Well, I rode purty tol'able slow. Some way I didn't want to go back to
the Lion Head Ranch. I knew 'at Jim would be glad to see me, but I knew
I'd be lonesomer there than among total strangers; so I just floated,
punchin' cows most o' the time, but not runnin' very long over the same
range.
It was just about this period that I begun to lose my serious view o'
life and get more man-like. The usual idea is that a boy is a careless,
happy, easy-goin' sort of a creature, and a man is a steady, serious
minded, thoughtful kind of an outfit; but just the reverse. A boy
starts out believin' most o' what's told him an' thinkin' that it's his
duty to reform the world; an' about the only thing he is careless of is
human life--his own or any one else's. Fact o' the matter is that if
you watch him close enough you'll find out that even in his games a boy
is about the solemnest thing on earth, an' you have to know the game
purty thorough to tell when it drifts into a real fight. That's why all
wars have been fought by boys. They believe in any cause 'at looks big
enough to lay down their lives for, an' that's their chief ambition. A
man, though; gets to see after a time that the' 's most generally
somebody up behind who's working the wires, an' he gets so 'at he don't
want to lay down ANYBODY's life, except as a last resort. He looks
favorable upon amusement, an' after a while he kind o' sort o' gets
hardened to the fact that the whole thing's a joke and he'd rather
laugh than shoot. Why, I'd be more afraid of a boy with a popgun than I
'd be of a man with a standin' army.
So as I said, it was just about this time in my life that I begun to
hunt up pleasant places to eat and sleep; an' if I heard of trouble in
the next county I turned out an' went around. I did a little of
everything; even lugged a chain in a surveyor outfit, but the' wasn't
enough chance in that. I got to have a trace of gamblin' in anything I
do; so the first thing I knew I was down in Nevada lookin' for the
treasure 'at Bill Brophy had buried there. The last of his gang had
tried to describe the place, but his description would have done for
'most any place in Nevada--she not bein' what you might call
free-handed in the way of variety.
Well, I ragged around in the mountains between Nevada and California,
lookin' for a flat-shaped rock with a mountain-peak on each side of it,
an' a cold wind sweepin' up the canon--I don't know just how the cold
wind got included, but the dyin' outlaw dwelt upon that cold wind
something particular. I stayed out puny late in the season, an' if cold
winds was identifyin', Brophy had his treasure buried purty unpartially
all over the West.
I reckon I'd have died if I had it fallen in with Slocum. Slocum was a
queer lookin' speciment when you first came upon him. His skin didn't
fit him very well, bein' a trifle too big, an' wrankled an' baggy in
consequence; his eyes was kind of a washy blue, an' they stuck out from
his face, givin' him the most sorrowful expression I ever see. You just
couldn't be suspicious of a man with such eyes as that; he seemed to
have throwed himself wide open an' invited the whole world to come an'
look inside. Why, a perfect stranger would have trusted Slocum with his
last plug of tobacoo, and like as not he'd have gotten part of it back.
Well, as I said, I was headin' for warmer weather, but I got overtook
an' had about given up all hope when I noticed the smell of smoke in
the air. I was walkin' on foot an' pullin' a burro with a pack behind
me, an' after a time I located that smoke comin' right up through the
snow.
I yelled and shouted around for a while without gettin' any response.
Night and the snow was both fallin' fast, an' that smoke was exceeding
temptin'. Finally I took a piece of burlap off the pack, put it over
the hole where the smoke was comin' up through, an' piled snow on top
of it. I was curious to see what would happen. I waited--perhaps it was
only five minutes, but it seemed that many hours--an' then a low, calm
voice, down somewhere beneath me, sez, "Get off that chimney!"
"I will," sez I, "when you tell me how to get to the fire."
I waited again, an' then a man with a lantern emerged into the cut
about forty feet below me, an' told me how I could wind around and come
down to him. Well, me an' the burro finally worked it out, an' there
was a man with long whiskers standin' in his shirt-sleeves in front of
a hole in the snow.
"You like to 'a' smothered me," he grumbled. "Don't you know better'n
to stop up a chimney that's workin'?"
"I wanted the chimney to work double," sez I, "an' that was the only
way I could think up to attract your attention."
"Do you live around here?" sez he. "Not very much," sez I, "but I 'm
minded to try it a while, if there 's room in your burrow for two."
"Got any tobacco?" sez he.
"Plenty," sez I.
"You're welcome," sez he.
We took the burro over to a clump of pine woods an' turned him loose,
an' then I crawled in through the tunnel to Slocum's fire. It was in a
cave which had a natural chimney runnin' up the hill, an' it looked
considerable much like Paradise to me. We ate an' smoked together for a
week, an' then one day our fire went out an' a flood of water poured
down through the chimney. We worked like beavers for a while, gettin'
our stuff outdoors, an' it was as hot as summer outside.
"That's the only drawback to this cave," said Slocum. "It will be all
to the good when the winter settles in earnest, but it will be some
bother while it's still snowin' an' thawin'."
I told him that I agreed with him to such an extent that if I could
locate the burro I'd rather risk gettin' back to humanity than to dyin'
there of rheumatiz. I was wringin' wet through.
"Nobody can't die of rheumatiz around me," sez Slocum, an' he went to
one of his packs an' got out a piece of root.
