Part 13

They turned sharp to the left, through the thicket, where the birds were already hushing their songs, and the early dew was quite dried away. The Kid pushed ahead with almost feverish rapidity. Here and there in the brush Peter scurried, head down, hind legs well drawn together beneath his flanks. He snuffled eagerly into the holes and forms, doing his dramatic best to create some game, if necessary. Every once in awhile his bristly head, all alert, peered, cock-eared, over a bush, searching the hunter's face for directions, and then plunging away suddenly as his own judgment advised. It was most scienceless and unsportsman-like. The Kid peered eagerly to right and left, holding the muzzle of the little rifle conscientiously at an angle of forty-five degrees, as he had been taught, and vainly striving to avoid dry twigs, although Peter was making enough noise for a circus parade. The girl followed a step or so in the rear. It was breath-taking, this excitement. Every stir of the bushes needed examination, every flutter of wings was a possibility, every plunge of Peter might send a covey whirring into the pine tops, or rouse a squirrel to angry expostulation. As they went on up the side hills, still without result, but therefore with expectation the more sharpened, and as Molly's cheeks became redder and redder under her brown skin and her eyes brighter and brighter, and as she bit her under lip more and more, and as the straight level line of her brows grew straighter and straighter with the concentration of her thoughts, it is to be doubted if the most enthusiastic lover of scenery could have torn his eyes from the pretty picture even for the sake of the magnificent sweep of country below. So at least thought Cheyenne Harry, on his way across the ridge to his claim.

He surveyed the eager three with some slight amusement.

"Hullo!" he called suddenly.

The boy and girl started.

"Hullo!" answered Molly after a moment, when her intent hunting expression had quite fled before her cheerful look of recognition. "That you?"

The Kid too paused, but evidently under protest, and with the idea of moving on again at the earliest polite moment.

"How's hunting?" inquired Harry facetiously. "Killed all the game down below there?"

"All we've seen," replied Molly promptly; "and the hunting's very good." She put ever so slight a stress on the word "hunting." "We're going over the ridge now. Want to come along and help carry the game?"

Harry looked speculatively at the Kid, who was standing first on one bare foot, then on the other. "Naw, guess not," he replied. The Kid brightened at once. "I'm going over to the Gold King for a while. You'd better come along with me."

"Haven't had any breakfast," objected Molly.

"Oh, that's nothing. Neither have I. I'm just out to look around. Come ahead."

Molly did not care a snap of her fingers about the Gold King claim, except that it belonged to Cheyenne Harry; and, owing to the rarity of that individual's visits to his property, she had never seen it. Besides this, she had been a good deal the last few days with Graham. That young man had been interesting her greatly with a most condensed and popularized account of the nebular theory, which seemed to Molly very picturesque and intellectual. She was much taken with the idea of thus improving herself and she gave herself great credit for the effort, but it was so far above the usual plane of her intellectual workings that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. The evening before, she had gone to bed keyed up to wonderful resolves. To-day the pendulum had begun ever so slowly to swing back. All the influences of out-door life had drawn her to the earth; the clear freshness of the early morning, the rank smell of the wild beast, the incipient hero-worship in her admiration of the old man's supposed prowess as a slayer of bears, the actual physical contact with the slapping clinging brush through which she had passed. She breathed deep of the crisp air. She broadened her chest, and stretched her muscles, and drank the soft caressing sun warmth. She felt she would like to get down near the grass, to breathe its earthly smell, to kiss it. It was the gladness of just living.

And to her in a subtle manner Cheyenne Harry symbolized these things, just as Graham symbolized that elusive intangible humiliating power of the intellect. He was strong and bold and breezy of manner, and elemental of thought, and primitive in his passions and the manner of their expression. He appealed to that spirit in her which craved the brusque conqueror.

So for the moment the idea of a scramble with him over these rough dike-strewn ridges seemed to her the one idea in perfect tune with the wild Western quality of the newborn day. And therefore, to the consternation of the waiting Kid, she replied--

"Why, yes. I think it would be good fun, though I don't believe there _is_ any Gold King claim. I believe it's just an excuse for your loafing around, for you certainly never spent much time on it."

"It's the finest thing ever," Harry assured her with a laugh. "I'll show you."

The Kid stood stock-still in consternation.

"Oh!" cried he, when he could get his voice, "and how about our hunt?"

"You come along with us," invited Cheyenne Harry good-naturedly. "It's good hunting all the way."

But the Kid knew better. This heedless climbing and loud talking would be quite different from the careful attention necessary for the destruction of the wily "chicken" or experienced squirrel. He looked very sad.

"Yes, come on," urged Molly; "we'll get something over in 'Teepee.'"

