knowledge of men, his intuitions, and his fears. Looking at it
dispassionately from the outside, what right had he to interfere?
Graham was much in love, brave enough to carry through the inevitable
row, and quite willing as far as himself was concerned, to do so; but
he could not fail to see that, however the affair came out, it would
irretrievably injure the girl's reputation. No one would believe that
he would go to such lengths on suspicion of merely future harm. To the
camp it would mean his proved knowledge of present facts. So he
hesitated.
"You will not, I see," concluded the girl, moving away; "rest easy, I
shall say nothing to Harry about it. I don't know what he would do if
he heard of it."
She began to walk toward the ford, every motion expressing contempt.
She believed she had proved Graham a coward, and this had rehabilitated
her self-respect. She was no longer ashamed before him. At the
water's brink she turned back.
"And remember this, Mr. Jack Graham!" she cried, her repressed anger
suddenly blazing out; "I may be young, and I may not know much of the
world, but I know enough to take care of myself without any of your
help."
She picked her way across the stepping-stones and disappeared, without
once looking back.
XXVI
AND HAS TO GO TO WORK
From that moment Graham ceased to be an integral factor in the girl's
history. His only hold on her imagination had been his moral
superiority, and it was now gone. She treated him thenceforth as an
admirer whose sincerity deserves the consideration which his insistence
makes difficult to give ungrudgingly. He was not discouraged or
frowned on. He was forgiven promptly as a child is forgiven. But he
was kept always scrupulously to his place. The girl now held the whip
hand. After a little, when he became too insistent, she cut him
cruelly in punishment and only deigned to smile on him again when, to
sue forgiveness, he had quite abandoned his attitude of fault-finding.
As for him, the girl's actions soon became hateful. He saw them all
wrong, yet he felt his powerlessness to alter them in even the
slightest degree. This aroused so powerful but so impotent a rage that
shortly he came to react irritably against everything Molly did whether
right or wrong. He instinctively arraigned himself in the opposition.
He did not want to do this, and his common sense accused him strongly
of unreasonableness, but he could not help it. It was greater than he.
No matter what the plan, discussion or even conversation, his morbidly
sensitive consciousness of the girl's error impelled him to object.
"Let's go over to Rockerville to-day," she would suggest.
"The horses aren't here."
"But it's no great matter to get them. Let's send the Kid."
"I don't know where the Kid is."
"Well, Frosty then."
"Frosty's busy."
"It wouldn't hurt you any to get them yourself."
"One of the saddles is broken."
"You know very well it's only a cinch ring. It can be fixed in five
minutes."
"We'll---- Don't you think it is going to be pretty hot?"
"No, I don't; and if I can stand it, I should think you could."
"And----"
"Heavens and earth! It's harder than climbing trees to get you to do
anything. Never mind! _I_ don't want to go to Rockerville or anywhere
else if it's all that trouble!"
And then Graham would wonder at his stubborn fit. Why shouldn't they
have gone to Rockerville? In five minutes he could have got the
horses, fixed the saddle. And the day was beautiful. What real reason
did he have? He did not know; only he felt an irresistible impulse to
object. This was because he loved her, disapproved of her, and was
quite powerless over her.
When he was not merely contrary, he was urging strong advice on an
unwilling recipient. It was offered in either the pleading or the
blustering spirit. If in the former, Molly merely teased him. If in
the latter, she became very angry. It was always on the same subject.
The girl was wearied with it.
And yet, if it were any consolation, Jack Graham could have comforted
himself with the truth that, next to Cheyenne Harry, he claimed a
greater share of her thoughts than any other in camp. His offices were
ungrateful, but they had a certain sincerity which prevented their
being ignored; and, not forgotten, their acid-like drop of truth ate
into that conscience of which she did not yet realize the existence.
Her horizon was becoming banked with thunderclouds, looming huge and
black and heavy with portent. Graham, as an ideal, had stood for a
higher existence. Now, however shrunken his image appeared, the ideal
itself remained as something tangible in her collection of moral
standards. She acknowledged to herself fiercely that she had fallen
from it. She told herself that she did not care.
She was dreadfully alone. Lafond was always kind to her, but she never
felt that she knew him. Graham, in spite of his frequent presence, was
in reality quite estranged. The Kid and Peter and Kelly and Houston
and even old Bill Martin had fallen away from her somehow. She did not
know that the reason the older men were less intimate was because she
was supposed to be Cheyenne Harry's mistress, and the rule of such
cases is "hands off!" And then there was always the stifling formless
weight at her heart which she did not understand. She was very
unhappy. That with her meant that she was reckless. She threw herself
passionately into her affair with Cheyenne Harry as the one tangible
human relation left to her in its entirety.
