

They did much elaborate stalking after grouse, rabbits, and squirrels. Most of these approaches failed, for the reason that they were too elaborate and too eager. Wild creatures seem to be sensitive to telepathic influences. A stolid Indian, whose fatalism does not permit him to become much excited, can often walk directly up to a flock of ducks, when a white man with a breech-loading gun and a desire for a bag could not sneak within fifty rods. Instance also the well known and uncanny knowledge of the common crow as to your possession of firearms. His proneness to distant flight when you are armed, and his sublime indifference to your approach when you are not, may arise not from a recognition of the instrument, but from a reading of the desire for his slaughter.

Be this as it may, the bagging of game was a rare enough event to throw all three into wild excitement. Usually, a grand rush was made in the direction of the fallen. Peter arrived first, and danced, tip-toed, bristle-backed. Molly and the Kid were not far behind. Then came shouts of proud joy and feminine shrieks at the gore. The story was detailed again and again of just how the shot was made. Peter agonized that he could not talk. Finally the grouse or squirrel was borne proudly down to fierce-moustached Black Jack, the cook, who expostulated and grumbled.

"G' 'way, you two!" he growled. "Git out; don't want you around! Goin' t' bake! Vamoose! Ain't hired t' skin no squirrels or pluck no birds. Cyan't be bothered. G' 'way, you two." Black Jack always talked like this--in short, disconnected sentences.

Then the girl would beg prettily, while the Kid, fully aware in whom dwelt the most effective persuasion, stood by, and Peter snuffed around in the forbidden kitchen. And finally Black Jack would yield, with a vast show of bad grace.

"All right, all right!" he would cry, shaking his great head. "Just this once. Never again, mind you, never again. Cyan't be bothered. Wouldn't do it now, only just t' get rid of that dawg. That's it. Cyan't have no dawg around. Cyan't nohow."

He took the partridge or squirrel, still grumbling.

"Oh, thank you, _dear good_ Mr. Black Jack!" cried Molly. "And you'll save me the wings and tail or the skin, won't you?"

At this point Black Jack always exploded violently and bundled them out, taking a neatly avoided kick at Peter. Then he would watch them quite out of sight, after which he would expend the utmost care in the concoction of wonderful stews or potpies.

These clear, sunshiny, healthy days tanned Molly's skin to a golden brown, brightened her eye and her smile, and filled her strong young body with abounding health and vitality. Even her evenings did not in any way cloud her spirits. They were of bad influence, but why should she know that? She was a delicious little animal, keen, shrewd, of good impulses, though her moral nature was quite untrained. She possessed instincts--strong instincts--which seemed arbitrarily to place a limit beyond which she did not dream of going; but that, she thought, was because she did not care to go. The question of right or wrong, consciously chosen, never entered her calculations. Her only standard was her desire--and, perhaps a little, what Graham would think of her--but she did not bother her head one way or the other. She was happy, and was doing nothing she regretted. That was enough.

And yet the evenings were not good--not good at all. They were bound to exercise a certain deleterious influence.

By habit, Molly spent her time after dark on a corner of the bar at the Little Nugget saloon. There she received attention. The peculiarity of her position lay in the fact that her good comradeship had dissipated constraint. The men talked and drank and gambled about as usual. It must be repeated that the girl was in no sense a romantic "idol of the camp." The miners would have been well enough pleased if she had drunk her whiskey with them as freely as they did with each other. As she did not, they merely put the fact down to personal idiosyncrasy, like Dave Williams' horror of cooked rabbit. Rough men do not demand the finer virtues, and she was treated to the reverse side of this idea. She saw what men call life. She learned the game of faro and how men act who have won or lost at it. She gained a knowledge of the strength of whiskey and what men say who have drunk of it. She heard loose speech; she saw loose conduct. All this is not nice for a young girl.

The men felt especially drawn to her because she smoked paper cigarettes gracefully. About ten o'clock she went to bed.