The Kid shook his head, unable to trust himself to speak. Cheyenne Harry turned away a little impatiently.

"I'm sorry," continued Molly with hesitation. "I think you'd like it. But we've had quite a hunt already, haven't we? And we can go another time."

She joined Cheyenne Harry. Peter stood looking first at the Kid, then at the two retreating forms. He was plainly undecided. Molly's gingham dress fluttered for the last time before she turned the corner of a bowlder. Peter suddenly made up his worried mind. The Kid was left alone.

He sat down on a rock, and rested his chin in his hands, and looked away across the valley to the peak of Tom Custer. A tiny white cloud was sailing down the wind. He watched it until, swirling, it dissolved into the currents of air. Far back in the forest of pines a little breeze rustled, faint as a whisper: then it crept nearer, ever waxing in strength, until, with a murmur as of a throng of people, it passed overhead, and vanished with a last sigh in the distance. The Kid listened attentively to the birth and death of the voice. A squirrel directly above him broke into a rattling torrent of chattering rage. The Kid sat, his chin in his hands, looking out over the valley with unseeing eyes, his little rifle resting idly against his knee. The moments passed by, one after the other, distinct, like the ticks of a great clock.

A soft muzzle nosed its way gently between his wrists. He looked down. Peter's homely, gray-whiskered face with the pathetic eyes looked up into his own. The Kid flung both arms about the dog's coarse-furred neck, and burst into a passion of tears.

From the top of the ridge, where she had paused a moment to take breath, Molly saw the whole of this little scene. She suddenly felt very irritated.

That Kid was certainly the most unreasonable of children! Why, she spent three-quarters of her time doing nothing but amuse him. She had got up cheerfully at an unearthly hour, walked several miles without breakfast, followed him uncomplaining through a lot of damp grass and underbrush, and now, because she wouldn't spend the rest of the day with him, he sulked. Forsooth, was she to give up all her friends, her amusements, for the sake of that boy? Molly was most impatient--with the Kid--and she became so preoccupied in pitying herself that she hardly answered Cheyenne Harry's remarks, and was a very poor companion. She deceived herself perfectly; yet in the background of her consciousness was something she did not recognize--something uncomfortable. It was an uneasiness, a heaviness, a slight feeling of guilt for something which she could not specify, quite indefinable, and therefore the more annoying. It made her feel like shaking her shoulders. There seemed no valid reason why she should not be as light-hearted as she had been a few minutes ago, for her reason saw nothing in her conduct to regret. And yet she was uneasy, as though she had done something wrong and was on the point of being found out. She could not understand it, but it was very real, and, because she could see no reason for it, it made her angry, with a sense of injustice.

It was the first manifestation of another phase of heredity--the New England conscience.

XXI

LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND

Michail Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp than had his ward. He fitted in quietly.

Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possession of the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position as proprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, if anybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemed to do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of the day either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's, or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim in the Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in the lower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal.

For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion to anybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, no matter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain as he did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, by the time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew just about everybody's business in that camp. The student of character never needs to ask blunt questions.

He soon discovered that his first surmise as to Billy's peculiarities was correct. The man was above all things spectacular. He liked to fill the stage. If Lafond could strip him of his property--the Great Snake--his prestige as promoter of the camp would be gone. Black Mike could imagine nothing more galling to one of Knapp's temperament.

He soon discovered that it would be no easy matter to do this, however. He had felt sure that he would have no difficulty in taking advantage of the proverbial carelessness of Westerners in general, and Billy Knapp in particular, as to some of the finer points of mining law. There are many technicalities to be observed before a claim belongs indubitably and for all time to the man who occupies it. A "discovery" of certain specification must be made; the measurements and stakes must conform to definite regulations; the development work must be carried on and reported according to the letter of the law; and so in a dozen other trivialities which the miner is like to honor only in the most general fashion. But Billy's requirements were all fulfilled. The claims were undoubtedly his in the fullest sense of the word. At present he could not be deprived of them legally; and as it was no part of Lafond's scheme to allow Billy even the smallest comfort of self-pity when his humiliation came, he did not care even to consider the possibilities of chicanery.

The only glimmer of light he could discern lay in the chance that something might offer at the time of the transference of the property from Billy to the Eastern capitalists. This was the inspiration that had occurred to him in Durand's cabin. He had come to know Billy's sanguine temperament, his enthusiastic predilection for seeing things rose-hued, and he thought it very possible that the Westerner's representations to the capitalists might not bear too searching analysis. Overpraise of property might easily be construed as false representation. Too graphic a description of natural advantages might easily be twisted into an attempt to obtain money under false pretences. A skilful man might be able to discredit Billy so far that the transaction would fall through; and with the failure of this sale, on which the hopes of Billy's companions were built, the promoter's prestige would collapse entirely.

