The gulch ran in a trough of beauty to the foot of Jones's Hill, which
rose in a sweeping curve into the clouds.
Wild flowers, trees in profuse leaf, and mats of vines covered the
scarred earth, and the sky was as limpid as spring water; the air carried
a weight of heart-stirring odors, yet Jim Felton, sitting on the
door-step of his cabin in the brilliant sunshine, was not a happy man.
He looked at the hollow of the gulch and cursed it manfully and bitterly.
The gold should be there--Jim had figured it all out. The old wash cut at
right angles to the creek, and at the turn was where its freight of
yellow metal should have been deposited, but when you got down to the
bed-rock, the blasted stuff was either slanted so nothing could stay on
it, or was rotten--crumbling in your fingers, and that kind of bed will
hold nothing.
Therefore Jim had sunk about fifty prospect holes; got colors under the
grass-roots, as evidence that pay should be there--and nothing but ashy
wash beneath it.
When a man is alone, and thinks things are wrong, optimism comes down on
the run, the shades of pessimism gather fast and furious--more especially
if a man does his own cooking, and the raw material is limited, at that.
The sun had not moved the shadows three inches before Jim had reached the
conclusion that this world was all a practical joke, of so low an order
that no sensible man would even laugh at it, and he drew a letter from
his pocket in proof thereof. It was a thin letter, written on delicate
paper in a delicate hand, and it showed much wear. He read for the
thousandth time:
Dearest Jim--And again I must say "no." Of course you will not
understand, for which foolish reason I like you all the better, but
you must try to take my point of view. You say that we can be
married on nothing and take our chances.
So we can, old simple-heart--but aren't those chances all against
us? Would you like to be forced to work in some office for just
enough to live on? You know you would not, and you know how you
would suffer in such slavery.
Nevertheless we can not live on air, and I doubt if I would stand
transplanting to the wild life you love, better than you to a
clerk's desk. You have that fancy which gilds the tin cans in the
back yard; I have that unfortunate eye which would multiply their
number by three, and their unsightliness by ten. I don't want
riches, dear; I only want a modest assurance that I can have enough
to live on.
Really, is your way of doing a guarantee of even bread and butter? In
the Garden of Eden you would be the most delightful of companions,
but in this world as it is, you will not fight for your own. You
would risk your life to save a dog, but you couldn't stay at a
continued grind--I mean it would kill you, actually, physically,
dead, dead--to save all of us. At first I thought that a fault in
you, but now, being older, having compared you to other men, I see it
is merely a missing faculty.
I could stick to the desk, and would gladly, if you would let me,
yet I could not even fancy behaving as you did at the factory fire,
which is still the symbol in the town for manly courage and presence
of mind.
They talk now of the way you laughed and joked with those poor
frightened girls (who had such good cause to be frightened) and
brought them back to sanity with a jest. I feel that if I had the
least atom of heroism in me I would marry you for that feat alone,
and let cold facts go hang; but, ah, Jim! magnificent as you are on
the grand occasions, they come but seldom, and in the meantime,
Jim--I'll leave that to your own honesty.
I'm plebeian, Jim, and you're a nobleman, with a beautiful but
embarrassing disregard for vulgar necessities.
However, I can say this for myself--for surely I may brag a little
to my lover--I can try to match your splendid physical bravery by
my own moral courage.
You may rest your soul in peace on one point. If I am not for you,
I'm for no man, no, not so much as a half-glance of the eye. I
wouldn't hold myself a bit more straitly if I were your wife.
You'll be angry at this letter. Well, I'll stand your anger. I have
caused it, and I'll bear the blame. I know that we could not be
happy without some visible means of support, yet I do not blame you
in the least for thinking otherwise.
Be as kind to me as you can, Jim, for I love you very much in my
commonplace way. I'll admit, too, that I had rather have your fire
than my refrigerator--oh, if you could only make some money--not a
great deal, but enough for a little house of our own, and enough in
the bank to buy groceries!
With my best love, and an aching lump in my throat,
Your mother, sister, and sweetheart,
Anne.
Jim dropped the letter, and his lips trembled a little. Parts of it
touched him deeply, and he was the more enraged and hurt at the rest
because of that.
He could not call her mercenary. He knew better. More than one very
comfortable income was at her disposal.
Poor fellow! He could only grind his teeth and curse Sweet Briar gulch
from the deepest pot-hole in the bed-rock to the top of its loftiest
pine. He drew out her photograph, and obtained much sweet consolation by
thinking how happy they two would be in Sweet Briar gulch together, even
if there wasn't a cent of pay in the gravel.
