THE MEN OF MEADOW CREEK
SANDY MCKENZIE sat before a rough board table on which his elbows lazily
rested, supporting half his weight. Sandy needed no gymnasium exercises
to teach him relaxation. Before him were the remains of a hearty dinner,
the chief dish of which smelled to Ross like beefsteak. From this dish
from time to time Sandy forked bits of meat on which he leisurely chewed.
He wore the same garb in which Ross had first seen him; but the corduroy
trousers were much the worse for wear and dirt, and it had been weeks
since his face had felt a razor. His sandy hair also had increased in
length, one thick lock perpetually dangling over his forehead.
Waymart, an older and darker man than Sandy, lay in his bunk smoking,
his knees drawn up and his hands clasped around them. Waymart was clean
shaven, and his black hair was closely clipped.
Both Sandy and Waymart were surprised to see Ross at their cabin door,
but Sandy favored him with a delighted grin. Rising without disturbing
the box on which he had been sitting, he straddled across it, and held
out a cordial hand.
"Hello, Tenderfoot," he shouted. "I hear they've added Doc to that there
name since I see you last."
Waymart crawled slowly out of his bunk. His black eyes met Ross's an
instant, and then slid away, the lids drooping. He held out a hand which,
although larger than Sandy's, lacked its cordial grip.
"Have some chairs," Sandy invited gayly, kicking forward a couple of
boxes. "These here are our second-best plush, upholstered, _ma_hogany
affairs. The best are coming from Chicago when the Burlington Road gets
into Camp."
There was about Sandy such an air of gay irresponsibility and cordiality
that Ross brightened perceptibly. After all, his "friends the enemy"
might not be bad neighbors, and he was glad he had allowed Steele to
persuade him to come.
Pushing his box away from the red-hot stove, he tipped it up on end, and
sat down beside the only window the cabin afforded. Directly outside,
hanging to a tree, were the hind quarters of a beef, as Ross supposed
at first glance. But, chancing to glance down, he found himself looking
at the head of an elk with great branching antlers, a head such as he had
seen at "The Irma" in Cody, credited to the marksmanship of Buffalo Bill.
"Last week," he heard Waymart saying to Steele, "we got him over near the
Divide."
Ross opened his eyes in astonishment. "A week!" he exclaimed, glancing
from the table to the meat hanging uncovered and unprotected outside.
Sandy caught the expression, and slapped his leg gleefully. "Think that
there meat ought to be off color by this time, don't ye, Doc? Well, let
me tell ye we'll be eatin' on it hangin' just where it is until it's
gone; and the last bite will be as good as the first."
Steele explained. "The air up here cures meat, Grant, quite as well as
brine. It takes meat a mighty long time to spoil--in fact, if it's
properly jerked, it never spoils."
"'Jerked'?" interrogated Ross: but Sandy had launched into an account
of their hunt over on the Divide, and no one explained the "jerking"
process then.
As Sandy talked, his manner lost its laziness. He became animated,
laughing and gesticulating constantly, and occasionally running his
fingers through his hair and throwing the stray front lock back among its
fellows.
Waymart had lain back in his bunk again, and unceremoniously elevated
his knees, between which he glanced at Ross from time to time. He said
but little, and smiled less.
The two occupied a cabin similar to Weimer's except that it was cleaner.
In one corner was a heap of supplies, boxes of canned goods, and sacks of
flour. Seeing Steele's eyes on these, Sandy explained easily:
"Hain't packed over our winter's supplies yet except the sticks. Got
a plenty of them, but grub's gettin' pretty low."
"Better hurry up, then," remarked Steele in a careless fashion. "All the
horses in Camp will be sent below in a couple of weeks."
By "below" he meant the ranches of Wood River Valley.
Sandy pushed back his front lock. "Time enough," he returned lightly.
"Everything can wait except game-huntin'. There's a flock of mountain
sheep over on the north side of Crosby, and we're goin' to trail 'em
to-morrow." Then he turned hospitably to Ross. "Want to go along?"
Ross shook his head. "I've--I've got to work," he stammered,
embarrassed at being obliged to introduce the subject of work on the
Weimer-Grant claims.
