going to turn in," she said abruptly, and slid down on the unsuspecting
Peter. They disentangled the trouble with merriment. Molly consoled
Peter. The room was full of noise and light.
"May I take you over?" Kelly was asking in her ear. She nodded assent.
The other men looked chagrined. It had not occurred to them.
Dave Kelly and Molly stepped gayly from the heated, garish saloon into
the still night. The contrast made them feel yet gayer. They remarked
on the stars and the moon, to do which it became necessary to look
upward and slacken their steps. He was very close to her. He slipped
his arm about her waist, his great hand resting firmly beneath her
small bust, and they stumbled on together in breathless silence. He
felt very bold and elated and happy.
Suddenly she looked down with an air of mock surprise. "What is this?"
she cried, lifting one of Dave's fingers and letting it fall. "Why, it
looks like your hand!"
"That's so!" grinned Dave.
"I wonder how that could have got there!"
Dave, finding himself unequal to persiflage, made no reply. She
nestled up to him a little and sighed. She liked it. She had not the
slightest idea that there was anything out of the way in it. Why
should she? Morals, as we understand them, she had never been taught.
They slowly approached the wagon, which during the day had been dragged
to a less conspicuous but more distant locality.
Ah, Molly, Molly, those wings are very tired!
At the moment when Kelly first pressed the girl to him, he experienced
a sudden lessening of her charm. It was not that she was less
feminine, or that, in his eyes, she had lost any moral excellence by
her easy surrender. Dave had probably as rudimentary ideas of the
finer moralities as Molly herself. But one very definite element of
her attraction had been given up--that of mystery, of remoteness, of
difference between herself and him. She was no longer a creature of a
wonderful and other sphere; she had become the female of his species.
All this was subtle and slight and quite unappreciated and unanalyzed
by Dave himself. But the keen intuition of the girl discovered it.
She felt the difference. Suddenly she became aware of the fact that
whatever a woman gives to a man takes something from her attraction,
and adds something to his. With the discovery, she resolutely put his
hand away.
"That's enough of that," she said in the sensible voice which some
women use so effectually.
Dave, unwilling to let the sensation go before he had drained it,
attempted to seize her by force. She slipped away and ran like a deer
to her wagon, gleaming white through the darkness. Dave sprang in
pursuit. At the instant Peter, who had followed unperceived, leaped
with a growl and fastened his teeth into Dave's cowhide boot. The
miner paused a moment undecided, and then, his natural good nature
coming to his rescue, he laughed. An answering laugh echoed from the
direction of the wagon.
"That's a pretty trick," he called, trying to disengage Peter's jaws.
Peter shook his head savagely and growled.
"You ought to learn to run," came the voice from the safety of the
wagon.
"Run!" laughed Dave. "Run with a dawg hangin' to you? Call him and
see if you can get him to leave go."
"Dog?" repeated the voice in puzzled tones.
"Yes, dog--this yere Peter. He seems to have took up with you-all.
He's got me by th' laig!"
Molly reappeared cautiously. Then she saw Peter, and advanced boldly.
The two young people looked at the eager and determined little dog, and
laughed with great good nature. Their crisis had passed, fortunately
without harm to either. Molly took Peter by the collar. Peter at once
let go.
"Good night," said Molly decidedly to Dave.
"Good night," said Dave, and turned back.
Molly walked on to the wagon, closely followed by Peter. As she
climbed in, she turned and caught sight of the little animal, eyeing
her wistfully.
"Want to come in?" said she.
Peter jumped to the whiffletree, then upon the seat, then into the
wagon. Molly followed.
"Peter," said she, "we won't do that any more. I don't believe it's a
good scheme. What do you think, dog?"
Peter wagged his stump of a tail, but as it was quite dark, this
expression of approval was lost. "I hope he won't say anything about
it," she went on reflectively. "But if he does"--she tossed her
head--"much good may it do any of them!" Then, after some time,
"Peter, let's go to sleep."
Peter whined with content.
XIX
THE BROAD WHITE ROAD
Copper Creek had begun as a half-way house, and had ended as a camp.
Thus the hotel was its oldest structure.