With this sketch of a plan in mind, Lafond applied himself diligently to acquiring a thorough knowledge of the property. That, at least, was not difficult. All he had to do was to go to Billy, and say, "Look here, Knapp, they tell me you've got quite an outfit here. Show me around, won't you?" The Westerner was only too glad of the opportunity to expatiate. He took Lafond down every prospect shaft, over every surface indication. He explained them all minutely. When he had finished, he gave Lafond carefully selected samples from all of the vein fillings. The half-breed told him he wanted them for the purposes of exhibition.

"I got a first class shelf down in the Nugget," he said; "an' I think if we'd jest put a line of samples along it from all the claims, and label 'em, it would be a pretty good 'ad,' don't you?"

Billy did. So the two "sampled" as carefully as for an assay test in the School of Mines at Rapid. About half of the result Lafond exhibited as he had suggested, but the rest he preserved carefully for assay tests of his own.

To be sure, Billy had quite freely shown him his own official tests made at the School of Mines, but Lafond wanted his information more direct. He could not doubt the accuracy of the reports. But there was always a possibility that the sampling had not been fairly done. He was sure of these other "averages," for he had helped take them. He liked to have things under his own eye, and it was for this reason he had first suggested to Durand that he would like to take lessons in the art of assaying.

At first he had intended to use the old entomologist merely as a convenience, but later, as he became more intimate with the man through his work, he actually began to entertain for him a friendship--his first in over fifteen years. With all men he had been friendly; with none had he been friends. Here he proved a really generous emotion, opening his heart to the soft influences of affection and memory, allowing himself in this one instance an intimacy absolutely without ulterior motive. It all dated from the first day, when a chance question of Durand's touched the springs of the half-breed's youth.

They had adjourned that afternoon to the workshop, where Durand built a charcoal fire in a little furnace and gathered about him a choice assortment of curious implements. After the furnace was well heated, he roasted the ore Lafond had brought with him, heating it through and through, until finally the fumes of sulphur, antimony and arsenic ceased to arise from the chalk-lined iron basin. While the process was going forward Durand explained pleasantly the various steps of the chemical change, interspersing much extraneous information--as, for instance, how Winkler, Tcheffkin and Merrick claim that there is here a loss of gold, which Crookes denies--to all of which Michail Lafond lent but an inattentive ear. He was little interested in theory; but observing the old man's delight in the scientific aspect of the experiment, he feigned corresponding pleasure on his own part.

Then they spread a flux of granulated lead over a crucible, in appropriate juxtaposition with the roasted ore. For nearly two hours it was fused; and as there was nothing to do until the slag of impurities had formed about the bright metal in the centre, the men talked much to each other while waiting.

When the ore was completely fused, Durand seized the result in a pair of forceps. With a small hammer he broke away the great masses of clotted slag. A small bright metal button remained.

"This is the lead, the silver and the gold," explained Durand, "and it is here that we exercise care. All else is as child's play."

He flattened the button on an anvil, and cut it into several pieces. These he placed in the little porous vessels made of compressed bone ash, called cupels, which had been slowly heating in the furnace. The surface of the lead filmed over. In a moment it turned bright. Then fumes began to arise.

Durand's attention became fixed. His hand was constantly at the furnace valve, admitting or excluding more air according as he desired the temperature to rise or fall.

"It is this which is difficult," he explained from the corner of his mouth. "If the heat is too great, some precious metal escapes with the lead. If the heat is too little, the lead is not all driven away."

Lafond was attentive enough to this. He desired above all the practical knowledge.

"Observe the fumes," said Durand; "that is the true test. When they whirl above the molten metal, then is everything well. When the fumes do creep slowly like the mist on a stream, then the heat is not sufficient. If, on the other hand, they do rise straight upward, then it is necessary to reduce the heat at once."

After a time the remaining impurities, under Durand's skilful manipulation, were absorbed by the cupels. The little vessels were drawn from the furnace and placed to one side to cool. A small yellow button was finally detached with pincers.

"That then is the gold!" cried Lafond.

"And silver," corrected Durand gently. He weighed the button with great care. Then with nitric acid he ate out the silver. The result was weighed. The assay was finished. By comparing the weights of the original ore, the cupelled button and the final product, statistics were obtained.

The men drew a long sigh of relief now that the task was quite finished.

"It is hard work," observed Durand.

"It is very good of you to take so much trouble for me," replied Lafond, for the sake of politeness.

