THE LODE
Weston, sitting down on the pile of gravel, took the hat from his
comrade, and the trickle from the brim of it splashed refreshingly
upon his hot and grimy face when he tilted it to drink. It was
shapeless, greasy, and thick with dust, and few men who fare daintily
in the cities would have considered it a tempting cup. That, however,
did not occur to Weston, but another thought flashed into his mind as
he glanced toward the undergrowth behind which the man who had led
them there lay. He lowered the hat a moment and rose wearily.
"A few drops of this might have saved our partner," he said. "Now he
has gone on; may the trail he has taken be a smooth and easy one."
Then he drank, standing, a deep, invigorating draught, which seemed to
cool his fevered blood and put new life in him. He gasped for a moment
or so, and drank again, and then, flinging wide the splashes upon hot
earth and leaves, sat down heavily. As he fumbled for his pipe,
Devine, who had drunk in the meanwhile, turned to him.
"No," he said reflectively, "I don't quite think you're right. It
wasn't thirst that brought Grenfell to his end. He had more water than
either of us--you saw to that--and, though it wouldn't have been
pleasant, you and I could have held out another day."
"What was it then?" asked Weston.
"The strain of the journey on a played-out constitution, and, as I
think I suggested, the effect of excitement on a diseased heart. The
man was under a high tension the last day or two. It's a sure thing he
had something on his mind. After all, I guess it was a delusion."
Weston said nothing, but lay still with his pipe in his hand. There
was before him a task from which he shrank, but he was worn-out and
could not nerve himself to undertake it yet, and in the meanwhile he
thought of his dead comrade with a certain regretful tenderness. The
man had had no claim on him, and there had been much that was
dissimilar in their natures, but they had, after all, borne many
hardships together, and that counted for a good deal. Still, in one
way he could not be sorry that Grenfell had gone on, for life, as he
had said, had very little to offer this outcast. It was clear that the
same thing held true in his own case, and he remembered with a little
wry smile that Grenfell had said his share was to go to him if they
found the mine. They had not found it, and there was no prospect of
their doing so, for his faith in the project had vanished now that
Grenfell was dead. It remained for them only to go back to the
settlements, defeated.
At length Devine broke in upon his reflections.
"I don't know whether you remember that we've had nothing since supper
last night," he said. "Anyway, I don't feel equal to undertaking
what's before us as I am. Seems to me the pack-horse would like a
drink, too."
Weston felt a little guilty, for the events of the past hour had
driven all thought of the beast out of his mind. Going back for it, he
led it to the water, after which they made a simple meal. When it was
over, Devine stood up resolutely.
"Now," he said, "there's a thing that must be done."
They set about it, and in another hour had laid to rest the man who
had brought them there. Then Devine put down his shovel and turned to
Weston.
"This thing has had its effect on me, and I guess you feel it too. He
was your partner quite a while," he said. "We want to get a move on
and work this depression out of us. Well, you can make camp--a little
farther back--while I crawl along between the willows and the range. I
want to see what's back of them. There's an idea in my mind."
Weston, who did not ask him what it was, fell in with the suggestion,
and, when his comrade floundered away through the willows, proceeded
to pitch the camp and build a fire ready for lighting among a few
straggling firs a little back from the water. Then he went to sleep,
and when the horse awakened him as it strove to pull out its picket to
get another drink, he was a little astonished to see that the sun now
hung low down above one range, and that Devine had not come back. He
lay still, however, in the blissful content that only the worn-out
know when, for a few hours, they can cease from toil. Presently he
heard the willows rustle, and, though it cost him an effort, he stood
up when Devine strode into camp. The latter glanced toward the hole
they had dug to reach the water.
"You've let the horse break the sides down and stand in it," he said.
"We'll clean it down to the gravel and pitch the soil out."
"Is it worth while?" Weston asked.
"Yes," said Devine, dryly, "as we'll probably be here a day or two, I
guess it is. I'll tell you about it when we get supper."
Weston might have noticed that there was something curious in his
manner, but he was very weary, and his mind was a little hazy then. He
took the shovel, and toiled for some few minutes before a strip of
stone he was endeavoring to wrench out broke beneath the blade. He
flung the fragments out of the hole, and one of them caught Devine's
eye.
"Pitch me up that big round stone," he said sharply.
Weston did as he was bidden, and his comrade, falling upon his knee,
smashed the fragments into little lumps, and then, clutching some of
them tight in one hand, stood up with a hoarse, exultant laugh.
"We've struck the lode!" he exclaimed.
Weston was beside him in a moment, and Devine poured the crushed
fragments into his hand.
"Look!" he said.
Weston did so, and while his heart thumped painfully the blood crept
to his face. The little lumps he gazed at were milky white, and
through them ran what seemed to be very fine yellow threads.
"That is wire gold?"
"It is," said Devine. "A sure thing."
