THE ETHEL CLAIM
The sun, sinking low, for an instant shone through the gap in the
distant hills in one splendid blaze of light, enfolding in its
radiance, as if in friendly farewell, the little cabin which lay so
snugly nestled away on the towering slope of Burnt Mountain.
Abe Peters, gaunt, unkempt, kindly of face and gentle of manner,
turned for a moment from his methodical washing of the supper dishes
to glance down and away far over the distant valley.
"An' there's another day gone," he said slowly, "an' there's old
Ph[oe]be once again tellin' us good night. All sorts of ways she comes
up over the mountain in the morning, and all sorts of ways she goes
down behind the hills at night, but that's the way I like to see her
set the best; sort of nice and peaceful like and calm."
He turned to the other occupant of the cabin. "But there," he added,
after a moment, "I expect it seems kind of all-fired lonesome to a
city man, don't it now? I expect you find us folks out here live
pretty common."
Frost, short, stout, pleasant of face and manner, turned from the
window. "No, sir," he said heartily, "not a bit of it. I'm a city man
part of the time, but the other part I have to spend just knocking
around the world, here, there and everywhere. And after all, Abe, four
walls and a roof, a fire and a bit to eat and drink; that's all a
man's got a right to expect, and that's all he needs, too."
Peters nodded in pleasant assent. "Yes, sir, that's right," he
answered, "but it ain't every one that thinks the way you do. Most of
'em are crazy for somethin' they can't get; money mad, or liquor mad,
or minin' mad, or somethin' of the kind. Speakin' in general, it ain't
what you'd call a contented world, no ways at all."
Frost laughed. "Abe," he said good-humoredly, "you're a real
philosopher. You've got about the same ideas concerning things that I
have, and that's why I respect you and esteem you as a man of
intelligence and good sense."
Up the path, standing out in shadowy relief against the fading
afterglow in the west, a figure strode past the cabin window. Frost
turned idly to his host. "There goes a late worker, Abe," he said. "I
wonder if that might be Harrison you were telling me about."
Peters stepped to the window, shading his eyes with his hand as he
gazed out into the fast gathering twilight. "No, that ain't Harrison,"
he replied. "Jack would be steppin' out sprier'n that. That must be
the old man, I reckon. Yes, that's him, for sure."
Frost turned from the window, and, seating himself by the log fire,
began leisurely to fill his pipe. "So we see the gentlemen to-night,
do we?" he asked.
Peters nodded. "That's what we do," he answered, "and, Mr. Frost, I'm
givin' this to you straight. I'm a friend of Jim's and I'm a friend of
yours, and I want to see you both come out of this thing right. And
the way to do it's for you to buy a half interest in the Ethel. That's
best for him and it's best for you, too."
Frost smiled. "So you think half a loaf's better than no bread, do
you?" he said. "Well, that's right enough sometimes, but where a man
wants to buy the whole blamed bake-shop, why, then it doesn't quite
seem to fit. Yes, I've got to do my best, anyway. And I wonder, Abe,
which is the real man I ought to get next to here, Mason or Harrison."
Peters put the last dish away on the shelf, and in turn drew up his
chair and, fumbling in his pocket, drew forth and lighted a grimy
pipe. He shook his head doubtfully.
"That's more'n I can tell," he answered, "but we've got half an hour
yet before we start, an' I can give you the story, anyway; then you
can figure things out for yourself, an' you won't be blamin' me. How's
that suit?"
Frost blew a beautifully rounded ring of smoke, and leisurely watched
it float upward. "Fine," he assented. "Just what I was going to ask.
I'm all attention, Abe. Let her go."
For some minutes Peters puffed in silence; then took his pipe from his
mouth and began.
"In the first place," he said slowly, "Jim Mason's an all fired smart
man. He wa'nt born and brought up here, like I was. He used to live
down Octagon way. Soon as he left school, he went to copper minin'.
I've heard him tell about it fifty times. 'I began,' he says, 'at the
bottom o' the mine an' the bottom o' my trade, an' I worked pretty
well up to the top in both of 'em.' An' it's the truth, too. He was
one o' the best surface men at the lake, an' earnin' good money;
layin' it away, too, an' that's more than a lot of 'em can say. Then
he gets married an' settles down, an' then damned if a while after
that an epidemic o' typhoid don't hit the Octagon camp, an' Jim's wife
takes it an' dies in a week. Well, that breaks him up complete. After
a while he finds he can't stand it round home noways, so he takes his
little girl an' moves up here to Seneca. Always he's claimin' the
Onondaga lode hits here somewheres after it dips. So he fools around
for a while, an' then, after a year or so, he stakes out his claim,
names it the Ethel after his little girl, hires a gang o' men, an'
goes to work. Four years he's fitted out for, an' blamed if they don't
turn out to be four hard luck years. First he strikes tough rock, then
the price o' labor goes up on him, then he gets sick himself, an' it's
most a year before he's right again; it's one thing here and another
there, so finally he has to let his gang go, an' by that time he's so
plumb crazy over his claim that he goes on workin' her by himself,
everybody but him knowin' he couldn't do nothin' that way if he lived
to be as old as Methusalem. Still, he don't seem to care, an' goes
right on pluggin' away alone.