"I like you," explained the old man simply, "because you speak French and because there is something in your face that shows that you too have been wronged, and that perhaps, like myself, in your youth you have been light-hearted and were loved by maid and man with the love that is given the reckless--and foolish," he concluded with a little bitterness.

Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond, so that he almost wept with the sheer joy of it.

"It is true, and you are my brother to have seen it thus," he cried, lapsing unconsciously into the idiom of the Sioux.

They washed their hands and went into the other cabin, where they sat in the chairs made of barrels, and Lafond talked, talked, talked, until the dusk of twilight descended upon them and stole away even the white butterfly cases.

He spoke swiftly and animatedly and with much gesticulation. Men will tell you to-day that his speech was deliberate, scant, reserved.

It was all of his youth. He described with abandon and fire the tall pines, the still darkling river running beneath the cedars and birches; the cabins, antler crowned, and the little gardens of their dooryard. He related tenderly the life of those old days--the dance in winter to the music of a single fiddle, and the snow shoe journey homeward under the white stars, with mayhap a kiss upon a rosy cheek and a slap from a mittened hand at the end of it; the wild exhilarating dangers of log running in the spring; the canoe journey, the camping, the fishing, through all that watered north country of the fir-girdled lakes and trout-haunted streams in summer; the calling of the moose under the round harvest moon, the stalking of the white-tailed deer, the corn frolics whereat were more of the full-blossomed low-voiced chatterers not unwilling to be wooed under that same great moon, through whose shower of silver light the bull moose called to his mate, also not unwilling. These things the half-breed told in that marvellous musical voice which, with his expressive eyes, was now his greatest charm. He told also more personally of his own youth. There had been a time when Michail Lafond had been straight and clear-eyed and handsome. At the dances and the corn frolics the fairest of the maidens was not so very coy to him. In the log running Michail Lafond was the man always called upon to skim over the bobbing logs under the very imminence of the jam; his was the peavy that moved the bit of timber which locked the whole; his the merry laugh as he had lightly escaped the plunging foaming death. On and still on the voice rolled, until suddenly the room was silent and dark, and the man in the corner had arisen abruptly and gone out, and the white-haired naturalist was left alone, one hand on each arm of his chair, looking straight before him, beyond the cabin walls, beyond the years.

Next day Lafond came again, and the next and the next. The assays were all finished and tabulated. Still he continued to come, as usual, each afternoon, for an hour or so at least. Durand did not smoke himself, but he kept a pipe and a package of tobacco always on the table for his visitor. They clasped each other's hands with fervor when they met and parted. They called each other "mon vieux." And, what is more, they could sit quite silent for hours without embarrassing each other in the least.

The men in the camp noticed this intimacy and commented on it.

"Clar case of millennium," said Bill Martin, "Lion an' th' lamb. Ain't no other way to explain it, fer what good Mike ever gets out of that nutty old Bugchaser is beyond me!"

Not that anyone cared. Everybody was at this moment speculating earnestly on all possible results, good, bad, or indifferent, of the pending visit of the Chicago tenderfeet. Although, strictly speaking, their decision had only to do with the Great Snake, it was well understood that it fixed also the value of every other piece of property within a circumference of fifty miles. Little did those three tenderfeet realize, as they dutifully changed cars at Grand Island, Edgemont and other way stations, how much their holiday jaunt, as it was to them, meant to a whole community of reasonably hard-working men.

Lafond was the most interested of all, because, to his disgust, the assays had been good, so good that the "false pretence" scheme would have to be given up. He found himself, as usual, facing a situation with not much more than luck to depend on. But he always had good luck.

XXII

IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND GLORIFY PETER

The most important event in the history of Copper Creek was indeed at hand. The long-awaited Easterners were to arrive that very day to look over the property. Billy Knapp had already driven to Rapid to meet them, and their coming was momentarily expected.

The camp had discussed long and heatedly the method of their reception. Billy Knapp, and with him a strong contingent, advocated best clothes, an imported brass band, and a generally festal appearance of evergreens and bunting. But this, Moroney, Lafond and Graham decidedly opposed.

"The way to make men give you things," said the last, "is to pretend you don't want them."

But it was Moroney's eloquence that carried the day. In fervid rhetoric he pointed out that men were more apt to join an already prosperous community than to furnish prosperity to one sadly in need of it. He also pointed out many other things, including the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Bird of Freedom. But that was what he meant.

So when Billy and the buckboard drove dashingly up to Bill Martin's stoop, the white road was to all intents and purposes deserted--unnaturally so, for not a living thing was to be seen from one end of it to the other.

"Look's if your town was dead," remarked one of the Easterners, with a laugh.