Sick of this ingenious torture, he lit his pipe and drew savagely upon
it. With a mocking gurgle, about a dram of "slumgullion" passed into his
mouth. It was the last touch. He spat out the biting, nauseating stuff,
hurled the pipe upon the rocks and danced on it.
And yet the colors frolicked in the gulch; the pines toned the air with
healthy breath.
From afar came the th-r-r-up! th-r-r-up! th-r-r-up of a galloping horse.
It was Bud, the mail-carrier, coming, modestly and quietly, at a decent
gait, down a trail where most would prefer to walk, and to "hang on" to
something at that.
At first Jim felt irritated by the interruption. He wanted to luxuriate
in misery: still he was a vigorous, healthy man, and the cheery
good-fellowship of Bud soon made away with that feeling.
"Well, how they coming, Jimmy?" queried the young giant. "Hit her yet?"
"Hit--well, much caloric,"--replied Jim. "I've begun to believe there
ain't a durned thing here."
"You're looking kind of owly, old man--what's up? Don't you feel well?"
"Oh, Bud I I'm sick of everything this day--I don't believe in the
constitution of the United States, including the thirteenth amendment,
nor the ten commandments, nor the attraction of gravitation, nor anything
else--it's all a damned lie."
"No wonder you get like that, mousing around here without a chance to
yappi with a feller critter. 'Nough to make you locoed.
"Jump it for a spell. Go up town. Get loaded. Get horribly loaded. Break
somebody's window, and tell the folks you're a Sweet Briar zephyr come to
blow out their lights. Go ahead and do it. When your hair stops pulling
you'll feel like a new man."
Jim thought the advice sound, yet a strange feeling had developed in him,
in his isolation; it was that the eye of Anne was always on him. He had
fallen into a habit, which becomes a superstition when a man is alone, of
acting as though she were there in person.
However, he didn't feel called upon to offer Bud that explanation of his
refusal. He conveyed the idea in one brief word.
"Busted," said he.
"Busted?" retorted Bud warmly. "Busted? Not much, you ain't busted whilst
that little package is there, bet cher life! You call for what you want,
and the cashier will make good."
"Ah, Bud! How'll I ever pay you back? Keep it, man, keep it," replied Jim
in a disheartened voice.
"Say, you ain't got no call to worry about that part of it--there's where
my troubles begin," returned Bud. "Now, you take these two bucks and jab
'em in your jeans--Go on, now! Do as I tell you, or damned if I don't
lick you and make you take 'em! What's the good of money if it ain't to
help a friend out with? I don't care who gets drunk on it, just so long
as they have a good time.
"Boy, you'll be sailing up the track regardless of orders, with your
boiler full of suds, if you don't get out in the scramble for a while."
"Lord! I'd like to see a railroad train! Haven't heard a whistle for two
years! How far is it to the nearest station, Bud?"
"Plattsburg--fifty mile--due south."
"Christmas! Little far to walk."
"Say, you take this horse, Jim,--go ahead! I can walk just as well as
not, I'm getting too fat, anyhow. Go on, you take the horse and have a
ride to Plattsburg!"
"Yes, take the shirt off your back, and never mind if a bit of the skin
goes with it. I'll see you far away first. Tell you what you could do for
me, Buddy; the herd of burros is around now, if you'd round up one of
them for me?"
"Sure thing! You sit on the mail sack till I come back. There's a heap of
registered stuff in it this trip. Oh say! What do you think? I was held
up t'other side of the Bulldog. Bang! Zipp! says a little popper from the
bushes. I climbed for them bushes, and out goes a beggar like a rabbit. I
was after him like a coyote, bet cher life. Who do you suppose it was,
Jim?"
"Hang it, how should I know?"
"That little down-east cuss with the crook in his back. He begged hard.
Poor devil, he was up against the sandpaper side, all right. He heard
from the postmaster that there was a lot of valuable mail going out, so
he thought he'd make a try for it. Then what do you think he had the
cold, cold nerve to do?"
"Pass it up--'most anything, I reckon."
"Worse'n that. Struck me for fifty!"
"And got it."
"Got it? No, not much he didn't, sonny! He drew just ten, and he was
lucky to get that. I've done a favor or two for that feller, first and
last, and to have him shoot at me made me sore--although he missed me by
several locations, I'll say that for him--so I gave him the ten and told
him I'd kick the hump on his back so high up on his shoulders he could
wear it for a hat, if he ever shoved into my daylight again. And you
never in your life saw a humpback make better time than he did.
"Well here's for your jack-ass--which way's the herd?"
"Right up over the hill."
Jim sat patiently on the sack until Bud returned with the burro.
"Here's your thoroughbred!" holloed Bud. "Get ap, there, Mary. Look at
the knowing ears of him, will you? You bet cher life, you've got an
animile there that'll go when he gets ready, and as fast as he pretty
well damn pleases--nail him!"