"Chew this," sez he, "an' it will drive the rheumatiz out of your
system."
Anybody would have trusted those eyes, so I chewed the root for about a
minute, an' then I chewed snow an' mud an' tobacco an' red pepper for
an hour, tryin' to get rid of the taste. Drive the rheumatiz out of
your system? Why, the blame stuff would drive out your system too if
you chewed it long enough. It was the tarnationest stuff 'at ever a
human man met up with.
"It's most too strong to take pure," sez Slocum, "but if you grind it
an' put a shall pinch in a quart of alcohol it makes a fine remedy.
Don't throw the rest o' that root away. There is enough there to do you
a lifetime."
"Yes," sez I, "there is, an' more."
A feller once told me that man was a slave to his
envirament--envirament is anything around you, scenery, books, evil
companions, an' sech; well, a burro ain't no slave to his envirament
'cause he generally eats it. My burro was fat, an' the clump of pine
trees had mostly disappeared. I loaded up my stuff, shook hands with
Slocum, and started down the mountain. Just as I got fully started
Slocum sez to me, "I 'm sure sorry to see you go. I don't generally get
much friendly with folks any more, but I took to you from the first,
an' any time I can do you a favor, all you got to do is to wink."
"What's your general plan of occupation, Slocum?" sez I.
"All that I ever expect to do for the remainder of my days," sez he,
"is to search for my Rheumatiz Remedy."
"Well," sez I, "any time you get to do me a favor in that line, it'll
be when I'm too weak to wink." So we parted the best o' friends, an' I
went on to a lumber camp where I put in the winter bossin' a gang. I
didn't know much about lumber, but the men there was just the same as
anywhere else, an' we got along fine.
I was bossin' a little ranch up in Idaho next June when I heard tell of
a big strike in the Esmeralda range--not such a great distance from
where I had spent the week with Slocum. The report had it that a feller
named Slocum had located the big ace of gold mines, an' I was some et
up with curiosity to see if it was the same Slocum; but I was needed at
the ranch that winter, an' as I took a likin' for the young feller who
was tryin' to make it go, I stuck to him, an' it wasn't until the
followin' July that I pulled out an' floated down that way.
Well, it was the same old Slocum sure enough. He was the most onlucky
cuss 'at ever breathed, I reckon. Every time he had made up his mind to
do something, Fate had stepped up an' voted again it. He had wasted the
best part of his life locatin' gold mines 'at wouldn't hang out, until
at last even he got disgusted an' went to huntin' for his Injun root to
cure rheumatiz with. First thing he knew, he had stumbled on a bonanza
lode in the Esmeralda range. This here lode was a peach. Ten-foot face
on top, just soggy with gold an' silver, an' copper an' tin enough to
pay expenses. It just looked as if they's said, "Now then, there's
Slocum; he been hammered so long he's got callous to it. Let's jus' see
how he'd act if we switched his luck on him." An' they sure done it.
Slocum, he scratched around until he see that it wasn't no joke, an'
then he set bait for a couple o' capitalists. He trapped two beauties,
an' they put up the assets an' went in, equal partners. They sunk
shafts an' built stamp mills an' smelters an' retorts; oh, they sure
made plans to get the metal wholesale. As soon as it began to flow in
they built stores an' shacks an' a big hotel--they wasn't timorous
about puttin' their coin into circulation, you bet your life, an' it
looked as if they was going to flood the market.
Well, Slocum, he owned a third of everything, mind, an' his expression
flopped square over like a dry moon, an' stayed points up. He forgot
all those years 'at he'd been havin' the muddy end of it, an' after a
time he got 'em to call the mine "Slocum's Luck." The' wasn't no call
to hurl such an insult as that into the mouth of an honest,
hard-workin' mine, an' naturally, as soon as it was done, the mine laid
down in its tracts an' refused to give up another ounce.
They came to a break in the lode an' couldn't find the beginnin' again.
The same twist that had hove one edge out of the ground had unjointed
the other. But they had got out a tidy sum already, an' they knew the'
must be a loose end somewhere, so they was anxious to keep their outfit
in good order.
Slocum hadn't swelled clear out of shape with his new fortune, an' when
I made myself known to him he had give me a purty tol'able decent sort
of a job, where there was more bossin' an' responsibility than brute
labor; an' I felt kindly toward him. Winter lasted full four months out
there. It was a good ninety miles to the railroad, an' so when the
mornin's begun to get frosty every one else scooted for humanity, an'
I, bein' more or less weak-minded, took the job o' watchman, at forty a
month an' my needin's. I always was a hog for litachure, so I got a
bushel o' libraries an' started in to play it alone.
The' wasn't a blessed thing to do, so I read 'em through by New Years,
an' got out of tobacco by the first of February. From that on I begun
to think in a circle, an' my intellect creaked like a dry axle before
the bluebirds began to sing. Quiet? I could hear the shadows crawlin'
along the side of the house. The snow was seventy-five feet deep in the
canyons, so you might say I was duty bound to stay there. As a general
rule, I don't shirk breakin' a path, but when the snow is more than
fifty feet higher than my head, I'd rather walk fourth or fifth.
When the outfit came back in the spring I was the entire reception
committee; but I bet the' never was one more able to do its part.