Then the surveyor swept off his battered hat and swung round toward
the willows, a grotesque ragged figure with his hands spread out.
"You weren't crazy, partner. You brought us up out of the swamps and
sloos of poverty, and planked us down right on to the lode," he said.
Weston said nothing. After all, he was English, and to some extent
reticent, but he felt that his comrade's dramatic utterance was more
or less warranted, for the irony and pathos of the situation was clear
to him. Grenfell had found the mine at last, but the gold he had
sought so persistently was not for him. Men great in the mining world
had smiled compassionately at his story, others with money to invest
had coldly turned their backs on him, and it had been given to a
railroad hand and a surveyor, who had longed for an opportunity for
splitting roofing shingles in return for enough to eat, to prove that,
after all, the skill he had once been proud of had not deserted him.
He had patiently borne defeat, and now the thrill of the long-deferred
triumph had crushed him out of existence.
In a moment or two Devine spoke again in a different tone.
"Well, we'll get supper. You want to cool off and quiet down."
Weston felt that this was true, and it was a relief to start the fire
and prepare the meal, for he had found the rush of emotion which had
swept over him almost overwhelming. It was, however, not until the
meal was ready that he was quite master of himself, and they ate it
before they said anything further about the matter. Then Devine took
out his pipe, and lying with his back against a fir, turned to his
comrade as the soft dusk settled.
"Whether Grenfell knew where he was going when he started out last
night, or was led by some blind impulse or subconscious memory, is
more than I can tell, and, anyway, it's not a point that greatly
matters now," he said. "The cold fact is that you struck the water on
the creek where, as he told you, he once got a drink."
"But things don't fit in," objected Weston.
"Oh," said his companion, "you let me talk. You've been in this
country a few years. I was raised in it. He said that a creek ran from
the range, and, though there's mighty little water in it, I guess it
does that now. There's rock, milling rock shot with gold, under it,
and a small flow of water will filter a long way through gravel."
"But he described it as an ordinary open creek," persisted Weston.
"That's easy," said Devine. "It was, quite a while ago, and nature
handles these mountains mighty roughly, as you ought to know. She
sweeps them with cloudbursts that wash half a hillside into the
valleys, and now and then with snowslides and tremendous falls of
rock. One of them filled up that creek, and, as far as I can figure,
it did rather more. It filled up the gully through which the creek
flowed high up on the range, and, while a little water still creeps
through, most of the melted snow goes down another creek. As I took
the trouble to ascertain, it splits right through the lower slopes and
comes out most a league away."
This seemed reasonable. Most of the streams among those ranges
originate, as Weston knew, in the melting snow, but there was still a
point his comrade had left unexplained.
"Then where's the lake?" he asked.
Devine laughed.
"You're sitting right beside it now."
Weston gazed at him in blank astonishment, and then a light broke in
on him.
"The willows?" he said. "The water in that creek would no doubt spread
underground, and this is evidently an unusually dry season. Still,
Grenfell spoke of a mile or two of water. Where has it gone?"
"That," explained Devine, "seems the simplest thing of all. Anyway,
I'll give you my theory. When I crawled along the edge of the willows
this afternoon, I found the outlet of an old creek and a beaver-dam.
Now we're assuming that the creek I've mentioned once ran into the
lake just here, that is, before a snowslide filled up the ravine with
debris and diverted the creek into the other gully, the mouth of which
is--below--the beaver-dam."
"You have explained how the water got here, not how it got away," said
Weston, impatiently.
"No," replied Devine. "I haven't explained either of them yet; but
we'll get on a little. Once, and I don't think it was very long ago,
there was a little water with a creek flowing out of it in this
hollow. A colony of beavers came along and put up their dam across
that creek, and that backed the water up a foot or two. If you'd
skirted this hollow you'd have seen that it's tolerably level, and a
foot rise would spread the water quite a way. I want to say that it
was probably a swamp with only grass on it when the creek ran through
it. Well, the beavers liked the place, and piled up their dam, while
the water went farther and farther back across the swamp. Finally, the
beavers either died off or something drove them out. It was probably
after that that the dam broke down and the water ran off. Then the
snowslide cut off the creek, and as the hollow dried out the willows
spread across it."
Weston could find no fault with this train of reasoning, which made
comparatively plain Grenfell's long and unsuccessful search.
"Yes," he admitted, "it's logical, and I think it's correct. I
believe, from what Grenfell once said, that he crossed the range to
the east of us, not far away, some years ago with another man, and he
must have noticed this valley. Further, I now feel reasonably sure
that he and I once stood on the shoulder of the big peak in the
southwest and looked right up the hollow." He smiled rather grimly.
"We naturally saw nothing. We were looking for a lake that had dried
out."
He lay still for a minute or two, and then broached the subject that
both had held in abeyance.
"Well," he said, "what's to be done?"