These few days, between her first triumphant arrival and her establishment in her new cabin, were the most care-free and happy of her stay at Copper Creek. She lived thoughtlessly, conducting herself exactly as she pleased, entertaining no regrets, conscious of no sense of wrongdoing, and therefore of no sense of guilt. Then a little incident stirred into wakefulness that fine-wrought conscience which is an element of so many natures that draw their life from New England.

XX

THE EATING OF THE APPLE

One morning Molly found herself awakened very early by the sound of whistling just outside. She opened her eyes to discover Peter, who had occupied one end of the wagon, sitting, head and ears up, listening to the same sound. The whistling was young, tuneless. Finally she peered through the crack in the canvas.

Outside, on the wagon tongue, sat the Kid patiently waiting, his little rifle across his knees, one bare foot digging away at the dust, his lips puckered to cheerful sibilance, his wide gray eyes turning every once in awhile to the canvas cover of the schooner. He discovered Molly looking out. The whistle abruptly stopped.

"Come on out, Molly," said he. "I ben waiting for you a long time."

"My! it's so awful early!" yawned Molly. "What do you want to do?"

"I'm going to take you hunting," confided the Kid. "We perhaps can get a squirrel down the gulch, or perhaps a cotton-tail. Come on, hurry up!"

"Why, I ain't dressed yet," objected Molly.

"Well, dress!" said the Kid impatiently.

By this time she was well awake, and the glorious morning was getting into her lungs. Her eye disappeared, and in a few minutes she emerged fully clothed. The Kid looked her over.

"Y' ain't going that way?" he asked incredulously.

"Course not. You wait till I come back."

She stepped down on the whiffletree, her heavy waving hair falling in masses of curls and crinkles over her shoulders.

"Oh, Lord!" cried the Kid pathetically. In the entrance stood Peter, his head on one side. Molly laughed.

"I thought I'd got rid of _him_," complained the Kid, "and here he is!"

"Never mind," said Molly soothingly, "I can make him stand round. Come here, Peter!"

At the pool of the lower creek Molly knelt, turning back the sleeves from her white arms, loosening the dress from about her round young throat. After a little she leaned back against the mosses and piled the strands of her hair, watching the interested Kid with shining eyes.

"My, but you're purty!" he cried. She nodded to him, laughing.

They took their way down the gulch, walking soberly in the road, while Peter skirmished unrestrained among the possibilities of the thickets at either hand. In the judgment of the Kid, this was too near town for the best hunting. The Kid talked.

"You never been down here, have you?"

"No," replied Molly, "I've always been up in the hills, you know; it's more fun, I think. Do you think we'll find anything down here near the road?"

"Not just yet; but after we get by Bugchaser's--Say, you've never seen Bugchaser, then, have you?"

"No," laughed the girl, "I should think not. What in the world is Bugchaser?"

"It isn't a 'what'; it's a 'him.' He's crazy. He has a 'coon, and a bear, and a bobcat. I'd like to go up an' see 'em, but I'm scairt of him."

"Is he dangerous?" asked Molly.

"Pop says he eats little boys. Hoh! that ain't so, of course. But he's crazy, you know."

"What makes you think so?"

"He chases bugs with a fishnet."

"Oh!" cried Molly comprehendingly, and began to laugh.

The Kid looked at her with offended reproach.

"Well," he remarked finally, "you can do what you want; but you betcher life I'm keepin' away from him!"

His eyes were wide with childish wonder, strangely incongruous in this solemn, lonely little creature with his ways of early maturity and his ridiculous cut-down clothes.

"There, there," laughed Molly soothingly. "I wonder what's up with Peter!"

Peter was barking like a bunch of fire crackers.

"Sounds exciting!" said she. "Maybe it's a squirrel up a tree. Let's see!"

The Kid threw his rifle into the position of a most portentous ready, and the two entered the bushes. Peter was discovered, his hair bristling between his shoulders, jumping eagerly around some object which lay, invisible, on the ground. He snapped with excitement. The Kid ran forward with a shout. Molly picked her skirts up and followed with equal rapidity and considerably more grace. They nearly ran over a large coiled rattlesnake.