He might have saved himself all embarrassment, as the subject seemed to
have no personal connection with the gay Sandy.
"What," he cried, "in huntin' season? Wall, I've met other tenderfeet
constituted like ye; but they soon git over the fit, and so will you, I
reckon. Brought a gun?"
"Yes."
"You'll be out with us yet," declared Sandy.
"Sure," came from the bunk in tones of certainty.
Ross said nothing.
"When you bring down your first buck," pursued Sandy, unruffled by the
boy's silence, "you'll begin to git the Western fever that ye said ye
didn't want." Here Sandy chortled. "Guess ye think ye're enough of a
doctor t' cure that fever, but wait and see!"
As he said this, there was in the speaker's manner, or in his blue eyes
or sandy-bearded face, a return of that subtle something which had caused
Ross to decide that he "partly liked him and partly didn't."
"I expect," said Steele laughingly, "that Doc here will get as quartz
crazy as Wishing Wilson is. Of course, you fellows have seen Wishing."
"Wishin' Wilson!" exclaimed Sandy and Waymart in one breath, Sandy
adding, "What do ye mean? Whereabouts is Wishin'?"
"Well! Well! How comes it you didn't know?" exclaimed Steele
wonderingly. "Wishing is right up here in your midst. He's holding
down his claims this minute up yonder," jerking his thumb over his
shoulder.
Sandy sat up and threw the lock out of his eyes. "Back to stay?" he asked
with his forehead puckering into a scowl.
Steele nodded. "Stay till the trail is shut up."
The scowl on Sandy's forehead deepened. "Thought Wishin' was on the
hog's back. Last I knew he was tryin' to sell out to a party in Omaha.
When did he come?"
Waymart crawled out of his bunk again and lighted his pipe. "We've been
hunting'," he explained, "ye know. Didn't git back 'til yesterday.
Place may be full of folks and we none the wiser!"
"I don't think you're crowded up here yet," Steele rejoined. "And
Wishing didn't come until--when was it?--only a few days ago, he and his
new partner."
"Pardner?" cried Sandy.
"Pardner!" echoed Waymart, holding his pipe in his hand. "What pardner?"
"Young chap," replied Steele, "about Doc's height and--what age should
you say, Doc?"
"Probably seventeen," returned Ross. "Not much over," adding, "his name
is Jones, Leslie Jones. He's from Omaha."
"Grub stake?" asked Waymart succinctly.
"More than that," answered Steele. "Jones is going to stay and help."
The scowl on Sandy's forehead smoothed itself out. He grinned genially
at Ross. "I wonder now," he mused, "if there's enough of us old goats
up here in Meadow Greek to round up the kids and take care of 'em!"
"What about the kids taking care of the goats?" laughed Steele.
"Sometimes they're bigger hustlers."
Sandy nodded lightly. "This air'll take the hustle out quick enough.
Such high mountains as these hain't made fer hustlers."
As Ross was returning with Steele to Weimer's shack, the superintendent
glanced at him sidewise.
"I don't believe," he said slowly, "that the McKenzies intend to winter
here. Of course, there's no object in their stayin'. We all know
they're not here to work their claims, and it isn't necessary to
stay in order to watch yours; and they've no winter supplies, nor,"
thoughtfully, "have they mud-chinked their cabin. You can see daylight
anywhere between the logs. No, I don't think they have any intention
of staying."
Ross looked around the tiny valley, with its fringe of windy,
inaccessible peaks, and thought of the long months ahead of him, shut
in among those cruelly cold mountains.
"I hope they stay!" he declared fervently.
An hour later, having talked over the situation with Ross thoroughly,
explained the amount of work necessary to be done in the tunnel, and
given Weimer large chunks of advice, Steele rode away, driving his
packhorses in front of him.
Ross watched him out of sight and then entered the shack whistling to
keep his courage up. Inside he surveyed his temporary home with a shiver
which stopped the whistle. "Uncle Jake," he suggested, "let's clean
house the rest of the day. Willing?"
Weimer, sitting on a box in front of the stove, assented without removing
the pipe from his lips. "Ja, clean up all you vant to. I tink your fader
was alvays vantin' to clean mit der house."