"Now here's where Harrison comes in. Jack's a pretty likely young man,
an' he'd got to be Jim's foreman, an' was mighty sweet on the little
girl. No blame to him, either. She's as pretty as a picture, an' smart
as chain lightnin', but let to run wild like a colt. Long as she gets
the old man's meals, an' keeps the house cleaned up, he don't care a
mite what she does the rest o' the time. I guess, though, the girl's
got discontented like, an' she'd be mighty glad to have the old man
strike it rich, so's she could get out o' here for good an' move off
to the city somewheres. Well, when the rest o' the gang goes, Harrison
says he won't leave, but he'll work along a spell with the old man,
an' if they strike things rich Jim can treat him any ways he thinks is
right. Course, though, it ain't the old man or the mine Jack cares
about; it's Ethel he's after, an' as I say, small blame to him.
"So there you are. The old man's the legal owner, but Jack's got a
kind of a say-so about the mine, too. The old man's sensible enough
about everythin' else, but half crazy about the mine, an' Jack's
sensible enough about everythin' else, an' the mine, too, but he's
half crazy about the girl. So that's the story, an' there you are."
Frost, rising, nodded. "I guess," he said slowly, "the old man's the
one I want. I can tell better after I've seen 'em, though. What's the
use of waiting, Abe? Let's go along over and size 'em up."
For answer Peters rose and put on his coat, and a moment later they
had left the cabin.
Meanwhile, over at Mason's, Jack Harrison had come slowly up the path,
the stoop of his broad shoulders and the slight stiffness of his
usually springy gait showing that there are limits beyond which the
strongest muscle and sinew can not with safety be driven. Entering the
kitchen and seeing no one, he stepped out on to the broad veranda
which surrounded the house, and came suddenly on the girl he was
seeking, seated alone and gazing idly out over the broad sweep of the
darkening valley.
To find Ethel Mason in an attitude even suggesting meditation was an
occurrence so rare that the young man was fairly startled. "Hullo,
Ethel," he exclaimed, "anythin' gone wrong?"
The girl started to her feet. Slight of figure, slender and graceful
as a deer, the brown curls clustering around her pretty face made her
at first sight seem little more than a child in appearance, an
impression, however, no sooner formed than at once dispelled by the
soft curves of her figure, and the poise and self-reliance of her
manner as she answered him.
"Yes," she cried rebelliously, "there's plenty wrong. I'm just sick
and tired of the way things are going on. He doesn't give me enough a
week to keep house for a dog; I haven't had a cent to spend on myself
for a month; and then last night there's a dance over at the Hall, and
every girl in the county can go but me, and I haven't a single thing
to my name I can wear, and so I have to stay at home. Cook the meals,
wash the dishes, clean the house; if that's all the life I'm ever
going to have, I'd a lot rather be dead."
The young man's face showed his dismay. "Don't say that, Ethel," he
cried. "I'm sorry things are goin' so bad. It's Jim's fault, partly,
and it's mine, too. I'm afraid I'm gettin' as crazy over the lode as
he is, and pretty nigh forgettin' everythin' else. I'm sorry, Ethel.
It is tough on you, and no mistake."
The girl shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Oh, it's all right," she
said indifferently. "Everybody's got to have their troubles; and I
wouldn't start telling you mine if it wasn't so's you could see what
things are getting down to. You know what I think about you, anyway. I
think you're a fool to stick around here. The old mine's never going
to be any good, anyhow."
Harrison smiled grimly. "You know right well it ain't the mine I'm
holdin' on for," he answered, a gleam of passion in his eyes. "It's
for what goes with it when we strike the lode. And the man that's
waitin' for that ain't got no cause to be called a fool."
The girl, not ill-pleased, tossed her head coquettishly. "You aren't
sure of either of 'em," she cried, "the lode or the girl. We aren't
regular promised, Jack. Maybe some day a better looking fellow with
more money'll come along, and then you'll get left."
The young man's face grew dark with anger, and he took a quick step
forward. "Don't you dare say that!" he cried fiercely. "If I thought
you meant that, Ethel, I'd kill you! By God, I would!"
The girl shrank a little before the storm she had unwittingly raised.