"Stay here two days," advised Devine. "Gather up a load of specimens
and try to trace the vein. Then we'll put in our stakes, and start
right off for the settlement, to record as many feet of frontage as
the law will allow us. After that, you, as holding the larger share,
will see what can be done about handing it over to a company, while I
come back with provisions and get the assessment work put in. You're
going to have mighty little trouble about raising the money when
people see those specimens."
He broke off for a moment and glanced back toward the willows.
"In a way," he added, "it's rough on Grenfell."
"Ah," said Weston, quietly, "neither you nor I can be sure of that."
After that there was silence, and it seemed to both of them that the
shadows crept in closer about their flickering fire, and that the
little wind which sighed among the pine-tops had grown colder. The
camp seemed strangely empty, and, glancing around from force of habit
once or twice, they realized with a little start that there was now no
third figure sitting beside the blaze. The man who had made that weary
march with them had taken the unmarked trail.
It was two days later when they started south. Reaching a little
desolate settlement in due time, without misadventure, they limped
into it, ragged and dusty, leading the pack-horse, which was very
lame. They stopped outside a little wooden store which had a kind of
rude veranda in front of it, where the loungers sat on hot afternoons,
and a man in a white shirt and store trousers came out and leaned on
the railing. He had a hard face, and it grew a trifle more grim as he
looked at them, for the light had not quite gone, although it was late
in the evening.
"Where's Grenfell?" he asked.
"Dead," said Weston.
The man made a gesture of resignation. He had acquired his money with
some difficulty, and there was no great trade in that neighborhood,
while it not infrequently happened that his customers failed to pay
him when the Government became economical and voted no money for the
making of roads, which is the small bush rancher's chief source of
support.
"Well," he said, "I'm sorry. You're broke?"
They certainly looked it, and for a moment Weston said nothing. He was
aware that there was a spice of cruelty in this, but he was curious to
see what the man would do. It became evident that he could, at least,
face an unpleasant situation with equanimity.
"Anyway," he said, "you can come right in, and I'll get you some
supper. You can put the horse in Musgrave's stable yonder."
Then, while Devine laughed softly, Weston strode up to the veranda and
thrust a heavy bag into the storekeeper's hand.
"Get a light," he said, "and look at them."
It was ten minutes later when they sat around a little table in the
back store, which smelt unpleasantly of salt pork and coffee. A big
kerosene lamp hung above their heads, and the storekeeper gazed with
almost incredulous eyes at the litter of broken stones in front of
him.
"Oh, yes," he said, "it's high-grade milling ore. You'll say nothing
to the boys, and get your record in to-morrow. Then what's your
program?"
"I'll go on to Vancouver and see about getting a well-known mining man
to go up and certify my statements," said Weston. "Then I'll try to
raise sufficient money to make a start with. I ought to get it there
or in Victoria."
"No," said the storekeeper, "you go on to Montreal. They've more money
yonder, and it's good policy to strike for the place you're likely to
get the most."
"One understands that it's difficult for the little man who has a
claim to sell to get much for it anywhere," said Weston, with a smile.
The storekeeper straightened himself resolutely in his chair.
"That's a cold fact, but in this case it has to be done. I got my
money hard." In proof of it he held up one hand from which three
fingers were missing. "That was the result of working sixteen hours
right off in a one-horse sawmill. We had one light above the bench,
and when I was too played out to see quite what I was doing I got my
hand drawn in. I made the rest of my pile--it's a mighty little
one--much the same way, and now I'm holding tight to what is mine. I
provided your outfit, for, crazy as it seemed, I believed Grenfell's
tale, and I figured that you were straight men; but I know what
generally happens when the little man goes around the city with a mine
to sell."
He brought his hand down upon the table with a bang.
"You're going right into Montreal--I'll find the money--and you'll
stand off just as long as it seems advisable for the biggest figure.
When this thing's floated, we're going to get our share."
Weston, who sat on a packing-case because there was only one chair,
glanced around the store. Its walls were of undressed pine logs, and
it was roofed with cedar shingles hand-split. There were a few dozen
bags of somebody's "Early Riser" flour standing upon what appeared to
be kegs of nails, and across the room odd cases of canned goods, lumps
of salt pork, and a few bags of sugar apparently had been flung
together any way. Building and stock were of the crudest description,
and there was certainly nothing about either that suggested any degree
of prosperity. Then he glanced at his companions: the storekeeper,
dressed in shirt and trousers of a kind that no fastidious man would
think of wearing, and Devine, who had worn-out boots and was
suggestively ragged and lean. They did not look the kind of men who
were likely to pit themselves successfully against opulent financiers
and stock-jobbers in Montreal, but something in their grim faces
suggested that at least they meant to fight.
"Well," he said, "I'll start to-morrow, and do what I can. It's quite
likely that before we put the thing through we'll have trouble."