"Think of my father's ever cleaning out a cabin like this!" muttered
Ross.
He stood helplessly in front of the door looking from the complacently
smoking Weimer to the bags and boxes heaped on the floor and then around
the dirt-encrusted room. He thought of Aunt Anne and her perfectly
kept house with a great throb of homesickness. Then he thought of his
father, who had got his "start" under such conditions as these and
suddenly threw off his coat.
"It's got to be done," he said aloud, "and I've got to do it!"
"Vat?" asked Weimer stupidly turning his goggles in Ross's direction.
Weimer was hugging his knees in a state of blissful content, the smoke
from his pipe curling about his head and almost shutting from view the
big young man on whose shoulders he had already shifted all burdens
connected with the Grant-Weimer claims.
During the remainder of the day Ross worked cleaning up the cabin and
packing away their winter supplies. When night came his bunk looked
better to him than the supper which Weimer was preparing, and he dropped
asleep sitting beside the table waiting for the flapjacks. But, instead
of turning in directly after washing the supper dishes, as he had
intended, he was forced to keep awake until nine o'clock entertaining
the denizens of Meadow Creek Valley.
The McKenzies came over first. Weimer, who, when night approached, had
removed his goggles, saw them coming first and raised his voice in
protest.
"Ach! dem McKenzies! See here, poy, dey mustn't come mit my cabin. Dey
ist after dese claims. Vorstehen sie nicht?"
"Yes, yes, Uncle Jake, I understand," Ross returned soothingly. "But they
can't carry the claims away in their pockets to-night, and to-morrow
morning we are going to bone down to work at such a rate that they'll
come up missing on their calculations altogether."
At the mention of work, Weimer groaned and retiring precipitately to his
bunk lay there regarding the doorway hostilely through the smoke from
his pipe. The next minute the doorway framed Sandy with Waymart close
behind.
"Hello, Doc!" Sandy pushed his cap to the back of his head. "Mart and
I, we've started out fer to pay our respects to Wishin' Wilson. Want
t' hike along with us?"
Ross shrugged his shoulders and sat down on one end of the table,
dish-cloth in hand. "Guess I've had hiking enough for one day, McKenzie.
Let's see. It's two miles up there, isn't it?"
"Yep;" Sandy lounged in and sat down on a box. "And by th' same sign
it's two miles back. But, gosh, young man, a matter of four mile ain't
nothin' in this country!" He surveyed Ross curiously. "How d'ye travel
East? In a push cart?"
Ross grinned but flushed. "The trip over from Camp was on rather higher
ground than I've ever seen before and it--well--it winded me," frankly.
"And this afternoon I've been hoeing out here. So I'm not exactly as
fresh as a morning glory to-night."
Waymart came inside and looked around. Ross pushed a box in his direction
and, after a moment's hesitation and a civil nod in the direction of the
bunk, the older McKenzie sat down and pulled his pipe out of his pocket.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Sandy. "When you're a few months further away from
Pennsylvany you'll forgit that a shack needs a hoe, t' say nothin' of
a broom." Then he addressed the bunk without looking toward it. "Uncle
Jake, have you seen Wishin'?"
"Ja," growled Weimer uncivilly, "dat I have."
"How did he look?" smiled Sandy who seemed to enjoy the other's "grouch."
"Look?" violently. "Vy, how should he look but shust like himself!"
Waymart chuckled, and Sandy was about to reply when footsteps were heard
drawing near. Heavy shoes were crunching the stones and pine needles
under foot, and voices sounded louder and louder.
"Must be Wilson and Jones," said Ross going to the door.
The room was lighted by two miner's candlesticks driven into the side
logs. One candle was near the door, and the light fell on the genial
face of Wishing Wilson, who paused in the doorway to wring Ross's hand
and shout his greetings at the other occupants of the room, before
stepping in and allowing his young partner to enter. When Ross finally
held out his hand to Leslie Jones he knew that he was facing a boy as
homesick as himself, rather than "Queen Victory's youngest."
Leslie gripped the other's hand as though its owner were a lifelong
friend. "How do you make it up here?" he asked in a low tone.