"There, there," she cried, "don't be so foolish, Jack. I didn't mean
it. You run along and fix up, and don't bother me. I've got to get
supper. Where'd you leave the old man?"
Even before Harrison had started to reply, the door swung open and
Mason entered, stooping, unkempt, weary, but with eye still bright and
his whole expression alert and aglow with the lust of battle.
"I knew it, Jack!" he cried. "I told you the farther we worked to the
eastward, the richer that fifth level was going to open up. Look at
this! And this! And this!" and he tossed the chunks of rock on the
piazza table.
Harrison, a trifle shamefaced, picked them up and nodded. They were in
truth splendid samples, fairly blazing with copper.
"I tell you," Mason went on, "if we haven't really struck the lode,
and I believe we have, we're right next door to it, anyway. Perhaps I
haven't mined that rock year in and year out for ten years without
finding out a little something about it. Perhaps I don't know the look
of it and the feel of it, and pretty near the taste of it. I'll bet
you anything you want, Jack, that inside a month we'll strike as rich
copper as ever was mined at the lake."
All through supper he talked on in a like strain. Ethel and Jack
listening in silence. Then, after the supper dishes were cleared away,
and the old man had settled down, pipe in mouth, in front of the
kitchen stove, Harrison had his say.
"Look here, Jim," he said abruptly, "I did somethin' last night that I
suppose is goin' to get you mad. I met Abe Peters walkin' home, an' he
tells me he's got one of those eastern sharps stayin' with him,
investigatin' likely claims, Abe says, with the idea to buy 'em if
they comes up to standard. Abe says he starts to tell him about the
Ethel, an' the man seems to be better posted than Abe is himself.
Anyways, we fixed it up that Abe's goin' to bring him over to-night
after grub, an' we'll have a little talk with him. Can't do no harm,
an' the way things is goin' now ain't right to none of us; not to you
nor to me nor to the girl here, neither. So you want to treat 'em
civil when they come."
The old man straightened up in his chair with a glare of resentment,
and banged the table with his clenched fist.
"No, sir," he exclaimed, "I won't see him or have nothing to do with
him, and neither will you. I'll have no man nosing into my claim, or
talking of buying it, either. It ain't a mite of use, Jack. The claim
ain't for sale, and I won't have 'em coming round bothering me about
it. You can get rid of Abe your own way, but I don't let him set foot
in this house, him or his mining sharp or anybody else. I won't do it,
Jack, for you nor no man."
Harrison's jaw set with a resolution quieter, perhaps, but every bit
as determined as Mason's.
"Jim," he said, "that talk don't go. I've stuck to you and the mine
for two years now, fair and square, and it looks like I'd got a right
to some say about what we're going to do. Now, I've been figuring it
out pretty careful, and this is just about the way we're fixed.
Supposin', just for argument, we strike the lode to-morrow, why, even
at that we can't ever develop that mine alone. It stands to reason
we've got to have an awful pile of money back of us. Give us all the
men we want, and all the machinery, and God knows what else, and then
it's goin' to take two years and more to make her a dividend payer.
No, sir, we've got to have money, Jim, and the only way to get it's to
hitch up with some one like this cuss that's out here now. We can look
out for our end all the time. You hold out for a big lot of stock, and
getting yourself appointed superintendent, and me assistant, and that
way we'll be doing right by the mine, and we'll get plenty rich, too.
So that's sense, Jim, and nothing but sense, and you've got to talk to
this man to-night, or, by God, Jim, I'll get out to-morrow, as sure as
we're sitting here, and leave you to go it alone."
Mason, completely taken aback, fairly gasped. Suddenly he had
realized, perhaps for the first time, his utter dependence on the
younger man. "You--you wouldn't really do that, Jack," he faltered
tremulously.
Harrison, more from the old man's manner than from the words
themselves, felt that the victory was won. He nodded decisively.
"That's just what I'd do," he answered firmly. "I don't mean to go
against you any way at all, Jim, but I know what's common sense, and
you'll see it yourself some day, too. I'm not bluffing. I'd hate to do
it, but I mean every word just the way I say."
The old man sighed, as if half the joy had suddenly gone out of his
life. Then he nodded with resignation.
"All right, Jack," he said, with a trace of bitterness in his tone, "I
can't say but what you've used me straight as a string all the way
through. Mining's a young man's work, I guess. Maybe you'd act a mite
foolish over the old claim yourself, Jack, if you'd wintered and
summered with her the way I have. Never mind, though. Have it your own
way."
Harrison had started to reply, when heavy footsteps sounded on the
path without. "Good for you, Jim," he said quickly, "it won't hurt to
talk it over, and we'll be careful we don't make any mistake. I guess
that's them now."