I
"There's gold in the Sierra Blanca country--everybody admits it,"
Sherman F. Bidwell was saying as the Widow Delaney, who kept the Palace
Home Cooking Restaurant in the town of Delaney (named after her husband,
old Dan Delaney), came into the dining-room. Mrs. Delaney paused with a
plate of steaming potatoes, and her face was a mask of scorn as she
addressed the group, but her words were aimed especially at Bidwell, who
had just come in from the lower country to resume his prospecting up the
gulch.
"It's aisy sayin' gould is in thim hills, but when ye find it rainbows
will be fishin'-rods." As she passed the potatoes over Bidwell's head
she went on: "Didn't Dan Delaney break his blessed neck a-climbin' the
high places up the creek--to no purpis includin' that same accident? You
min may talk and talk, but talk don't pay for petaties and bacon, mind
that. For eight years I've been here and I'm worse off to-day than iver
before--an' the town, phwat is it? Two saloons and a boardin'-house--and
not a ton of ore dug--much less shipped out. Y'r large words dig no
dirt, I'm thinkin', Sherm Bidwell."
Bidwell was a mild-spoken man who walked a little sidewise, with eyes
always on the ground as though ceaselessly searching for pieces of
float. He replied to his landlady with some spirit: "I've chashayed
around these mountains ever since I got back from Californey in
fifty-four and I know good rocks. I can't just lay my pick on the vein,
but I'm due to find it soon, for I'm a-gettin' old. Why, consider the
float, it's everywhere--and you know there's colors in every sand-bar?
There's got to be a ledge somewhere close by."
The widow snorted. "Hah! Yiss, flo-at! Me windysills is burthened with
dirty float--but where's the gould?"
"I'll find it, Mrs. Delaney--but you must be patient," he mildly
replied.
"Pashint! Me, pashint! Sure Job was a complainin' mill-wheel beside me,
Sherm Bidwell. Me boarders have shrunk to five and you're one o' the
five--and here you are after another grub-stake to go picnicking into
the mountains wid. I know your smooth tongue--sure I do--but ye're up
against me determination this toime, me prince. Ye don't get a pound o'
meat nor a measure o' flour from Maggie Delaney--"
Bidwell sat with an air of resigned Christian fortitude while the widow
delivered herself. To tell the truth, he had listened to these precise
words before--and resented them only because spoken publicly.
The other boarders finished their supper in silence and went out, but
Bidwell lingered to wheedle the mistress while she ate her own fill at
the splotched and littered table. The kerosene-lamp stood close to her
plate and brought out the glow of her cheek and deepened the blue of her
eyes into violet. She was still on the right side of forty and well
cared for.
Bidwell shot a shy glance at her. "I like to stir you up, Maggie
darlin'; it makes you purty as a girl."
She caught up a loaf of bread and heaved it at him. He caught it deftly
and inquired, guilelessly: "Is this the first of my grub-stake, lassie?"
"It is _not!_ 'Tis the last crumb ye'll have of me. Out wid ye!
Grub-stake indade! You go out this night, me bucko!"
Bidwell rose in pretended fright and shuffled to the door. "I don't need
much--a couple o' sacks o' flour--"