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.
"Oh no!" reassured Billy, seized with a sudden anxiety lest the thing
had been overdone. "But the boys is all off in th' Hills workin'."
As a matter of fact the boys were doing nothing of the kind. They were
behind the cracks of doors and the darkness of windows, watching
eagerly every move of the disembarkation, on which they whispered
excited comments. Bill Martin was there outside, of course; Lafond
sauntered over from the Little Nugget; the gambler sat chair tilted,
blowing cigarette rings toward Ragged Top, never even turning his head
to see the arrivals, imperturbable, indifferent as ever; Graham and
Moroney were on hand by especial request; and of course no one could
keep Peter and the Kid away. The men in the cabins were satisfied with
their representatives. They need not worry about Graham and Moroney
anyway.
[Illustration: JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT.]
The first of the newcomers rolled out over the wheel, stood up on two
fat legs, and shook himself in a manner which proclaimed to the dullest
that his round face did not belie his good humor. He at once looked
about him and laughed. The second was seen to be a tall spare man,
gray-faced, deep-lined, but with the wrinkles of laughter about his
eyes. He wore a long linen duster and was evidently of the sort that
seasons its most serious transactions with a dry and facetious humor.
The third was short, small, and irrepressible. He looked as though he
should be named Frank, as in fact he was. Although all three were
dressed for travelling, they carried with them a solid air of financial
responsibility quite foreign to Copper Creek's experience, a certain
shrewdness which no new circumstance could ever abash to the extent of
forgetting the swiftest means to the main chance. But over this
shrewdness now was brushed a film of optimism, the over-abundant
hilarity of a business man on a holiday outside his accustomed
surroundings, expanding in high spirits, persiflage, and practical
jokes. During their stay in Copper Creek this never left them. They
were as delighted with the country as children with a new toy, and took
it about as seriously.
The concealed onlookers saw the little group stand talking a moment,
and then turn into the hotel. Black Jack unloaded from the back of the
buckboard several substantial leather-bound valises. Billy drove the
horses home and returned on foot. He was pounced upon eagerly. Billy
was still glowing with self-induced enthusiasm over Copper Creek.
"It's all right, boys!" he cried exultantly. "They shore has the right
idee! They tells me they thinks this is shore the finest kentry they
ever see!"
"What to do next?" they inquired anxiously.
"Do? Nothin'! This ain't no circus. When the grub bell rings, mosey
on over as usual, and a'ter feedin' we institutes some sort of a game
outside."
When the grub bell rang, the miners filed solemnly into the
dining-room, darting covert glances at the three visitors, already
seated with their entertainers. Some nodded solemnly. The Easterners
were laughing and joking each other in the most childish fashion.
"By Jove, there's a girl; only one I've seen!" cried the little man
named Frank, as Molly came in and took her seat at another table.
"What of it?" asked Stevens, the tall man, with his mouth full of Black
Jack's boiled potatoes.
"But she's a pretty girl."
Murphy, the fat jolly one, carefully removed his butter and soda
biscuits, of which the visible supply seemed limited, beyond Frank's
reach, and ventured a glance.
"She is pretty," he agreed, firmly thwarting the little man's attempt
to steal the butter in spite of his precautions.
He turned to Dan Barker and resumed a labored discussion of the
country's game and fishing. The tall man took up his conversation with
Billy.
"Yes," said he, "I go through that every morning. I find it
invaluable. It keeps me as hard as nails. Feel there!"
He doubled his arm, and Billy placed his huge fingers gingerly over the
Easterner's biceps. Down the long table the miners and prospectors ate
uneasily, with frequent glances toward the noisy strangers, exchanging
rare low-voiced comments, and twisting their feet. Between Molly and
the man whom the others called Frank there sprang up an incipient
flirtation of glances.
After dinner everybody went outside into the open air, where the
gathering relaxed its formality and men breathed mere freely. Murphy
conversed with several on the subject of Colt's forty-fives. He
expressed a desire for a shooting match, to which end he borrowed
Billy's six-shooter, and handled it so recklessly that everybody wanted
to duck.
Finally he planted the muzzle firmly between his fat legs, rested both
hands on the butt, and looked about him triumphantly.
"What'll I hit?" he asked.
"God knows!" ejaculated the tall man; "but you can shoot at this." He
drew an envelope from his pocket, and turned toward a small board box
resting against the stump of a tree. Bill Martin started forward in
alarm.
"Hol' on!" cried he, "I got some chickens in that thar coop!"
The tall man turned and wrung his hand in a mock access of gratitude.
"Thank you! thank you!" he cried fervently. "To think how near I came
to having the blood of those innocent chickens on my head! I shall
never cease to feel grateful to you, sir!"