"Don't make it yet," responded Ross. "I just got here to-day. Steele
came up with me."
Then he turned to introduce Leslie to the McKenzies and saw a tableau
which puzzled him.
Waymart was staring at Leslie with amazed eyes and a lower jaw that
slightly sagged. He held his pipe in front of his mouth surprised in
the act of adjusting it between his lips. Sandy, rising, came blithely
forward, and, in passing Waymart, stumbled and jostled against him.
Waymart instantly recovered his lost poise. Lowering his pipe he slouched
along behind Sandy and shook hands with Wilson's partner. Wilson
himself was over beside Weimer's bunk telling at the top of his voice
that he had come to a rock wall in his tunnel, and on the other side
there must, without fail, be either a pocket of free gold or a lead
that would make the claims among the most valuable in the Shoshones. To
this optimistic talk Leslie did not listen with the same absorbing
interest he had shown at Sagehen Roost, Ross noticed.
In fact, a week of loneliness, coarse food and hard work had wilted
Leslie Jones both physically and mentally. Abject weariness seemed to
have robbed him of a part of his absorbing self-esteem. Furthermore,
he appeared to Ross to be troubled as well as homesick. He looked at
Sandy and Waymart unrecognizingly and sat down on a bench beneath the
candle by the stove.
"We shall stay," Ross heard Wishing tell the McKenzies, "till the pass
over Crosby threatens. Then we'll hike it below to the coal claims."
"Didn't know you had any," interrupted Sandy. "Where are they?"
"Up Wood River, only about a mile or such a matter from Camp. Fine
outcroppin' of coal. Best in the country. When the Burlington gits
here they've got t' have coal and I says to myself, 'There's where
you come up on top, Wishin', you'll have th' coal t' sell 'em,'
me and my pard now," he added with a glance at Jones.
The boy looked at him vaguely, as though he had not heard, and nodded.
He sat with one knee thrown over the other, his back pressed against the
side logs, his eyes so heavy that the lids kept drooping despite his
efforts to keep awake. His hands were blistered, and his new corduroy
suit dirty and torn. The air of newness which had characterized him when
Ross first met him was gone. His hair had lengthened, and his cheeks
revealed hollows. He said but little, being engaged in the absorbing
effort to keep awake. Besides, Sandy and Wilson gave no one else a chance
to talk. Waymart smoked stolidly staring at the candle above Leslie.
Ross, sitting with his elbows on the table, ceased to struggle against
weariness, and, with his head on his arms, fell asleep. He awakened just
in time to see his callers depart, whereupon he threw himself, dressed,
in his bunk and slept until late the next morning.
During the next few weeks, all days seemed alike to Ross except Sunday.
Early each Sunday morning he struck the trail for Miners' Camp, the
post-office, and Steele's shack. At first he crept shudderingly over
that quarter mile around the shoulder of Crosby. But soon his head
lost every sense of giddiness, and his legs regained their accustomed
strength, and his heart ceased to beat agitatedly at sight of the
thousand-feet fall.
On the third Sunday he came into Steele's shack with a brighter face
than he had worn before.
[Illustration: HE STRUCK THE TRAIL]
"Things are sort of righting themselves," he reported over a hot elk
steak. "I'm getting Weimer down to work in dead earnest," chuckling.
"I hold the McKenzie boys before his mind's eye continually, and roll
that car out, and dump it so quickly that he has to step lively to get
enough ore picked out and blasted out to fill it."
Steele whistled when Ross told him how many cubic feet had been taken
out of the Weimer-Grant tunnel during the week. He took from his pocket
a paper and pencil, and fell to figuring. Ross pushed aside the empty
dishes, and, leaning across the table, looked on with interest. He, too,
had figured extensively since work began on Meadow Creek, but only during
the last week had the figures satisfied him.
"Why, man alive!" cried Steele after a few moments' silent work,
"you'll fetch it, at this rate." He stretched his hand across the
table impetuously, and gripped Ross's, adding, "I thought you could
never do it--even with a backbone."
Ross's shoulders straightened, and his face flushed boyishly. "We _must_
fetch it!"
Steele leaned back, and drummed on the table. "What about the McKenzies?
Of course they must know what progress you've made."