The days followed each other in a succession of passionate exaltations
and dumb despairs. Harry kissed her whenever he pleased now. She had
long since got beyond mere coquetry. It meant much to her hereditary
instincts so to yield, but she gave herself up to it with the abandon
of a lost soul delivering itself to degrading wickedness. For in spite
of her life and companions she was intrinsically pure, so pure that
even Cheyenne Harry, with all his extraordinary influence, did not
somehow care to go too far. He kissed her, and at the first, when the
long resistance had enhanced her value, he was persuaded that he loved
her--that these interviews meant to him what lovers' meetings mean--and
so he responded to her passionate devotion with what seemed to be
corresponding ecstasy.
But then after a little insensibly the flood ebbed. In the old days
she had amused him with her bright laughter, her gay speech, her
mocking superiorities, her little coquetries of manner or mannerism.
Now she had thrown these weapons away. Her surrender was complete.
Her life had simplified to one phase, that of dewy-eyed pleading
adoration. At first it pleased his masculine vanity. After a time it
cloyed ever so little; Cheyenne Harry missed the "comic relief" in all
these heroics. He would have liked occasionally to have climbed hills;
or taken long walks; or even run a short race, say to the bend of the
road; or to have had played on him a small practical joke; or
experienced some other such indication that man is a laughing animal.
The girl seemed capable of enjoying nothing but slow and aimless
saunterings. In the beginning he had experienced the nameless ecstasy
and thrill inherent in the personal contact of the kiss. Now he missed
something of those qualities. It seemed no longer strange to him to
feel her body near his, to watch her wide eyes half-closed, to press
his lips against hers, half-parted. It was still delightful above
everything in the world, but there had been one thing better--the kiss
of yesterday. In a word Cheyenne Harry's experience was beginning
dimly to trace the word "satiety."
Not that either he or the girl realized it. To their thinking minds
everything was as usual. But their subconsciousness appreciated it,
and interpreted it according to its value. Cheyenne Harry, as has been
pointed out, turned instinctively toward a desire for lighter phases in
their relationship. Molly Lafond clung the more blindly to her
passion. Her only excuse to herself for her abandonment of the better
ideal was the reality of that passion. When it should go, her
self-respect would vanish with it.
Harry found a certain amusement, too, in seeing Graham jumping around
the outer circle like corn in a popper. Graham was usually possessed
of so much innate dignity. Now his self-abandonment to the essentially
undignified attitude of begging for the petty favor of a quarrelless
ten minutes or even a little good-humored smile tickled the other's
sense of the incongruous and pleased his vanity. To an extent he was
held to the girl now by his pride. A man likes to have a rival when
perfectly secure himself, especially when the girl tells him what the
rival says to her. This may not be honorable in her, but it is very
human. So amusing was it that Harry did not get angry over the reports
of Graham's repeated warnings against him.
The latter seemed unable to keep off the subject. He knew that his
suspicions only strengthened the girl's obstinate opposition, but he
could not help their expression for all that. Sometimes he pleaded,
sometimes he threatened, sometimes he assumed the prophet's mantle and
foretold all sorts of dire disasters. The girl laughed, or became
angry. It would have puzzled Graham to tell which of these moods he
preferred: perhaps it would have depended on which of them he was
experiencing at the moment.
His saving grace was a sturdy sense of his duty to himself. He felt
that sense to be sadly shaken in many ways; but he clung to his work
tenaciously, perhaps a little feverishly.
"Nuthin' like a woman to make a man work," observed Bill Martin sagely,
"whether she's _fur_ him, or agin' him."
"How about Billy?" inquired Old Mizzou.
Bill Martin laughed. "Billy? Oh, he's _playin'_," he replied.
XXVII
PROSPERITY
Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most
industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year,
for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward
with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister
claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to
Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went,
within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to
this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink
in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which
came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight
draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams.
Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the
mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the
purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain
go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days
later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy
the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following
ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a
ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could
be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of
ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two
heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were
delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed
contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush.
From that elevation he bought a whim, also a bargain. The man was
anxious to sell, and it was a very good whim. To be sure one might
have argued that inasmuch as whims are machines for hauling ore from
depths which Billy's operations would not attain for a year at least,
the purchase was a little premature; but then it is equally certain
that all mines own whims, and another opportunity for getting one so
cheap might never again present itself.
