DEBATABLE GROUND.
The next day when Sandy came down, the enthusiasm was at a low ebb. He
missed the great reception he had expected, and went back home that
night a troubled and anxious man.
What could be the matter? He asked Limber Tim, but Limber Tim had
learned the power and security of silence, and either could not or would
not venture on any revelations. Besides that, he was very busy helping
Bunker Hill with the baby. The camp openly and at all convenient times
discussed the question now, and it began to gradually take shape in the
minds of men that something was really wrong. Kind old Sandy did not
dream what the trouble could be. He feared he had not been generous
enough under his good fortune, and was all the time opening the mouth of
his leather bag at the bar and pouring gold dust into the scales, and
entreating the boys to drink to the health of their little Half-a-pint.
"Yes, our little Half-a-pint it is, I reckons; leastwise it's pretty
certain it ain't yourn." Sandy looked at the man, and then the man set
down his glass untouched and went off. He had not meant all that he had
said, but having blurted it out in a very awkward way and at the very
worst time, got off and out of it as best he could.
Sandy was tortured. The dear little Widow saw it, and asked him what the
trouble was, and the man, blunt, honest fellow, told all that had
happened.
The camp was disgusted with the man who had mooted this question. They
counted him a traitor to the Forks--a sort of Judas. If he had gone and
hung himself the camp would have been perfectly satisfied. In fact, it
is pretty certain that the camp would have been very glad to have had
any excuse, even the least bit of an excuse, to do that office for him.
Then the camp was angry with Sandy, too, on general principles. He had
betrayed them into a sort of idol-worship under a mistake. He had lured
it into the expression of an enthusiasm quite out of keeping with the
dignity of a rough and hardy race of men, and it did not like it.
"The great big idiot!" said the camp. "Didn't he know any better? Don't
he know any better now than to go on in this way half-tickled to death,
thinking himself the happiest and the most blest of men?" The camp was
ashamed of him.
The little Judge, finding things going against the first family of the
Forks, felt also that he in some way was concerned, and felt called upon
to explain. This was his theory and explanation.
"The Widow was a widow?"
"Yes."
"The Legislature met at San Jose on the first day of September?"
"Yes."
"The Legislature granted that first session enough divorces to fill a
book?"
"Well?"
"This young woman, this Widow, might 'a bin married; she might 'a bin on
her way to the mountains; she might 'a stopped in there and got her
divorce, one day on her way up; she might 'a come right on here and got
coaxed into marrying Sandy."
"Rather quick work, wouldn't it be, Judge?"
"Well, considering the climate of Californy, I think not." And the
little man pushed out his legs under the card-table, puffed out his
little red cheeks, leaned back, and felt perfectly certain that he had
made a great point, while the wise men of the camp sat there more
confused than before.
However, as the days went by men went on with their work in their mines
down in the boiling, foaming, full little streams, now over-flowing from
the snows that melted in the warm Spring sun, and said but little more
on the subject. It was certain that they were very doubtful, for they
only shook their heads as a rule when the subject was mentioned now in
the great center. That was a bad sign, and very hard evidence of
displeasure with their patron saint of the Autumn and the long weary
Winter.
The Widow must have known all this. Not that Sandy had said a word
further than she had almost forced him to speak; not that she had yet
ventured down into the Forks, or that Bunker Hill had breathed a word
about it, but I fancy that women know these things by instinct. They
somehow have a singularly clear way of coming upon such things.
Day after day she read Sandy's face as he came up from his mine,
dripping with the yellow water spurted from the sluice all over his
broad slouch hat, long brown beard, and stiff duck breeches; she read it
eagerly as one reads the papers after a battle, and read it truly as if
it had been a broadsheet in print, and found herself in disfavor with
the camp.
Then she began to think if Sandy was thinking of his promise; if he had
remembered, and still remembered the time when in her great agony he
promised, though all the world turned against her and cried "shame!" he
would not upbraid her.
She wondered if he ever wished he had gone when she commanded him and
implored him to go, and she began to read his face for the truth. She
read, read him all through, page after page, chapter after chapter. She
found there was not a doubt in all the realm of his soul, and her face
took on again a little of its gladness. Yet the touch of tenderness
deepened, the old sadness had settled back again, and this time to
remain.
The still blue skies of California were bending over the camp. Not a
cloud sailed east or west, or hovered about the snow-peaks. It was full
Summer-time in the Sierras before it was yet mid-Spring, and men began
to pour over the mountains across the settled and solid banks of snow.
Birds flew low and idly about the cabins, and sang as the men went on
with their work down in the foaming, muddy little rivers, and all the
world seemed glad and strong with life and hope.
Still the Widow was glad no more, and men began to notice that Sandy did
not come to town at all. It was even observed that he had found a
cut-off across the spur of the hill, by which he went and came to and
from his mining claim without once setting foot in the Howling
Wilderness, or even the Forks.
Limber Tim, too, seemed sad and sorely troubled. Sunshine and singing
birds do not always bring delight to all. There is nothing so sad as
sadness at such a time.