"Well," exclaimed Ross, "I hope I can keep 'em so interested guessing
that they'll stay all winter. They come over as socially as you please
about every evening. Weimer doesn't like it much. He has no use for
'em, but I have, you bet! I'm glad to have 'em around, especially
now when I can estimate that at the present rate of speed the tunnel
will be ready so we can apply for a patent by June."
To Dr. and Mrs. Grant, Ross wrote: "It's going to be a long pull and
a strong pull, but I shall stick to the ship and show father that I can
do something else besides setting a bone.
"And what's more and queerer, I'm in danger of getting interested in
gold mining for itself. Every time I push our little car out to the end
of the dump and unload the ore I wonder how much gold I'm watching
roll away down the incline. Aunt Anne, you said in your last that it
seems such a waste to throw away the ore. Well, if you were here you'd
find it a greater waste of good money to try to get money out of the
quartz under present conditions. You see there are only a few dollars'
worth of gold in a ton of rock. That ton would have to be 'packed,'
as they say here, eighty miles over the roughest of trails to Cody, and
there loaded on cars and sent clear to Omaha, our nearest smelter. And
I guess you know more than I do about the costly process of crushing ore
and extracting gold from it in a smelter. It's not like mining for
'pay dirt,' as the men here call placer mining, where you gather up
sand and wash it out yourself and find the particles of gold in the
bottom of your pan. This quartz digging is the most expensive kind of
mining there is. But when the Burlington gets the branch road up into
Miners' the ore can be loaded at the mines and unloaded in Omaha
without change of cars. Then we'll dig out the dumps and send them
to the smelter, and back will come the gold jingling into our pockets.
But whenever I'm moved to give you information I feel small, for I
believe, in spite of all you write, that you both know more than I do
about it now.
"I haven't had a book in my hand, Uncle Fred. When it comes night, I am
too tired to understand the newspapers that I bring over from Miners',
to say nothing of delving in histology. I expect I shall forget all I
ever knew, but never mind! If I can get those claims patented, and so
satisfy father, then next year I'll begin over again to fit myself
for college--guess what I knew once will come back when I've studied a
little. Anyway, I'm not going to worry about it now."
Ross underscored those last words to convince himself that he was not
worrying, and handed the letter over to Bill Travers to be mailed at
Meeteetse.
To his father Ross proudly wrote of the week's progress in the tunnel,
adding in reply to a rather longer letter than usual, which he found
awaiting him in Camp, "No, I have no intention of throwing up the job."
His father had opened the way wide for him to "throw up the job"
after receiving the letter he had requested Steele to fill with exact
information. That part of the information which stated that Ross must
necessarily be shut up in Meadow Creek Valley for months with a more or
less weak-headed partner had led to the letter which Ross found awaiting
him. But Ross, Junior, was not well enough acquainted with Ross, Senior,
to understand that this letter was an invitation for him to return East.
"He thinks I'm just chicken-hearted enough to be ready to cut and run at
the first obstacle," was Ross's thought when he read what his father had
written. His chin came up, and his eyes narrowed. "I'd stay and work
here a year before I'd show the white feather now."
Ever since his last visit to New York, Ross had dwelt with secret pride
on the respect and confidence that his father had shown him, and the
sensation was so new and pleasant that he had no intention of forfeiting
it.
And thus it happened that, with Grant, Senior, and Dr. Grant and Aunt
Anne all desiring Ross's presence at home, and with Ross's wishes
coinciding exactly with theirs, he remained at the "jumping-off place"
into the wilderness.
In his private office on Broadway, Grant, Senior, read and reread, "No,
I have no intention of throwing up the job." He twisted uneasily in his
swivel-chair. He pulled Steele's last letter out of a pigeonhole, read
it, frowned, and replaced it. Then he leaned back and admitted aloud:
"I wish the boy was safely entered in medical college."
But, even as he considered the matter, "the boy" with a small pack on his
back, candy and a few apples to eat as a relish with the canned stuff,
was plodding through the snow, light and easily brushed aside as yet,
over the trail between Miners' Camp and Meadow Creek. And the boy's
heart was growing as courageous as his muscles were strong.