Situated about half way between Rockerville and Custer, on the old
Spring Creek trail, it often happened that the stage running from Rapid
to the last-named town would stop for the evening meal, or even for the
night, at the little log structure which Bill Martin had been sagacious
enough to erect there. The soil was good for potatoes, which was
lucky, for Bill Martin could never have prospered as a hotel keeper
pure and simple; because purity, simplicity, and temperance principles
have nothing to do with a Western inn. Bill cooked, made beds, and
raised potatoes. Then a fortuitous "grub staker" discovered the Great
Snake lode. A town sprang up in the night, so Bill Martin hired Black
Jack and built additions. And finally, since his food was good and
cheap, it came to be the proper thing to eat late dinners at two
dollars a week in the long dining-room of Bill Martin's new building.
After the Little Nugget, a later but more enterprising venture, Bill
Martin's Prairie Dog, with its small office, its big eating room, its
little square bedrooms above the office, and its ancient and musty
copies of distant journals, was acknowledged to be the most important
institution of the place.
From the narrow, roofless stoop its proprietor looked out tranquilly on
the growth of the camp. He was a tall, cadaverous, facetious
individual, slightly stooped, with thin impassive face, deep eyes, and
a beard that seemed always just two days old. He spoke with a drawl
that was at first natural, but later, as the quaint old fellow grew to
appreciate its humorous qualities, it took on a faint color of
affectation. He adopted always the paternal attitude, as was clearly
his right.
Bill Martin was probably the only man who could have told you the
history of Copper Creek, for he had been, through all of its changes of
population, the one stable character. First came the original "grub
staker" and a score more like him--impecunious, giving, many of them,
their labor and experience, in exchange for tools and provisions
furnished them by a speculator in the towns. The speculator took half
of what was found. These men were hardy, bold, enduring, skilful.
They grubbed about in the hills with the keen restless instinct of ants
over a mould of earth, moving rapidly, pausing often, lighting finally,
with an accuracy that to the outsider would have seemed something
preternatural, on the one quartz vein of the many, or the one
significant lead in the multitude of systems that seamed the country in
all directions. Thereupon they staked out claims with white pine
posts, and blasted little troughs to show milk-white quartz or red ore
filling. And finally they disappeared, like bats before daylight,
leaving not an echo of themselves to recall their presence to the hills
in which they had toiled.
Their places were taken by the speculator, the miner with a little
money, the small capitalist willing to invest and not unwilling to work
with his own hands. These men paid a certain modest amount to the
first discoverers for the chance to take chances on the embryo mines.
The prospector never had the patience to wait, or scheme, or develop,
to the justification of a better price. The excitement of the chase
was his. He was a master who sketched, in bold comprehensive strokes,
the design of a work which men patient in the little details must fill
in with color and value. Having thus outlined the lifetimes of men,
the prosperity of the whole great industry that was to be, he was
content to move on to where a new and virgin country offered a fresh
canvas to his creative genius. He was always poor, but he never pitied
himself.
The new owner, then, represented the investor. He expected no
immediate returns. He was willing to wait. Meanwhile he spent as much
time in going over the fifty thousand square yards of his one claim as
his predecessor had in examining the whole twenty-five hundred square
miles of the district. He carefully analyzed the lead, its tendencies,
its virtues, its defects. When he had fully satisfied his mind, he
sank neat, square-timbered shafts, from fifty to two hundred feet in
depth, from which ramified tunnels, both across and along the drift.
The debris he piled outside, without attempting to save its value. In
this manner, gradually, he came to possess points of view from which
the next purchaser of the claim could plainly see its worth and
possibilities.
For this second proprietor never expected to make his profit from the
ore. That accrued later, and to another man. When the country became
a little known, the other man would happen along; he, in his turn,
would be willing to invest; and the present holder of the property, the
middleman in this queerly constructed industry, could measure the
success of his undertaking by the difference between the price he had
paid to the original "grub staker" and the price he now received from
the future developer. Meanwhile, he worked hard with his hands.
Thus the camp presented the phenomenon of a community prospering on
nothing more tangible than hope. When the cabins began to crowd
thicker and thicker between the walls of the little gulch, Bill Martin
had been forced to give up agriculture because of lack of room; so that
Copper Creek produced absolutely nothing, not even potatoes. Every
cent of its present and actual value came from outside, either with the
men themselves, or with some investor who brought in the price of wages
for a contemplated improvement. Only as long as there existed in men's
minds the comparative certainty of a future stamp mill, by which the
quartz could be made to give up its treasure, would the machinery of
life run well. Hope depended on confidence.
