The young Allens began their new life by plunging themselves still
deeper in debt. Their honeymoon was very short. They spent it on Long
Island Sound in a yacht which Wilmot borrowed over the telephone, just
before they left Clovelly to be married. On the sixth day they went
West. In Salt Lake City they foregathered with a mining engineer to whom
Wilmot had secured letters. This one fell in love with Barbara, closed
his office and went with them into the hills for ten days. They came out
of the hills with brown faces and sparkling eyes. The engineer opened
his office and dictated his report of their mines to his stenographer.
During this work of enthusiasm he occasionally sighed, and the
stenographer knit her brows.
"Now then," said the engineer to Wilmot and Barbara, "if my name is any
good in New York, you can raise all the money you need on that document.
If you can't, telegraph, and I can raise it here."
"But," said Barbara, growing very practical, "if the money can be raised
here, why blow in two car-fares _and_ a drawing-room from here to New
York and back?"
[Illustration: The engineer made generous terms across the dinner-table]
"Why," the engineer stammered a little, "I thought you'd have lots and
lots of friends that you'd want to let in on the ground floor. But if
you haven't, and if my money is as good as another's--you see, it's
a grand property--I'm not above longing for an interest in it myself."
"I can't deny," said Wilmot, who had been worrying himself dreadfully
about finding the means, "that this looks like easy money to me."
The engineer made generous terms across the dinner-table, and the young
Allens borrowed his money from him.
"I suppose," said the engineer hopefully, "that you'll run out from time
to time to see how things are getting on?"
"Run out?" exclaimed Barbara; "we are going to live with the proposition
until it goes through or under. Aren't we, Wilmot?"
"I hoped you'd feel that way about it, Barbs."
"You _knew_ I would."
At first they lived in a tent, and then in a series of large wooden
boxes that they called first "The House" and then "Home." Machinery
began to come into the camp in the wake of long strings of mules walking
two and two. Upon the report of their special consulting engineer the
nearest transcontinental railroad began to lay metals across the desert,
to the mines. One day came strangers with picks and shovels, and the
next day came more. And these began to scratch among the sage-brush and
to explode sticks of dynamite against the faces of hills. Claims were
staked; shanties built; a hotel with saloon attached, all of shining tin
and tar paper, arose in the night. The first thing Barbara knew Wilmot
began to talk of a stretch of sage-brush as Main Street. And the same
day she heard a man with red beard speak of the little town as "Allen."
One night a man was shot dead among the sage-bushes of Main Street. Six
hours later Wilmot came in on a horse covered with lather. There was a
stern, but not unhappy, look in his eyes.
"Well?" she asked.
"He showed fight," said Wilmot; "and we had to pot him."
"Did you--"
"Would you care? We shook hands on keeping all details secret. I think
the town of Allen will be run orderly in the future. And by the way,
have I such a thing as a clean shirt?"
"You will have," said Barbara, "when the things dry."
"Barbara!"
"Yes, it had to come to it. There are only two women in town, and the
other isn't fit to wash your shirts, dear."
"Let me see your hands."
He examined them critically, then kissed them uncritically.
"They don't look like a washer-woman's hands yet," he said.
"No," she said, "not yet. But please say they look less and less like a
sculptor's."
[Illustration: "You will," said Barbara, "when the things dry"]
"Barbara," he said, "they look more and more like a dear's. But tell
me, aren't you getting bored with it--missing New York things and
all and all?"
"No," she said stoutly, "I'm not. I'm useful here in some ways. And I
was about as useful there as--as all the other people. I'm not even
worried about the mines."
"Neither am I. But development's a great deal slower than I thought.
We've still plenty of money. And the moment we begin to ship ore, we'll
have plenty of credit which is just as useful. No! I'm not worried.
We're going to be rich, and we're going to live in a palace."
"And then what?"
"That _is_ worrying me. What do people do when the striving's over, and
the sixteen hours a day hard work? What _do_ they do? Oh, Barbs, we know
lots of such people, and we must find out exactly what they do, and--do
something else. Living as we are living has its drawbacks; but it's not
a place to hurry over."
"It's a good way to live," said Barbara. "If you've got sense enough to
know that it's good while it's going on. People who speak of the good
old days, or who are always looking forward to better days, are usually
unhappy. All the time I've been washing your clothes and mine this
morning I kept saying, 'Now this is really _good_--this is really worth
while,' and once when I got the better of an ink-spot, my heart began to
beat as if I'd just finished some immortal work."
They were much amused with Bubbles, who came out to them for the
Christmas vacation. The short fall term had already stamped him with the
better ear-marks of the great New England boarding-schools. He was quite
a superior person, rather prone to quotes just as if they had been facts
out of the gospel, the sayings of Mr. This and Mr. That. And he used
superior words, and spoke of various Kings of England as if he had
_always_ known that such persons existed. He had in addition a
smattering of Latin, his pride in which he strove in vain to conceal.
And most of all he considered the school-boy captain of the foot-ball
team a creature, on the whole, wiser and more knowing even than Abe
Lichtenstein.
But by the time he had been a week in camp he was himself again. And by
the time he returned to school he had forgotten the ablative singular
of Rosa.
They thought best to tell him that he would have plenty of money some
day. In view of this would he persist in being a secret service agent?
He thought so. He wasn't sure. The service needed money often and always
service. Had he seen his father? Yes, and he told them about the
interview.
"And," said Bubbles, "he sent me a box Thanks-giving, There was a cold
turkey and caramels and guava jelly and ginger-snaps, and walnut meats
and seedless raisins, and, and as Mr. Tompkins says, it doesn't do to be
_too_ hard on a man."
[Illustration: They were much amused with Bubbles, who came out to
them for Christmas vacation]