When the wagons came, he and the man drove fifty miles to Rapid, where
they hobnobbed with Tom Sweeny and looked over his establishment.
Billy bought his household goods. He also took a fancy to some large
brass-bound collar hoods for the horses which he had marked with the
company's initials "G. S. M. & M. Co.," also in brass. The return trip
was made with difficulty on account of the low-hanging branches of
trees. Then Billy spent an ecstatic week distributing things to suit
him.
The work in the shafts went steadily forward. Billy was willing to
offer a bonus on the contract price for a quick job, so the contractors
took on extra men. They averaged almost a foot and a half a day, which
is wonderfully good. The work indeed went on so well that Billy saw he
would need the mill sooner than he had expected, so he resolved to
begin its erection at once. He hired all the available men, but soon
found that he would have to seek elsewhere for a gang adequate to such
an undertaking. He imported one from Rockerville. As the winter came
on, he found it expedient to start the boarding house in order, as he
said, "To get those cusses up in the mornin' afore the sun sets." The
move necessitated a cook and "cookee," and the weekly purchase of
provisions. Since he had the men handy, he argued, there was no reason
why he should not finish up the small details and odds and ends of the
camp in a respectable manner, and so he made many little extraneous
improvements, such as a flag pole and a rockery of pink quartz from the
Custer trail. Three or four were always away from the mill, levelling
up, clearing out or decorating. From Kansas City he imported some
chickens with crested heads and a number of pigeons of ancient lineage.
The latter promptly flew back to Kansas City. As the novelty of them
had worn off Billy took their loss philosophically. In regard to
externals the camp began to wear a very prosperous air.
Copper Creek too was busy. Over forty men were hard at work on the
Great Snake itself. Upward of fifty claims were in the course of
development near at hand. With the completion of the mill would begin
the crushing of ore; with the crushing of ore would begin the camp's
commercial output; with that, provided it were satisfactory, would come
more capitalists anxious to invest. It behooved the claim owner to
have his exhibit of shaft and tunnel ready for the public inspection.
When you reflect that three men usually worked on a claim and that
Copper Creek's entire population at that date was a little over two
hundred and fifty, you can readily see that it was indeed a lively
camp. Even those who were not actually engaged in prospecting
operations found their time fully occupied in providing for those who
were. Black Jack had an assistant now. Moroney's paper came out as
often as once a fortnight and was beginning to be mentioned by the
_Deadwood Miner_ as "our esteemed contemporary." Bill Martin had been
seen sweeping out his own office. The dozen of women and girls who had
drifted in with newcomers, scrubbed, cooked, washed and sewed in a
struggle to keep even with muddy boots, miners' appetites, and the
destructive demands of miners' work. Even Frosty improved his
customary mooning slouch.
The men who seemed to enjoy unlimited leisure could be counted on the
fingers of one hand. Cheyenne Harry laughed at it all. His one claim
was known to be a mere excuse for existence, a symbolic reason for his
connection with Copper Creek. Everybody knew really why he stayed. He
was supposed to be independently rich, though none claimed any
knowledge of how he came to be so. Then there was the gambler, the
faro man, who sat on the hotel "porch" all the morning smoking endless
cigarettes, his broad straight hat tipped a little sideways, his
moustache brushed neatly away to show his white teeth, his fine
inscrutable eyes looking cynically from his equally fine clear-cut
face, speaking seldom, smiling never, imperturbable, indifferent,
cat-like. And there was Durand, but he did not count. And there was
Michail Lafond.
To be sure the half-breed was building a new dance hall, to which the
camp entire looked with anticipatory delight, but that was a matter of
four walls and a smooth floor. He needed only to give his orders.
After a perfunctory morning inspection he had the day to himself.
The work at the Great Snake interested him, as it did everybody. He
occupied the morning about the works, poking into odd corners,
questioning the workmen, making suggestions to Billy. He sent the
horse dealer to Billy, and mentioned to the whim man that he might find
a purchaser there. He often was enabled in his vaster leisure to
perceive the little things that lacked and to point out their necessity
to Billy, which individual was of course always duly grateful and
hastened at once to remedy the defect. After a more or less lengthened
visit the half-breed returned to camp. If it happened still to lack
some time until dinner, he called on Moroney in the editorial rooms or
exchanged sententious comments with Bill Martin, or chatted with one or
the other of the visitors who happened to be in town. After dinner he
disappeared until supper. The time was spent with Durand. The
assaying was long since finished, but the two men had grown fond of
each other's companionship. It was a silent companionship for the most
part. Lafond smoked interminably his short black pipe, turned upside
down, watching the naturalist setting carefully the delicate wings of a
butterfly or arranging in a paper cylinder the skin of a bird, or
searching, spectacled, in black volumes of Government reports.
Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged
a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they
understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no
longer necessary. On fine days they beat the brushy creek bottoms for
the _Nitra_, the rare _Papilo_ which men supposed to be extinct. And
then, after the early darkness of winter fell, they would be seized by
strange obsessions of loquacity. Jacques, the raccoon, a ball of fur
under the faint red stove, blinked at them shrewdly, wondering what it
was all about.
In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care
of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps
warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature.
He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded
depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the
iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public
importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he
ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one
to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in
the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for
lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of
Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from
all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his
and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the
intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no
traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man
present depended on Billy's success.
But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and
always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as
spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall.
The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He
will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back
again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an
accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall
mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date
for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its
deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in
anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by
wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real
locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle
power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to
be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar
information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He
promised the "opening ball" for May if possible.
"That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or
long.
XXVIII
LAFOND GOES EAST
About the middle of February Lafond varied the monotony of his daily
programme. He ceased to visit the Great Snake camp, on which work was
proceeding as rapidly as ever, and took to writing letters. He wrote a
great many, and always mailed them himself with Blair, the driver of
the stage. He announced one evening in the middle of March that he was
about to leave for a short trip.
"I have the round to make," he said resignedly. "There are many places
which each year I must visit. I go to Deadwood, Spearfish, Custer,
Sheridan, Edgemont, Rapid, Buffalo Gap, many others. I may be gone a
month."
"But yore comin' back, ain't you?" asked someone.
"But yes," assured the half-breed. "Have we not the opening of the
dance hall?"
So the very next morning he boarded the stage for Rapid. At Rapid he
bought a return ticket to Chicago. This was one of the results of the
correspondence he had been carrying on for a month past. His first
letter had run about as follows:
"Mr. Frederick Stevens, Chicago.
"DEAR SIR--You will perhaps remember me as one of your hosts during
your late visit to this camp. If you do, you will remember also that I
am interested financially, and so the good of the camp is my good. You
will further recollect that I was present at the meeting held in
Knapp's shack for the purpose of settling with him. For that reason I
happen to know your plans and expectations. The expectations were that
your first investment of fifty thousand dollars would complete the
works to a paying basis. I have no means of knowing the exact amount
of Knapp's expenditures to now, but they must be considerable, and I
feel that my interests and yours require that you know just what the
returns are.
"The results you should get with your fifty thousand dollars are, that
you should have, on each claim, shafts to below water level with
cross-cuts and drifts, a mill set up and ready, a pump and hoist on
each shaft, a month's fuel, a month's wages for men with food and
expenses and a camp in good working order.
"The shafts are almost done, but they are sunk on contract and are not
paid for yet. The mill is half up; there is one pump and two hoists
not up yet. That is all that is done. It seemed to me Knapp has not
spent his money well, because there is much about camp which he does
not need.
"I tell you this because I am interested."
Here Black Mike paused and tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the end
of his penholder. Then he smiled cynically to himself and went on--"To
speak plainly, I think the waste has gone beyond what you can afford.
Only a man living here and knowing mining well could make it pay. I do
not ask you to believe this, but see for yourself how you stand, and I
may be able to make you an offer."
By return of post Lafond was frantically called upon to explain. He
did so. Billy had been wasteful and extravagant. It was not Billy's
fault perhaps, but he was evidently not the man for the place. Lafond
had had but a vague idea of how things were going, but lately he had
been at more pains to gain an accurate knowledge of affairs. He had
found things as above stated. He did not write at all as a friend of
the Company, but because he believed he could perhaps make something by
taking the property himself. Instinctively the half-breed knew that an
insistence on his own selfishness was the surest way of impressing
these Easterners with his sincerity. For that reason he demanded his
expenses when he was asked to go East for consultation.
The Chicago men were badly frightened. Lafond repeated clearly at
greater length what he had told them in his letters. It had been a
case of a man unused to the handling of money. He insisted that in
actual value there existed not one quarter of the sum Knapp had
expended; and he further claimed that affairs were in such shape West
that as much more would have to be invested before the mine could be
put on a paying basis.