Jim tied a gunny sack on his noble mount, and the two rode on together to
the fork in the trail. Jim tried to thank his friend, who knocked his hat
over his eyes, and said, "Aw, write it down when you've got more time.
Never see a feller in my life I cottoned to more'n you, Jim. First I
thought you was too smooth for my kind of traveling, but later, I see it
was only the grain of the wood. I believe in my friends, I do. Here we go
hopping around this little world for a small time, and then that's done.
S'pose you ain't got any real friends for the trip? Rotten, I say. You go
ahead and rip Plattsburg up the back. Wisht I could be there with you.
Don't you mind consequences. So long, old man! Hike! You beggar!" The
buckskin pony was off with a snort and a splashing of gravel as the irons
touched his sides, and Bud vanished down the road without a look behind
him.
The next day Jim was in Plattsburg. One does not know what an alluring
quality, what a hazy enchantment can linger around even a small town,
until an absence in a real wilderness has given man's work a new flavor.
The people coming and going, the traffic of the stores, the dwellings
with small cultivated plots around them warmed Jim like a fire. He had
been very lonely, without knowing it. In the afternoon he went down to
the depot to see the eastern train come in.
Here again absence played a part, and restored the locomotive to its
proper proportions of a miracle.
As the engine glided in, shaking the ground beneath it, it seemed
impossible to Jim that man really made it. What! Bend those mighty rods
of steel to his will? Twist and shape those others? Cast those great
drivers? And after, to drive the monster with a hand?
He drew back as the buzzing engine passed him, with something like awe.
Then the moving village came to a stop and the passengers sallied forth
to test their legs, wearied with long sitting.
There was humanity of all shades, from the haughty aristocrat of the
Pullman, to the peasant of the immigrant car.
Jim had a sense of pleasure in beholding well-dressed folk again; yet it
was merely an aesthetic pleasure, for he found, when he began to
speculate on the possibilities of the throng before him, that he was more
interested in those whose all was staked on the trip, than in those to
whom it was only an excursion.
People of widely differing nationalities occupied the immigrant car. Jim
wondered whether they would ever become Americans, according to his ideas
of Americans, a people in which he had great pride and delight; and he
shook his head doubtfully as he took them in.
Suddenly a small boy darted out of a car; an exceedingly small boy, thin
to emaciation, who made his way through the crowd with that sprawling,
active, dancing manner peculiar to thin small boys and spiders.
Jim half laughed at the little chap until he saw his face; then he
realized at a glance that the matter was no laughing one for the boy.
At the same time he saw the shocking thinness of the little face, made
into a wolf's face by hunger; the mingled horror and desperation of the
eyes; the big man would not have believed a child's face could express
emotions of such magnitude. He was wonder-stricken at the sight, and felt
an instinctive sympathy for the fugitive.
It is a strange thing how fortune will sometimes guide with certainty,
when reason shows no path.
The boy came unerringly toward Jim; Jim had a sort of prophetic insight
that he would. Back behind him the urchin ran. "Don't cher give me away,
Mister!" he pleaded. Jim flapped a hand in answer.
At the time he was leaning against a corner of the station; a little back
of him was a small lean-to shed where various truck was stored.
Out of the car came a burly brute of a man, who stared about him rapidly.
"Dat's der ol' man," whispered the boy. "If he gits holt of me, there
won't be a hull bone left in me body."
The man walked up to the conductor and spoke to him.
"Aggh!" said the boy. "Now dey'll get me sure--der jig is up--dey'll have
der hull gang ertop o' me!" the voice trailed off into a strangled sob,
and then continued in a fierce whisper: "Aggh! If I had me growth, I'd
show 'em! I'd show 'em!" and then a burst of hair-raising profanity.
The argument was growing loud between the man, who was urging something,
and the conductor, who was declining; others were walking toward the
moderate excitement.
Jim wheeled and caught the boy in his arms. "Up you go!" he said, and
tossed him on top of the shed. "Lie low behind the wood there, and you
are all right."
Then came the conductor's voice: "Say, my friend, if you think I'm going
to hold my train while you hunt up a lost kid, there's something in you
that don't work right! Why didn't you take care of him while you had him?
Now you've got just four minutes by the watch; either hustle around and
hunt, or drop off the train and hunt--what's that? Now don't you give me
any slack, you black-muzzled tarrier, or I'll have the fear of God thrown
into you too quick. Get out of here now! Get out of my way!"
The man slouched off, and made a hasty search around the station. A
woman's face--scarcely an improvement on the man's--leaned out of the car
window and jeered at the hunter, who cursed her back savagely.