Part 12 (1/2)

goes to work. Four years he's fitted out for, an' blamed if they don't turn out to be four hard luck years. First he strikes tough rock, then the price o' labor goes up on him, then he gets sick himself, an' it's most a year before he's right again; it's one thing here and another there, so finally he has to let his gang go, an' by that time he's so plumb crazy over his claim that he goes on workin' her by himself, everybody but him knowin' he couldn't do nothin' that way if he lived to be as old as Methusalem. Still, he don't seem to care, an' goes right on pluggin' away alone.

”Now here's where Harrison comes in. Jack's a pretty likely young man, an' he'd got to be Jim's foreman, an' was mighty sweet on the little girl. No blame to him, either. She's as pretty as a picture, an' smart as chain lightnin', but let to run wild like a colt. Long as she gets the old man's meals, an' keeps the house cleaned up, he don't care a mite what she does the rest o' the time. I guess, though, the girl's got discontented like, an' she'd be mighty glad to have the old man strike it rich, so's she could get out o' here for good an' move off to the city somewheres. Well, when the rest o' the gang goes, Harrison says he won't leave, but he'll work along a spell with the old man, an' if they strike things rich Jim can treat him any ways he thinks is right. Course, though, it ain't the old man or the mine Jack cares about; it's Ethel he's after, an' as I say, small blame to him.

”So there you are. The old man's the legal owner, but Jack's got a kind of a say-so about the mine, too. The old man's sensible enough about everythin' else, but half crazy about the mine, an' Jack's sensible enough about everythin' else, an' the mine, too, but he's half crazy about the girl. So that's the story, an' there you are.”

Frost, rising, nodded. ”I guess,” he said slowly, ”the old man's the one I want. I can tell better after I've seen 'em, though. What's the use of waiting, Abe? Let's go along over and size 'em up.”

For answer Peters rose and put on his coat, and a moment later they had left the cabin.

Meanwhile, over at Mason's, Jack Harrison had come slowly up the path, the stoop of his broad shoulders and the slight stiffness of his usually springy gait showing that there are limits beyond which the strongest muscle and sinew can not with safety be driven. Entering the kitchen and seeing no one, he stepped out on to the broad veranda which surrounded the house, and came suddenly on the girl he was seeking, seated alone and gazing idly out over the broad sweep of the darkening valley.

To find Ethel Mason in an att.i.tude even suggesting meditation was an occurrence so rare that the young man was fairly startled. ”Hullo, Ethel,” he exclaimed, ”anythin' gone wrong?”

The girl started to her feet. Slight of figure, slender and graceful as a deer, the brown curls cl.u.s.tering around her pretty face made her at first sight seem little more than a child in appearance, an impression, however, no sooner formed than at once dispelled by the soft curves of her figure, and the poise and self-reliance of her manner as she answered him.

”Yes,” she cried rebelliously, ”there's plenty wrong. I'm just sick and tired of the way things are going on. He doesn't give me enough a week to keep house for a dog; I haven't had a cent to spend on myself for a month; and then last night there's a dance over at the Hall, and every girl in the county can go but me, and I haven't a single thing to my name I can wear, and so I have to stay at home. Cook the meals, wash the dishes, clean the house; if that's all the life I'm ever going to have, I'd a lot rather be dead.”

The young man's face showed his dismay. ”Don't say that, Ethel,” he cried. ”I'm sorry things are goin' so bad. It's Jim's fault, partly, and it's mine, too. I'm afraid I'm gettin' as crazy over the lode as he is, and pretty nigh forgettin' everythin' else. I'm sorry, Ethel.

It is tough on you, and no mistake.”

The girl shrugged her shapely shoulders. ”Oh, it's all right,” she said indifferently. ”Everybody's got to have their troubles; and I wouldn't start telling you mine if it wasn't so's you could see what things are getting down to. You know what I think about you, anyway. I think you're a fool to stick around here. The old mine's never going to be any good, anyhow.”

Harrison smiled grimly. ”You know right well it ain't the mine I'm holdin' on for,” he answered, a gleam of pa.s.sion in his eyes. ”It's for what goes with it when we strike the lode. And the man that's waitin' for that ain't got no cause to be called a fool.”

The girl, not ill-pleased, tossed her head coquettishly. ”You aren't sure of either of 'em,” she cried, ”the lode or the girl. We aren't regular promised, Jack. Maybe some day a better looking fellow with more money'll come along, and then you'll get left.”

The young man's face grew dark with anger, and he took a quick step forward. ”Don't you dare say that!” he cried fiercely. ”If I thought you meant that, Ethel, I'd kill you! By G.o.d, I would!”

The girl shrank a little before the storm she had unwittingly raised.

”There, there,” she cried, ”don't be so foolish, Jack. I didn't mean it. You run along and fix up, and don't bother me. I've got to get supper. Where'd you leave the old man?”

Even before Harrison had started to reply, the door swung open and Mason entered, stooping, unkempt, weary, but with eye still bright and his whole expression alert and aglow with the l.u.s.t of battle.

”I knew it, Jack!” he cried. ”I told you the farther we worked to the eastward, the richer that fifth level was going to open up. Look at this! And this! And this!” and he tossed the chunks of rock on the piazza table.

Harrison, a trifle shamefaced, picked them up and nodded. They were in truth splendid samples, fairly blazing with copper.

”I tell you,” Mason went on, ”if we haven't really struck the lode, and I believe we have, we're right next door to it, anyway. Perhaps I haven't mined that rock year in and year out for ten years without finding out a little something about it. Perhaps I don't know the look of it and the feel of it, and pretty near the taste of it. I'll bet you anything you want, Jack, that inside a month we'll strike as rich copper as ever was mined at the lake.”

All through supper he talked on in a like strain. Ethel and Jack listening in silence. Then, after the supper dishes were cleared away, and the old man had settled down, pipe in mouth, in front of the kitchen stove, Harrison had his say.

”Look here, Jim,” he said abruptly, ”I did somethin' last night that I suppose is goin' to get you mad. I met Abe Peters walkin' home, an' he tells me he's got one of those eastern sharps stayin' with him, investigatin' likely claims, Abe says, with the idea to buy 'em if they comes up to standard. Abe says he starts to tell him about the Ethel, an' the man seems to be better posted than Abe is himself.

Anyways, we fixed it up that Abe's goin' to bring him over to-night after grub, an' we'll have a little talk with him. Can't do no harm, an' the way things is goin' now ain't right to none of us; not to you nor to me nor to the girl here, neither. So you want to treat 'em civil when they come.”

The old man straightened up in his chair with a glare of resentment, and banged the table with his clenched fist.

”No, sir,” he exclaimed, ”I won't see him or have nothing to do with him, and neither will you. I'll have no man nosing into my claim, or talking of buying it, either. It ain't a mite of use, Jack. The claim ain't for sale, and I won't have 'em coming round bothering me about it. You can get rid of Abe your own way, but I don't let him set foot in this house, him or his mining sharp or anybody else. I won't do it, Jack, for you nor no man.”

Harrison's jaw set with a resolution quieter, perhaps, but every bit as determined as Mason's.