years before, the air of gentle and quaint courtesy, which a keener
observer would have associated with an old-fashioned society now quite
passed away. It should have gone with ruffles and silken hose, with
powdered hair and silver shoe buckles.
The naturalist caught sight of the newcomer and approached.
"They are quite gentle," he assured, explaining the beasts. He rubbed
the heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong way. "Ah, Jacques," he said to
the little animal, relapsing quaintly into a sort of old-time speech,
"thy hair doth resemble in stiffness of texture the bristles of thine
own curry brush."
The raccoon uttered his high, purring over-note, and seized the man's
fingers with his little black hands, almost human. The bear waved his
paws appealingly. The bobcat danced back and forth at the end of its
leash. "Peace, my children," chided the old man, bestowing on each a
pat. "It is not yet the hour of noon." He stooped to unsnap the
raccoon's chain; and then, as though recalling the half-breed's
presence, he turned with an air of apology.
"You are a stranger here?" he asked. "Yes? And you walk this morning
for your pleasure? Yes? That happens not often in these parts." He
went on, conversing shyly but easily, with the obvious desire of
pleasing the half-breed rather than himself. Lafond had opportunity to
observe the great solidity of the logs composing the cabin walls, and
to recognize that the structure must belong to the earlier period of
the primitive architecture of the Hills--for there are such periods.
"You have lived here long," he suggested, following out this inference.
"Yes," laughed the old man softly, "very long. The camp there came to
me. I was an old timer when the first house was built."
After a little, they entered the cabin together, and Lafond found
himself in a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all sorts of literary and
scientific junk. The imagination could discover much food for
speculation in the curiosities literally heaped about the apartment,
but most wonderful of all, seizing the eye, holding it from all else,
were the scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes hanging everywhere on
the wall. They were lined with white paper pasted over a layer of
cork. In them, row after row, were impaled butterflies of many colors.
Thousands of the pretty insects were there outspread, varying in size
from the tiny blue _Lycaena_ to the great _Troilus_ or the gorgeous
yellow and black _Turnus_. They were exquisitely prepared, with just
the right lift on the wings, just the proper balance of the long
antennae, until it seemed that they must be on the point of flight, and
one almost expected that in another moment the air would be filled with
a fluttering, many-hued splendor.
The men seated themselves in two home-made chairs. The raccoon,
evidently from old winter-time habit, waddled in a dignified fashion to
the fireless stove, where he curled up like a door-mat with keen,
bright eyes. Mike's gaze roamed about the apartment.
"You are a great scientist," he observed, intending the remark for a
compliment.
"In a way, in a way," replied the old man humbly. "One must occupy the
mind when one is alone, and what task more fitting to our highest
faculties than that of investigating, with all due reverence, the
workings of God's mechanism?"
He said it with a simple piety which could not provoke a smile.
Michail Lafond caught himself wondering what he did there. Surely
there was nothing to interest him in stuffed insects and a garrulous
old man, especially as the conversation insisted on retaining its
formal footing.
"You are not a miner?" the entomologist inquired, after a moment's
pause.
"No," replied Mike.
"I am glad to hear it. I like not this eager scrambling for what does
so little good. I too once---- But now I am content; yes, content.
There is always good if one will but find it. I myself might with
justice be accused of being a miner. I find my leads, I develop them,
I assay my ores; but always in miniature--on a small scale."
Then, in a flash, Michail Lafond saw at least the outlines of his plan,
and he knew why he had come in here to talk to the garrulous old man.
"You know the assay, then?" he inquired conversationally.
"In a modest way--a few simple tests."
"But that is much. Do you not know that it is at Rapid, in the School
of Mines, that the nearest assayer is? You have a profession here at
your lands."
A sudden scream broke through the apartment, a rush of wings, a growl.
The old man ran nimbly to the stove, and rescued the little raccoon
from the savage attacks of a magpie. The magpie sailed back to his
perch on one of the butterfly cases, where he ruffled his feathers
indignantly. The raccoon curled up in the old man's lap.
"You are French?" inquired the latter, with more interest than he had
hitherto shown.
"I have some French blood," replied Lafond cautiously.
"I knew it," said Durand, immensely pleased. "I am rarely mistaken.
It was a twist of your words that suggested it, an idiom. _Et
maintenant nous pouvons causer_," he added in the purest Parisian
accent.
"_Oui, oui, oui,_" cried the half-breed, suddenly swept up by an
uncontrollable excitement he could not himself understand. "_La belle
langue!_"
He felt an unwonted expansion of the heart at thus hearing once more
the language of his youth. The formality of the interview was gone.
