He slammed the door just in time to prevent a cup from flying straight
into his smiling eyes. After a moment of silent laughter, and with a
wink at the men in the "office," he reopened the door and said:
"Ye're a warm-hearted, handsome girl, Maggie. Two strips o' bacon--"
A muffled cry and a crash caused him to again slam the door and
withdraw.
Coming back to the middle of the room, he took out his pipe and began to
fill it. One of the younger men said:
"You'll get that grub-stake over the eye; the widdy is dangerous
to-night."
Sherm seemed not much concerned. Having fired his pipe, he took a piece
of rock from his pocket. "What do you think o' this?" he inquired,
casually.
The other examined it eagerly, and broke out: "Jee--cripes! Why, say!
that's jest _rotten_ with gold. Where'd you find it?"
"Out in the hills," was the placid reply; "a new vein--high up."
The third man took the rock and said: "That vein has got to be low
down--that can't come from high up. We're on the wrong trail. Think o'
Cripple Creek--mine's right under the grass on the hills. Yer can't fool
me."
"But we know the veins are high--we've seen 'em," argued the other men.
"Yes--but they're different veins. This rock comes from lower down."
"What do you say to that, Sherm?"
"One guess is as good as another," he replied, and moved away with his
piece of ore.
"The old man's mighty fly this evenin'. I wonder if he really has
trailed that float to a standstill. I'd sooner think he's stringin' us."
Bidwell went out on the edge of the ravine, and for a long time sat on a
rock, listening to the roar of the swift stream and looking up at the
peaks which were still covered with heavy yellow snow, stained with the
impalpable dust which the winter winds had rasped from the exposed
ledges of rock. It was chill in the canyon, and the old man shivered with
cold as well as with a sense of discouragement. For twenty years he had
regularly gone down into the valleys in winter to earn money with which
to prospect in summer--all to no purpose. For years Margaret Delaney had
been his very present help in time of trouble, and now she had broken
with him, and under his mask of smiling incredulity he carried a
profoundly disturbed conscience. His benefactress was in deadly
earnest--she meant every word she said--that he felt, and unless she
relented he was lost, for he had returned from the valley this time
without a dollar to call his own. He had a big, strong mule and some
blankets and a saddle--nothing further.
The wind grew stronger and keener, roaring down the canyon with the
breath of the upper snows, and the man's blood cried out for a fire
(June stands close to winter in the high ranges of the Crestones), and
at last he rose stiffly and returned to the little sitting-room, where
he found the widow in the midst of an argument with her boarders to
prove that they were all fools together for hangin' to the side of a
mountain that had no more gould in it than a flatiron or a loomp o'
coal--sure thing!
"What you goin' to do about our assays?" asked young Johnson.
"Assays, is it? Annybody can have assays--that will pay the price. Ye're
all lazy dogs in the manger, that's phwat ye air. Ye assay and want
somebody else to pay ye fer the privilege of workin'. Why don't ye work
yer-silves--ye loots? Sit around here expectin' some wan ilse to shovel
gould into yer hat. Ye'll pay me yer board--moind that," she ended,
making a personal application of her theories; "ivery wan o' ye."
If any lingering resolution remained in Bidwell's heart it melted away
as he listened to Mrs. Delaney's throaty voice and plain, blunt words.
Opening the door timidly, he walked in and without looking at the angry
woman seized upon his bundles, which lay behind the door.