CHANCE'S GOLD-FEVER RETURNS.
"Well, Steve, what is the news? I can see that you are just bursting
with intelligence. Out with it, little man."
"Bell has struck it rich again. It's a fortune this time, they say."
"Is that all? Poor Bell! He'll be drunk, then, at Victoria the whole of
the winter. I shouldn't be surprised if this second stroke of luck
killed him."
The speakers were our old friends Ned Corbett and Steve Chance, and when
Steve joined him Ned was sitting with his long gum boots tucked under a
table in the Antler dance-house, smoking his evening pipe.
It was nearly a month since Cruickshank had stolen away from Antler, and
since then Ned had recovered all his old strength and vigour.
At first he had brooded incessantly over Cruickshank's escape, but as
the days went by he realized that there was no chance for him, without
knowledge of the country and without funds, against a man like the
colonel, with a fortnight's start of him. Together with one or two
miners to whom he had told his tale he had made an attempt to follow
Cruickshank's tracks, and had succeeded in tracking him and his pony as
far as the main trail to Soda Creek. Here the tracks, which were already
old, became confused with others, and sorely against their will the
pursuers had to give up the chase.
"Cruickshank has got clean away with you this journey, partner, and I
guess you may as well own up to it," was the verdict of one of his
comrades.
And Ned, recognizing the justice of it, threw up the sponge, and owned
himself beaten for the time; but although he said no more about the
claims or the packs or the comrade of whom he had been robbed, he
consoled himself with the thought that life was long and had in it many
chances, and that whenever his chance came, however late, it would find
his hand as strong and as quick to take vengeance as it was to-day.
As soon as his story had become known, and men had seen what manner of
man he was, Ned had found no difficulty in getting employment in the
claims, and, indeed, he had done so well that he had been induced to
send a message to his friends at Williams Creek, in answer to which
Steve and Phon had hastened to join him at Antler. Rampike promised to
come up later on in the fall, but as yet he had plenty to do in his own
claim.
For a full fortnight the three comrades had worked away steadily with
pick and shovel, and now, in spite of all his troubles, Ned was his own
cheery self again, proud of the strength which enabled him to do almost
as much as two other men, and content with the work which kept him
supplied with all the necessaries of life. But if Ned Corbett was
content, his comrades were not. Steve hated the daily labour for daily
wage, and Phon was hardly strong enough for the work, and anxious to go
off prospecting on his own account.
"What a phlegmatic old cuss you are, Ned! Don't you envy Bell a bit?"
"Not I. Why should I? I am strong and well again, thank God. I've plenty
of fresh air and hard work, and I'm earning ten dollars a day--"
"And spending eight. You won't make a fortune that way."
"Who said that I should? Who said that I wanted to? Why, my dear chap,
just think for a moment. If I did make a fortune I should have to stop
at home and invest it and look after it. _Stop at home_, do you hear,
Steve?"
"You'll die a pauper, Ned," asserted Chance solemnly.
"And you, perhaps, a millionaire. Poor old chap! I'm sorry for you. I
am indeed. Well, Lilla, what can I do for you?" and Ned, rising, took
off his hat, as if he had been saluting a duchess.
"The boys want a song, Ned. Will you sing for them?" asked the girl, her
pretty eyes brightening and her cheeks flushing as she took Ned's hand.
Somehow, though Ned had often sought her, he had seen very little of his
gentle nurse since he had become convalescent.
"Bother the boys!" quoth this young man of big muscle and limited
intelligence. "I'm not going to do any work to-night. I have earned
enough money for the day; but," he added quickly as he saw the girl's
look of disappointment, "I'll sing for you, little sister, and you can
give the money to the next dead-beat you nurse back again to life."
"I never nursed any dead-beats," began Lilla.
"Oh no, of course not. Never heard of Ned Corbett, or Pete of Lost
Creek, or any of that crowd, did you, Lilla? Now I'm going to sing;" and
with that he threw back his head, and sang in a full rich baritone a
song of his Canadian lumbering days:--
A SONG OF THE AXE.
When winter winds storm, and the snow-flakes swarm,
And the forest is soft to our tread;
When the women folk sit, by their fires fresh lit,
Oh, ho, for the toque of red!
With our strong arms bare, it's little we care
For politics, rates, or tax;
Let the good steel ring on the forest king--
Oh, ho, for the swing of the axe!
Your diamonds may glitter, your rubies flame,
Our gems are but frozen dew;
Yet yours grow tame, being always the same,
Ours every night will renew.
Let the world rip: tighten your grip,
Make the blades glitter and shine;
At it you go, swing to each blow,
And down with the pride of the pine!
For the trees, I ween, which have long grown green
In the light of the sun and the stars,
Must bend their backs to the lumberer's axe,
Mere timber and planks and spars!
Then oh, ho, ho! for the carpet of snow!
Oh, ho, for the forest of pine!
Wealth shall be yours, with its business and bores,
Health and hard labour be mine!