They conversed freely, swiftly, animatedly. Durand had been educated
in Paris, and had a thousand reminiscences to impart. He told of many
quaint customs, and Lafond, with growing emotion, recalled similar or
analogous customs among his own expatriated branch of the race in the
pine forests of Canada. His sullen, taciturn manner broke. He became
the Gaul. He gesticulated, he overflowed, his eye lighted up, he said
a thousand things.
After a time Durand opened a chest at the foot of the bed, from which
he abstracted a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. These he placed
on the table with a quaint little air of ceremony.
"Sir," said he, "we must know each other better. We speak each the
language we love. We talk of old days. Sir," he concluded, bowing
with stately grace as he poured the red wine into the glasses, "I ask
you to drink wine with me to our acquaintance. My name is Durand."
He inclined, his hand to his heart, and somehow there seemed to be
nothing ridiculous in the act.
"I am Michail Lafond," replied the half-breed simply.
A silence fell. The realities came back to Lafond's mind.
"I would ask you a favor," he said abruptly.
"Name it; it is yours."
"I want you to teach me how to make an assay."
"It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly."
"Is it difficult?"
"Not very."
"When shall we begin?"
"When you say."
Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two."
Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the attitude he knew the
old man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be very
interesting, this making of gold from the rock."
"And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is the
thrill of a shared thought."
The raccoon stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and began
deliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftly
inserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man's
face with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between both
his palms, and smiled at him affectionately.
"Ah, Jacques, _polisson_! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early what
thy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villain
would even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily bread
and all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nose
with the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backed
off deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durand
gazed at him with a kindly smile.
After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing.
He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea would
lead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did not
know; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on such
exaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details would
develop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil.
Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out into
the higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up a
hill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of a
falling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followed
the sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and three
shafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surface
property of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond halted
abruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he looked
over, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at the
mouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slate
walls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz,
putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color by
moisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finally
he selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled the
ample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town and
the Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar.
"Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "and
with it construct a shelf there by the mirror."
He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness,
hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail.
Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the job
himself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimens
which he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked a
label, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine.
Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the group
of men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack.
XVIII
TIRED WINGS
In spite of the fact that she had laughed at Graham's blindness in
falling into her trap, Molly Lafond felt enough curiosity to induce her
to enter into several conversations with him during the course of that
afternoon. He sat by the door whistling. Out in the sun the men cut
logs, notched ends, heaved and pushed. The girl alternated between
personal encouragement of the workers, and a curious examination of the
idler.
Graham interested her because he puzzled her. The young man no longer
held to the quizzical and cynical attitude he had assumed in the
morning, but neither did he at once manifest that personal interest
which she had imagined inevitable. He caught at her statement that she
had done nothing but "read, read, read." In the course of twenty
minutes he had made her most keenly aware of her deficiencies, and that
without the display of any other motive than a frank desire to discuss
the extent of her knowledge. He opened to her fields whose existence
she had never suspected; he showed her that she had but superficially
examined those she had entered. Authors she had much admired he
disposed of cavalierly, and in their stead substituted others of whom
she had never heard.
"I like Bulwer," she remarked, secure in her classic because it had
been the only one of Sweeney's collection to come in a set and bound in
brown leather.
"Bulwer, yes," said Graham, pulling his little moustache, and speaking,
as his habit sometimes was, more to himself than to his companion. "We
all go through that stage, but we get over it after awhile. You see,
he's superficial and awfully pedantic. There is much beauty in it,
too. I remember in one of his novels--I forget which--there is a
picture of a child tossing her ball skyward, with eyes turned upward to
the skies, that is worth a good deal."
"It's in _What Will He Do with It?_" cried Molly, aglow at being able
to interpolate correctly.
"Yes," assented Graham, indifferently. "It has something to do with
youth, I think. Before our critical judgment grows up and finds him
out, there is a peculiar elevation about Bulwer's themes and treatment.
His world is blown; but it is big, and his figures have a certain
scornful nobility about them. If I were to compete with the gentleman
under discussion," he concluded, with a slight laugh, "I would say that
he throws upon the true gold of youthful ideals, hopes, and dreams, the
light of his own tinsel."
Molly was subdued, humbled. She was deprived at a stroke of all her
weapons. For the first time she found herself looking up to a man, and
wondering whether she could ever meet him on terms of equality. She
caught herself covertly scrutinizing Graham to see if he too realized
his advantage. He was genuinely interested; that was all. He seemed
to take it for granted that she was already on his level. This
encouraged her somewhat.
Whenever she again joined the group of sweating men at work on her
house, she felt subtly that she was returning from a far country. She
had brought back with her something new. The nature of the
conversation had lifted her to the contemplation of fresh possibilities
of human intercourse. With a defiant toss of the head she indulged
herself to the extent of imagining several Bulwer-like conversations,
in which she dealt out brilliant generalities to the universal
applause. It was the first flight her wings had essayed; the first
charm not merely physical that she had experienced with one of the
other sex. She felt she was going to like this man Graham.
