THE LAUGHING WATER CLAIM
A man who lives by uncertainties has a singular habit of mind. He is
ever lured forward by hopes and dreams that overlap each other as he
goes. While the scheme in hand is proving hopeless, day by day, he
grasps at another, just ahead, and draws himself onward towards the
gilded goal, forgetful of the trickery of all those other schemes
behind, that were equally bright in their day.
Van had relinquished all hold on the golden dream once dangled before
him by the Monte Cristo mine, to lay strong hands on the promise
vouchsafed by the "See Saw" claim which he had purchased. As he walked
away from the assayer's shop he felt his hands absolutely empty. For
the very first time in at least four years he had no blinding glitter
before his vision to entice him to feverish endeavor. He was a dreamer
with no dreams, a miner without a mine.
He felt chagrined, humiliated. After all his time spent here in the
world's most prodigious laboratory of minerals, he had purchased a
salted mine! A sharper man, that sad-faced, half-sick Selwyn Briggs,
had actually trimmed him like this!
Salted! And he was broke. Well, what was the next thing to do? He
thought of the fine large bill of goods, engaged for himself and
partners to take to the "See Saw" claim. It made him smile. But he
would not rescind the order--for a while. His partners, with his
worldly goods, the Chinese cook and all the household, save Cayuse,
would doubtless arrive by noon. He and they had to eat; they had to
live. Also they had to mine, for they knew nothing else by way of
occupation. They must somehow get hold of some sort of claim, and go
on with their round of hopes and toil. They had never been so utterly
bereft--so outcast by the goddess of fortune--since they had thrown
their lots together.
He dreaded the thought of meeting various acquaintances here in
camp--the friends to whom he had said he was going that day to the "See
Saw" property, far over the Mahogany range, near the Indian
reservation. He determined to go. Perhaps the shack and the
shaft-house on the claim, with the windlass and tools included by
Briggs in the bill of sale, might fetch a few odd dollars.
Slowly down the street he went to the hay-yard where his pony was
stabled. He met a water man, halting on his rounds at the front of a
neat canvas dwelling. The man had three large barrels on a wagon, each
full of muddy, brackish water. A long piece of hose was thrust into
one, its other end dangled out behind.
From the tent emerged a woman with her buckets. The water man placed
the hose-end to his mouth, applied a lusty suction, and the water came
gushing forth. He filled both receptacles, collected the price, and
then drove on to the next.
Sardonically Van reflected that even the fine little stream of water on
his claim, in a land where water was so terribly scarce, was absolutely
worthless as an asset. It was over a mountain ridge of such tremendous
height that it might as well have been in the forests of Maine.
Despite the utter hopelessness of his present situation, his spirits
were not depressed. Gettysburg, he reflected, was a genius for bumping
into queer old prospectors--relics of the days of forty-nine, still
eagerly pursuing their _ignis fatuous_ of gold--and from some such
desert wanderer he would doubtless soon pick up a claim. There was
nothing like putting Gettysburg upon the scent.
Van wrote a note to his partners.
"Dear Fellow Mourners:
"Have just discovered a joke. I was salted on the 'See Saw' property.
Our pipe dream is defunct. Have gone over to lay out remains. If you
find any oldtimers who have just discovered some lost bonanza, take
them into camp. Don't get drunk, get busy. Be back a little after
noon."
This he left with the hay-yard man where his partners would stop when
they arrived. Mounted on Suvy, his outlaw of the day before, he rode
from Goldite joyously. After all, what was the odds? He had been no
better off than now at least a hundred times. At the worst he still
had his partners and his horse, a breakfast aboard, and a mountain
ahead to climb.
Indeed, at the light of friendship in his broncho's eyes, as well as at
the pony's neigh of welcome, back there at the yard, he had felt a
boundless pleasure in his veins. He patted the chestnut's neck, in his
rough, brusque way of companionship, and the horse fairly quivered with
pleasure.