"_Health and hard labour be mine!_" thundered a score of voices, and a
score of strong labour-hardened hands came crashing down upon the rough
deal tables. "Bravo, Ned!" "That's your sort for Cariboo!" "Mate, we'll
wet that song if you please," and a dozen other similar expressions of
approval rewarded Ned for his efforts, but Steve Chance did not go as
far as the rest of the audience.
"A pretty good song, Ned," he said, "with lots of shouting in it, but no
sense."
"Give us a better, little one," replied his friend good-naturedly. "Ah,
Lilla, you are a brick--I beg your pardon, but I don't know the German
for a fairy who brings a thirsty man just what he wants;" and Ned buried
his moustache in a foaming glass of Lager.
"That beats all the champagne and such like trash into fits," he added
with a sigh of satisfaction as he put down the empty glass. "Now, Steve,
beat my song if you can."
"Beat it! No trouble to do that. If the boys don't shout themselves
silly over my chorus I'll take a back seat."
"You wouldn't stay there if you did," laughed Ned; "but drive on, my
boy."
Thus adjured, Steve got up and sang with a spirit and go of which I am
unable to give any adequate idea, the song of--
THE YANKEE DOLLAR.
With sword or shovel, pick or pen,
All strive to win the yellow ore;
And "bust or boom," our natural doom,
Is but to love the dollar more.
_Chorus._
The Yankee doodle dollar, oh!
I'm no saint or scholar, oh!
I only know, that high or low,
All love the Yankee dollar, oh!
In miner's ditch some strike it rich,
And some die in the collar, oh!
But live or die, succeed or sigh,
All strive to win the dollar, oh!
"Chorus, gentlemen,--'_The Yankee doodle dollar_ oh!'" sang Chance, and
the whole room rose to him and sang as one man--
The Yankee doodle dollar, oh!
I'm no saint or scholar, oh!
I only know, that high or low,
All love the Yankee dollar, oh!
There was no question as to Steve's victory. Ned had stirred the hearts
of a few, and pleased all, but Steve had played upon the principal chord
in the heart of Antler, and for weeks the men hummed the empty words and
whistled the frivolous, ranting little air of "_The Yankee doodle
dollar, oh!_" until even its author was sick of it.
"You see, Ned, everyone thinks the same except you," said Chance, when
the applause had somewhat moderated. "Why the deuce are you so
pig-headed? Now that we have saved a few dollars why should we not go
prospecting and make our pile like other people? I'm sick of all this
picking and scratching in other men's claims."
"'Yo mun larn to scrat afore yo peck,'" replied Ned stolidly, quoting a
good old Shropshire proverb; "and 'scratting' for ten dollars a day
doesn't seem to me to be very badly-paid labour."
"You forget, Ned, that this cain't last. How do you mean to live during
the winter?"
"Sufficient unto the day--" began Ned, and then suddenly altering his
tone he added, "What is it that you want me to do, Steve?"
"What do I want you to do? Why, what any other man in Cariboo would do
if he had half your chance. Take Lilla's offer and go and look for
Pete's Creek for her."
"Pete's Creek! Why, my dear Steve, you don't seriously believe in that
cock-and-bull story, do you?"
"Don't you believe Lilla?" retorted Chance.
"Of course I believe Lilla," replied Corbett hotly, "but she only tells
the story as it was told to her."
"By a dying man who knew that he was dying, to a woman who had nursed
him for weeks like a sister! According to you, Pete must have been a
worse liar than Ananias, Ned."
"I didn't say Pete lied either, but Pete may not have been sane when he
died. You know that he had been drinking like a fish before Lilla got
hold of him."
"Yes, and slept out a couple of nights in the snow. I know that. But he
died of pleurisy, not of the jim-jams."
"Well, have your own way, but nothing will make me believe in that
creek. It had too much gold in it," replied Corbett. "And even if I did
believe in it, why should I take Lilla's gold? Hasn't she done enough
for me already?"
"Perhaps. But if you don't get it for her, I guess someone else will
come along and find it for himself."
"Why don't you go for it, Steve, if you believe in it?"
"So I would if Lilla would trust me; but you see Lilla is not spoons on
me, and she is on you."
Corbett flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.
"Don't talk rot, Chance, and leave Lilla's name alone."
"I'm not talking rot," said Chance seriously. "But say, Ned, do you mean
to marry that girl?"
"Marry your grandmother! I don't mean to marry anyone, and no one is
such a fool as to want to marry me."
"All right, Ned, don't lose your temper; but I know, old chap, that you
would not like to get Lilla talked about, and the boys are beginning to
say that Lilla got rid of her heart when you got rid of your fever."
"The boys are a parcel of chattering idiots, whose mouths will get
stopped pretty roughly if they talk like that before me," growled Ned.
"But really, Steve, this is too ridiculous. Fancy anyone wanting to
marry me!" and the speaker looked down with a grin at his mud-spattered,
much-mended pants, passed his hand meditatively over a rough young beard
of three months' growth, and burst out laughing.
Ned Corbett was heart-whole, and he did not see why everyone else should
not be as lucky in that respect as himself.