And yet that very elation was one of the reasons why, after dinner in
the "hotel," she walked with Billy Knapp, although Graham was plainly
waiting for her. It had been her first flight; her wings were tired.
The reaction had come.
The dinner itself, and its manner, had much to do with bringing this to
her consciousness. Entering at one end of the hotel dining-room, she
first became aware of the cook stove at the other, and, behind it,
tins. Down the centre extended the three bench-flanked board tables,
polished smooth by the combined influences of spilled grease and much
rubbing. At certain short intervals had been stationed tin plates,
over each of which were stacked, pyramid fashion, an iron knife, fork
and spoon. Tin cups spaced the plates. Down the centre of each table
were distributed thick white china receptacles containing sugar, lumpy
and brown with coffee; salt; and butter on the point of melting. At
dinner-time the cook placed between these receptacles capacious tins,
steaming respectively, with fried and boiled pork, boiled potatoes,
cornmeal mush, and canned tomatoes; besides corn bread, soda biscuits,
and a small quantity of milk for the coffee. Then, wiping his
glistening face on the red-checked little towel that hung at his waist,
he entered the "office" and, seizing a huge bell, clanged forth, now to
the right, now to the left, that his meal was ready.
The men ate in their shirt sleeves, those farthest half obscured by the
clouds of steam from the uncovered dishes. The cook stove, the dishes,
and the men heated the low unventilated room almost to suffocation.
They gobbled their food rapidly, taking noisy swigs of the coffee from
the tin cups. As each finished, he wiped his plate clean with the soft
inside of a soda biscuit, drew his knife across the bread once or
twice, swallowed the gravy-laden biscuit at one mouthful, and departed
without further ceremony into the outer air.
It was all thoroughly Western, thoroughly material, thoroughly restful
to tired wings.
As the meal progressed, the exaltation faded slowly. Molly received
the assiduous attentions of everybody. After dinner, as has been said,
she and the wonderful Billy Knapp disappeared into the twilight,
leaving the disconsolate miners to find their way to the Little Nugget
when it pleased them to do so.
Billy talked. He poured out his confidences. He told how great was
Billy, how bright were Billy's prospects, how important were Billy's
responsibilities. He was glad to show this young girl the town; it was
Billy's town. He was pleased to tell her the names of the hills
hereabouts; these hills concealed within their depths the veins of
Billy's lodes. He delighted in giving the history of the men they met;
for these men looked up to Billy as the architect of their future
forties. He spoke enthusiastically of the prospects.
"Thar is a lode," said he earnestly, "over on the J.G. fraction that's
shore th' purtiest bit of quartz lead you ever see. The walls is all
of slate, running jest's slick side by side, with a clear vein between
'em, and she'll run 'way up, free millin'. I tell you what, Miss
Molly, thar's big money in it, thar shorely is! When I get those
Easte'n capitalists interested, and ready to put a little _salt_ in,
and git up a few mills and necessary buildin's, you'll jest see things
hummin' in this yar kentry."
Out of the darkness a silent little figure glided and fell in step with
the girl.
"Hullo, bub," said Billy indifferently, and went on to tell what he was
going to do. Billy had great plans.
Molly said nothing to the new member of their party, but she reached
out her hand and patted the little cotton-covered shoulder. She looked
about at the dark town and the hills, and drew a deep breath. This was
real, tangible. She felt at home in it, and she was adequate to all
that its conditions might bring forth. Above all, she was confident
here. Graham and his ideas seemed to her at the moment quite nebulous
and phantom-like.
"Let's go to the Little Nugget," she suggested suddenly.
They turned to retrace their steps. As they passed an open doorway, a
big man darted out with unnatural agility and seized the Kid by the
scruff of the neck.
"I beg your pardon, miss, whom I am overjoyed to meet. Standing as I
do _in loco parentis_, the claims of the rising generation constrain me
to postpone that more intimate acquaintance which your attractions
demand of my desire. Come along here, you!" and he dragged the Kid,
struggling and crying out, into the dark cabin.
"Ain't he great?" cried Billy, with real enthusiasm. "Ain't he just?
They ain't a man in th' whole Northwest as can sling the langwidge that
man can when he tries. You just ought to see him when he cuts loose,
you just ought."
"Who is he?" asked Molly.
"Him? What, him? He's Moroney!"
His tone denied the need of further question. They entered the saloon.
The first half hour of Molly's evening in the Little Nugget was
constrained. Up to this point she had met the men of the camp under
extraordinary circumstances. Now she was called upon to face them in
their time of relaxation and accustomed comfort. Such moments of
leisure crystallize for us men everywhere our opinions of people.