The Kid yelled and leaped to one side. Molly stopped stock-still and uttered a piercing scream, after which she climbed rapidly to the top of a near-by bowlder, where she perched, her skirts daintily raised, her eyes bright with excitement. Peter leaped madly about. The Kid discharged rapid but ineffectual pea bullets at the reptile.

"I imagine you need a little help," said a voice so unexpected that Molly nearly fell from the rock. The Kid gave one look at the newcomer and fled with a howl of terror. "A most peculiar youth," observed Durand reflectively as he advanced. "Most peculiar--seemingly obsessed of an unwarranted terror for my person. Strange! I have never acted in any way brusquely toward him." He picked up a stick, and, advancing without the slightest hesitation, killed the whirring snake with a single blow. "You may now descend," he assured her, turning with exquisite grace to offer his hand.

He led the way out to the road. Peter followed until within sight of the animals chained to the posts, and then he quietly disappeared in search of the Kid. This was not cowardice on Peter's part, but he had long since tested by experiment the futility of challenging barks.

Molly had recognized the newcomer from the Kid's description; and her first glance assured her that her surmise as to his calling had been true. She had been reading the _Life of Wilson_, the naturalist, recently; and so knew of the existence of such men. To her they seemed rather romantic.

"Oh!" cried she on catching sight of the chained animals. "Are they tame? Are they tame enough to pet?"

The old man smiled a little at her enthusiasm. He had been looking her over with pleasure, but without surprise. Michail Lafond, his new friend, had mentioned his "daughter"; but never, Durand now thought, in fitting terms. This girl was really beautiful. The little interview became an audience to which Durand brought his exquisite court manners.

"Jacques, the little raccoon, certainly is," he replied to Molly's question, "but the others--I do not know--they are tame enough for me--but a stranger----. We can try, cautiously."

Molly had run forward and fallen on her knees before the 'coon. She was delighted with his grizzled, round body, with his bright eyes, his sharp little nose, the stripes across his back, his bare, black hands, almost human, and above all with the clean, fresh woods-smell that is characteristic of such an animal when not too closely confined. Finding him quite gentle, she took him in her arms. Jacques proceeded at once to investigate busily the recesses and folds of her dress.

"He seeks for sweetmeats," explained the old man, who was looking on.

From Jacques they proceeded to Isabeau, the lynx. Isabeau spat a little and looked askance, but under reproof permitted a dainty pat on the tips of his tasselled ears. Patalon, the great clown bear, was good-natured, but rough. He desired to be rubbed here and there, he wished affectionately to return this young lady's attentions with a mighty hug. He smelt rank of the wild beast. Molly returned soon to little Jacques.

"How did you get them?" she asked, tapping the end of Jacques' nose to see him wrinkle his face.

"It is not difficult. One captures them young, when they are mere cubs; and so, although they never will lose their wild instincts, they become as you see them."

"But the mothers----?"

"Ah, that is the pity," replied the old man simply. "Sometimes it becomes necessary that they die."

Molly looked on him with new wonder, this slayer of bears and wild cats, who nevertheless appeared so gentle, whose eye was so mild. It was indeed a marvellous world. She forgot the Kid and the hunting party, and gave herself up to the pleasure of the moment.

From the pets they wandered to the flowers. These interested Molly exceedingly, for she herself was struggling with the boxes of geraniums. It was fully half an hour later when Molly finally said farewell to her host and continued on down the gulch in the direction taken by her little companion.

The Kid was waiting with all the heart-rending impatience of youth. The precious time before breakfast was slipping away in futility. He had made a sacrifice in taking this girl. Never would he do it again! never! never! And then he saw her coming, and forgot everything except his relief.

"Took you long enough to break away," was his only complaint as he rose to conduct the party.

"Have we got time to hunt now? Ain't it 'most breakfast-time?" inquired Molly dubiously. "Don't you think we'd better let it go for this morning?"

"Lord, no! Come on! For heaven's sake don't let's waste any more time!" cried the Kid with a gusty impatience that surprised his companion. She did not realize the humiliated disappointment that had this last hour seethed in the little breast. "I s'pose we might 's well get up on the ridge," suggested the Kid, still grumbling.