He marched over to the coop and pinned the envelope square in the
middle of it.
"There," said he, stepping back with an air of satisfaction. "Now the
chickens are perfectly safe!"
The proprietor grinned very doubtfully. Several men laughed, one after
the other, as the joke penetrated.
"You go to hell, Steve," said the fat man, bubbling all over.
He raised the long six-shooter with an easy gesture.
"They're just as good as meat!" he asserted confidently as he squinted
over the sights. A breathless pause ensued.
"Always cock your pistol before shooting," Frank finally admonished in
a soft and didactic voice.
Murphy, red-faced, muttered something about self-cockers and tried
again. This time the pause was succeeded by a deafening report, and
the pistol leaped wildly. From the coop burst a single frightened
squawk. Murphy beamed.
All crowded about the box, examining for the bullet hole. On the
instant, Frank became wildly and triumphantly excited, dancing about
the motionless end of an index finger which pointed toward the
unscratched coop. The marksman looked nonplussed for a single instant.
Then his face cleared.
"It went right in through that!" he claimed arrogantly, pointing the
barrel of the revolver toward a small knot hole. The other two men at
once gave vent to snorts of derisive contempt. "Prove that it didn't,"
insisted the fat one. "Just prove that it didn't, and I'll pay up."
He tucked his thumbs into the lower pockets of his waistcoat,
supporting the revolver pendent on one forefinger, and smiled broadly.
Billy's straightforward mind saw no diplomacy beyond the inexorable
logic of the situation. "Thar ought t' be a bullet hole in th' other
side of th' coop then," he suggested in a modest voice.
Murphy cast upon him the glance of reproach.
"I give up," he confessed with grieved dignity, and, without awaiting
an investigation, turned toward the saloon. "It means drinks," he
observed laconically. "All of you!" he added to the crowd.
Near the door Peter fell in with the procession. The tall man seized
upon him before even that experienced animal could escape. After an
ineffectual lunge or so backward toward his haunches, the homely dog
seemed to realize that no harm was intended, and so became quiet.
Stevens passed his hands rapidly down Peter's back and haunches, lifted
him first off his fore legs, then off his hind legs, watching carefully
the exact position he assumed when he touched the ground again, pushed
his gums away from his teeth, and moulded through the fingers the
outline of his head.
"It's a genuine Airedale," he asserted with interest. "Who does he
belong to, and where did he come from?"
Nobody knew.
"I don't suppose there's another west of the Mississippi," he went on.
"It's a peculiar breed, built for scrapping." The men gathered about
with a new interest in Peter. "Don't know just what the strain is, but
it's bred in the valley of the Aire, in England. The laboring classes
there mostly make furniture, and as they work by the piece, they can
take all the time off they want. Consequently they're a sporty lot,
and go in for cock fighting and racing and badger baiting, but, most of
all, dog fighting. They evolved this strain from something or other.
A good Airedale can lick anything except a Great Dane, and he falls
down there only because the Dane's too big for him."
"I know of a bull terrier--" began Murphy.
"Your bull wouldn't be ace high. Look at the teeth on him! Get on to
the thickness of those bones! Do you think teeth would stick on that
slippery bristle coat of his? or, if they did, do you think they would
get into that tough loose hide very hard?" He suddenly released Peter
and stood up. "Frank," said he, "come here and size up this pup."
Peter shook himself and walked gravely into the arms of the adoring
Kid. The Kid had listened open-mouthed to every word of the expert's
statement.
But Frank had disappeared. The incipient flirtation had developed.
XXIII
A FOOL FOR LUCK
When it is a question of mining, the most cautious business man loses
his head.
It is very difficult to realize the fact that the Western property must
not be judged by Eastern standards.
These two short paragraphs state the main reasons why, in the first
place, so much capital is sown in waste places; and why, in the second
place, Western gold mines have so bad a reputation among investors.
Nine out of ten of the legitimate mines of our Western States would be
good investments if they could be run as carefully and intelligently as
is any wholesale grocery. The expectation of big gambling returns
seems to render men careless as to the smaller details.
Why this should be so, it would be difficult to say. Of the truth of
the statement there is absolutely no doubt in the world, as anyone who
knows the history of the West can testify.
During the three days' duration of their stay, the Easterners looked at
facts, incomprehensible to the eyes of such as they, through the
explanations, honest enough in intention, of Billy Knapp. He led them,
perspiring but pleased, from prospect to prospect, from shaft to shaft,
from hill to hill. He showed them leads, fissure veins, red quartz,
white quartz, water supplies, timberings, hanging walls, country rock,
pan tests, and he talked about it all with that easy fluency of
eloquence, that flattering assumption of the other man's
sophistication, which is so peculiarly a talent--nay, a genius--of the
Westerner.