Anybody is welcome to sail with us, hunt with us, fish with us, ride
with us, work with us, provided he is personally agreeable and
understands the game. We are not so undiscriminating when it comes to
a study fire and an easy chair. Translate the study fire and the easy
chair to the Little Nugget and a quiet game, and you will see one
reason for the constraint. No unkindness was intended. The situation
was merely, but inevitably, awkward for everybody.
In such emergencies as this, where a creature of coarser fibre would
fail, Molly's hereditary fineness of instinct stood her in good stead.
She saw intuitively the attitude she should take. In the first place,
she held herself in the background, left the lead to others, behaved as
if she suspected herself of being an intruder; so that the men suddenly
felt themselves very paternal and adoptive.
In the second place, she encouraged them to show off; which they did
with the utmost heartiness. The first embarrassment wore away before
long, and Molly took her place in the corner of the bar with the tacit
approval of every man in the room.
The remainder of the evening was enjoyable. Some features of it would
scarcely have impressed a refined Easterner favorably, for these were
rough men, with crude tastes and passions. Once having accepted the
girl as one of themselves, they lapsed to some extent, though not
entirely, into their accustomed manner. It is a little difficult
sometimes to interpret the West in terms of the East. An act which in
the older country would be significant of too licensed freedom, on the
frontier is a matter of course. Everything depends on the point of
view and the attitude of mind.
Around Molly Lafond seethed a constantly changing group of men. They
joked boisterously at one another and at her. The standard of wit was
the saying of insulting things with a laugh that showed that the remark
held in itself something of facetious sarcasm. Through thinner skins
it would have bitten cruelly. Behind this lively group sat another,
more silent, smoking the amused pipe of contemplation, all alert to the
chances of conversational battle, ready to jump up and enter the lists
whenever a bright idea suggested itself. In the corner just behind the
bar, lurked Black Mike, keeping a sinister eye on Frosty's
dispensations. The faro dealer called his cards imperturbably over his
scantily patronized game. Occasionally someone, glowing with the
good-natured excitement of jesting, would break away from the laughing
group, and, standing the while, would stake a few red chips on a turn
or so of the cards.
Peter, obsessed of some sudden and doggish affection, ceased his
restless wanderings. He took up his position, resting on one hip, both
hind legs to one side, directly beneath Molly's feet. There his shaggy
head was of such a height that the girl could just reach it with the
point of her shoe. From time to time, when the exigency demanded such
a pose, she looked down prettily, and stirred the animal's button ears
with her little foot. On such occasions Peter gravely rolled his eyes
upward and wriggled his stump of a tail.
A young fellow by the name of Dave Kelly stood nearest her. He was a
handsome young fellow, with a laughing boyish face. As time went on,
he became more and more elated and sure of himself. Occasionally, when
the press of men behind would push him forward, he would reach across
the girl to regain his balance. Once he put his hand lightly on the
point of her shoulder. He paused, with a strange delicious thrill at
the feel of the round young arm under the loose stuff of the gown,
which slipped beneath his grasp to emphasize the smoothness of the
skin. Aware of the touch, she looked toward him for a minute,
laughing. Somehow it gave him a strange feeling of intimacy with her,
inexplicable, subtle. Without knowing why he did so, he felt his own
shoulder underneath his loose flannel shirt. It gave the same
impression, only rougher, coarser.
There suddenly sprang into his mind a sense of physical kinship between
himself and her. He took frequent opportunities of repeating the
contact, always lightly, always with the same delicious thrill. At
each touch the girl turned to him for a vaguely smiling instant. She
was absorbed in the men about her. The youth at her side had fallen
silent, but her good nature extended to everybody.
Late in the evening somebody suggested that Frosty had been singularly
unemployed. Glasses were filled. Molly's was handed to her.
"I don't want any," said she.
"It'll do y' good," "Try her," "Aw, come on!" urged a dozen voices.
She sipped a little. It tasted to her like liquid fire, with a strange
gagging property as it reached the region of the epiglottis. She
sputtered and choked.
"Ugh!" she shuddered. "Ugh! I couldn't get a glass of that stuff down
if it killed me." She shut her eyes and shivered with a pretty
disgust. "I simply can't," she repeated.
"Ain't ye got anything else, Frosty?" they cried reproachfully. "That
stuff's purty rank fer a lady, that's right. Skirmish around thar, an'
see what y' kin discover."
Frosty skirmished around, and finally bobbed up, red-faced, with a
bottle of some light wine. Molly drank this slowly, with little more
satisfaction. Some people never care for the taste of anything with
alcohol in it, and the cheap wine had more than the suspicion of a wire
edge. But she liked the warm glow that followed, and she found that in
a moment or so she was much pleased with herself.
"Give me another of those," she smiled to Frosty, holding out the empty
glass. The men chuckled. This was something like.