The miners built themselves cabins in which to live, and so there came
into being a town. It was a dusty, new little town; but venerable in
its age--old air from the first. The cabins themselves were low and
dark, flanking the street closely, a sort of monotone of brown, by
which the stable, the saloon, and the hotel were thrown into stronger
relief; the one by virtue of its wide-open door, the other two because
of their porch and painted front respectively. These structures held
the eye. One noticed the cane chairs on the stoop; the bench outside
the saloon; the dumped down saddles, the hay dust, the lazy loafers
about the stable. And always one drew aside instinctively to the edge
of the broad, white, dusty street, as if to let pass a horse race, or a
train of cars, or something equally swift and irresistible.
The camp lived on each side of that river of blinding white; never in
it. Later, perhaps, when Copper Creek reached the industrial or
producing stage, and became domestic, it would be a Rubicon over which
contending armies of small boys would dispute the supremacy of the
north and south side of the town. Now it wore a constant air of being
quite empty. Perhaps nothing was more characteristic, struck the eye
more forcibly, lingered longer in the memory as the dominant note in
the impressionistic picture of the place, than this single silent road;
not even the sombre cabins, or the great pine-clad hills, or the clear
mountain air imparting a quality of its own to the very appearance of
things, or the little singing brook that ran behind one row of cabins
and the stable, or the eagles wheeling and screaming so far up in the
blue Western sky. The town seemed to draw back on either side of the
road to avoid spoiling its effect, over-awed by it, humbled by its
dignified solemnity. Copper Creek would have been willing to have its
history recounted by that road, which was primarily, indeed, the cause
of its being.
And Bill Martin, in the cane chair of his stoop, the only man capable
of recounting that history, owed most of his unique knowledge of events
to the ancient thoroughfare. Men came from the lower gulch, abode
their brief hour, and disappeared into the thin air of the upper curve.
From one wing, across the white stage, out by the other wing, the
actors changed; the setting remained always the same.
Now each morning early the old innkeeper saw defile before his windows
the Optimist, intent on developing his dream. A motley crew, these
Optimists, having little in common with one another but the inner
spirit of hope. There was Old Mizzou, short, squat, grizzled,
good-natured, with back-sloping, bald forehead, and a seven dollar suit
of clothes, from which he suffered severely, because it was "store
made." He owned a little claim over beyond Ragged Top, on which he
made infinitesimal progress. No one seemed to believe it amounted to
much, Old Mizzou least of all, but he was old, and he had lived the
life, and so he liked to amuse himself still in playing at the game;
contented to chip away a few slivers of rock in order to persuade
himself that he was a miner, to sip a little whiskey so that men might
honor him as a drinker, to talk so loudly from his warm corner in the
Little Nugget that the sound of his voice might persuade him he was a
bold bad man; although everyone knew that Old Mizzou had never harmed a
fly.
And then again, there was Jack Graham, the Easterner, but never the
tenderfoot. His selections of claims had been judicious. He was not
afraid of work. He had the good sense of the timely word, so the men
trusted and liked him, even though he was college-bred and
quiet-mannered and a little aloof.
And again, there was Dave Kelly, who was red-cheeked, and blushed, but
was a good man for all that; and Cheyenne Harry, who owned two claims
and never did any work on them; and Houston, the strongest man in the
camp; and, of course, the great Moroney. These, and a hundred like
them, were actual miners, wielding sledge, drill and pick. Besides
them were others--Frosty, and the faro man, and Bill Martin, and the
stable boys, and the proprietor of the New York Emporium, all of whom
lived in ministering to the wants of a prosperity that was still in the
air.
Each morning the camp emptied itself into the hills. The claims were
usually held in partnership; when they were not, two of the men "traded
work," so that they could labor in pairs. At rude forges near the
shafts they sharpened their heavy steel drills, resembling crowbars,
beating the red-hot point out with the sledges. Then one held, while
the other struck--crash! Turn, crash! Turn, crash! And so on, in
unwearying succession, until the hole became so clogged with the
powdered rock and the water poured in to cool the drill, that it had to
be spooned out with a special T-shaped instrument.
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.