For nearly two hours the willing animal went zig-zagging up the rocky
slopes. The day was warming; the sun was a naked disk of fire. It was
hard climbing. Van had chosen the shorter, steeper way across the
range. From time to time, where the barren ascent was exceptionally
severe, he swung from the saddle and led the broncho on, to mount
further up as before.
Thus they came in time to a zone of change, over one of the ridges, a
region where rocks and ugliness gave way to a growth of brush and
stunted trees. These were the outposts, ragged, dwarfed, and warped,
of a finer growth beyond.
Fifteen miles away, down between the hills, flowed a tortuous stream,
by courtesy called a river. It sometimes rose in a turgid flood, but
more often it sank and delivered up its ghost to such an extent that a
man could have held it in his hat. Nevertheless some greenery
flourished on its banks.
When Van at last could oversee the vast, unpeopled lands of the Piute
Indian reservation, near the boundary of which his salted claim had
been staked, he had only a mile or so to ride, and all the way down
hill.
He came to the property by eleven o'clock of the morning. He looked
about reflectively. The rough board cabin and the rougher shaft-house
were scarcely worth knocking down for lumber. There, on the big,
barren dike, were several tunnels and prospects, in addition to the
shaft, all "workings" that Briggs had opened up in his labors on the
ledge. They were mere yawning mockeries of mining, but at least had
served a charlatan's requirements. A few tools lay about, abominably
neglected.
The location was rather attractive, on the whole. The clear stream of
water had coaxed a few quaking aspens and alders into being, among the
stunted evergreens. Grass lay greenly along the bank, a charming
relief to the eye. The sandy soil was almost level in the narrow cove,
which was snugly surrounded by hills, except at the lower extremity,
where the brook tumbled down a wide ravine.
Van, on his horse, gazed over towards the Indian reservation idly. How
vain, in all likelihood, were the wonderful tales of gold ledges lying
within its prohibited borders. What a madness was brewing in the camps
all around as the day for the reservation opening rapidly approached!
How they would swarm across its hills and valleys--those gold-seeking
men! What a scramble it would be, and all for--what?
There were tales in plenty of men who had secretly prospected here on
this forbidden land, and marked down wonderful treasures. Van looked
at his salted possessions. What a chance for an orgie of salting the
reservation claims would afford!
With his pony finally secured to a tree near at hand, the horseman
walked slowly about. A gold pan lay rusting, half filled with rock and
dirt, by a bench before the cabin. It was well worth cleaning and
taking away, together with some of the picks, drills, and hammers.
He carried it over to the brook. There he knelt and washed it out,
only to find it far more rusted than it had at first appeared. He
scooped it full of the nearest gravel and scoured it roughly with his
hands. Three times he repeated this process, washing it out in the
creek.
Ready to rise with it, cleaned at last, he caught up a shallow film of
water, flirted it about with a rotary motion, to sluice out the last
bit of stubborn dross, then paused to stare in unbelief at a few bright
particles down at the edge, washed free of all the gravel.
Incredulous and not in the least excited, he drew a small glass from
has pocket and held it on the specks. There could be no doubt of their
nature. They were gold.
Interested, but doubting the importance of his find, Van pawed up half
a pan full of gravel and dipped the receptacle full of water. Then
stirring the sand and stuff with his hand, he panned it carefully.
The result at the end was such a string of colors as he had never
washed in all his wide experience. To make a superficial prospect of
the claim he proceeded to pan from a dozen different places in the
cove, and in every instance got an exceptional showing of coarse,
yellow gold, with which the gravel abounded.
He knelt motionless at last, beside the stream, singularly unperturbed,
despite the importance of his find. Briggs had slipped up, absolutely,
on the biggest thing in many miles around, by salting and selling a
quartz claim here to a man with a modest sum of money.
The cove was a placer claim, rich as mud in gold, and with everything
needed at hand.
Then and there the name of the property was changed from the "See Saw"
to the "Laughing Water" claim.