THE EMINENT BUTTINSKY
That there was no love lost between Bunker Hill and Professor
Diffenderfer was evident by their curt greetings, but as they began to
bandy words Denver became suddenly aware that he was the cause of their
feud. He and his eight hundred dollars, a sum so small that a shoestring
promoter would hardly notice it; and yet these two men with their
superfluity of claims were fighting for his favor like pawn-brokers.
Bunker Hill had seen him first and claimed him as his right; but
Professor Diffenderfer, ignoring the ethics of the game, was out to make
a sale anyway. He carried in one hand a large sack of specimens, and
under his arm were some weighty tomes which turned out to be Government
reports. He came up slowly, panting and sweating in the heat, and when
he stepped in Bunk was waiting for him.
"O-ho," he said, "here comes the Professor. The only German count that
ever gave up his title to become an American barber. Well, Professor,
you're just the man I'm looking for--I want to ask your professional
opinion. If two white-bellied mice ran down the same hole would the one
with the shortest tail get down first?"
The Professor staggered in and sat down heavily while he wiped the sweat
from his eyes.
"Mr. Russell," he began, ignoring the grinning Bunker, "I vant to
expound to you the cheology of dis country--I haf made it a lifelong
study."
"Yes, you want to get this," put in Bunker _sotto voce_, "he knows
every big word in them books."
"I claim," went on the Professor, slapping the books together
vehemently, "I claim dat in dis district we haf every indication of a
gigantic deposit of copper. The morphological conditions, such as we see
about us everywhere, are distinctly favorable to metalliferous
deposition; and the genetic influences which haf taken place later----"
"Well, he's off," sighed Bunker rising wearily up and ambling over
towards the door, "so long, Big Boy, I'll see you to-morrow. Never could
understand broken English."
"Dat's all righd!" spat back the Professor with spiteful emphasis, "I'm
addressing my remarks to dis _chentleman_!"
"Ah--so!" mimicked Bunker. "Vell, shoodt id indo him! And say, tell him
about that tunnel! Tell him how you went in until the air got bad and
came out up the hill like a gopher. Took a double circumbendibus and,
after describing a parabola----"
"Dat's all righd!" repeated the Professor, "now--you think you're so
smart--I'm going to prove _you_ a liar! I heard you the other day
tell dis young man here dat dere vas no golt in dis district. Vell! All
righd! We vill see now--joost look! Vat you call _dat_ now, my goot
young friend?" He dumped out the contents of his canvas ore-sack and
nodded to Denver triumphantly. "I suppose dat aindt golt, eh! Maybe I
try to take advantage of you and show you what dey call fools gold--what
mineralogists call pyrites of iron? No? It aindt dat? Vell, let me ask
you vun question den--am I righd or am I wrong?"
"You're right, old man," returned Denver eagerly as he held a specimen
to the light; and when he looked up Bunker Hill was gone.
"You see?" leered the Professor jerking his thumb towards the door, "dot
man vas trying to _do_ you. He don't like to haf me show you dis
golt. He vants you to believe dat here is only silver; but I am a
cheologist--I know!"
"Yes, this is gold," admitted Denver, wetting the thin strip of quartz,
"but it don't look like much of a vein. Whereabouts did you get these
specimens?"
"From a claim dat I haf, not a mile south of here," burst out the
Professor in great excitement; and while Denver listened in stunned
amazement he went into an involved and sadly garbled exposition of the
geological history of the district.
"Yes, sure," broke in Denver when he came to a pause, "I'll take your
word for all that. What I want to know is where this claim is located.
If its inside the shadow of Apache Leap, I'll go down and take a look at
it; but----"
"But vat has the shadow of the mountain to do with it?" inquired the
Professor with ponderous dignity. "The formation, as I vas telling you,
is highly favorable to an extensive auriferous deposit----"
"Aw, can the big words," broke in Denver impatiently, "I don't give a
dang for geology. What I'm looking for is a mine, in the shadow of that
big cliff, and----"
"Ah, ah! Yes, I see!" exclaimed the Professor delightedly, "it must
conform to the vords of the prophecy! Yes, my mine is in the shadow of
Apache Leap, where the Indians yumped over and were killed."
"Well, I'll look at it," responded Denver coldly, "but who told you
about that prophecy? It kinder looks to me as if----"
"Oh, vell," apologized the Professor, "I vas joost going by and I
couldn't help but listen. Because dis Bunker Hill, he is alvays
spreading talk dat I am not a cheologist. But him, now; _him_! Do
you know who he is? He is nothing but an ignorant cowman. Ven dis mine
vas closed down I vas for some years the care-taker, vat you call the
custodian of the plant; and dis Bunker Hill, ven I happened to go avay,
he come and take the job. I am a consulting cheologist and my services
are very valuable, but he took the job for fifty dollars a month and
came here to run his cattle. For eight or ten years he lived right in
dat house and took all dat money for nothing; and den, when the Company
can't pay him no more, he takes over the property on a lien. Dat fine,
valuable mine, one of the richest in the vorld, and vot you think he
done with it? He and Mike McGraw, dat hauls up his freight, dey tore it
all down for junk! All dat fine machinery, all dem copper plates, all
the vater-pipe, the vindows and doors--they tore down everything and
hauled it down to Moroni, vere they sold it for nothing to Murray!
"Do you know vot I would do if I owned dat mine?" demanded the Professor
with rising wrath. "I vould organize a company and pump oudt the vater
and make myself a millionaire. But dis Bunker Hill, he's a big bag of
vind--all he does is to sit around and talk! A t'ousand times I haf told
him repeatedly dat dere are millions of dollars in dat mine, and a
t'ousand times he tells me I am crazy. For fifteen years I haf begged
him for the privilege to go into pardners on dat mine. I haf written
reports, describing the cheology of dis district, for the highest mining
journals in the country; I haf tried to interest outside capital; and
den, for my pay, when some chentleman comes to camp, he tells him dat I
am a barber!"
The Professor paused and swallowed fiercely, and as Denver broke into a
grin the old man choked with fury.
"Do you know what dat man has been?" he demanded, shaking a trembling
finger towards Bunker's house, "he has been everything but an honest
man--a faro-dealer, a crook, a gambler! He vas nothing--a bum--when his
vife heard about him and come here from Boston to marry him! Dey vas
boy-und-girl sveetheart, you know. And righdt avay he took her money and
put it into cows, and the drought come along and killed them; and now he
has nothing, not so much as I haf, and an expensive daughter besides!"
He paused and wagged his head and indulged in a senile grin.
"Und pretty, too--vat? The boys are all crazy, but she von't have a
thing to do with them. She von't come outdoors when the cowboys ride by
and stop to buy grub at the store. No, she's too good to talk to old
mens like me, and with cowboys what get forty a month; but she spends
all her time playing tunes on the piano and singing scales avay up in G.
You vait, pretty soon you hear her begin--dat scale-singing drives me
madt!"
"Oh, sings scales, eh?" said Denver suddenly beginning to take an
interest, "must be studying to become a singer."
"Dat's it," nodded the old man shaking his finger solemnly, "her mother
vas a singer before her. But after they have spent all their money to
educate her the teacher says she lacks the temperament. She can never
sing, he says, because she is too _dumf_; too--what you call
it--un-feeling. She lacks the fire of the vonderful Gadski--she has not
the g-great heart of Schumann-Heink. She is an American, you see, and
dat is the end of it, so all their money is spent."
"Oh, I don't know," defended Denver warmly, "what's the matter with
Nordica, and Mary Garden and Farrar? They're Americans, all right, and
I've got some of their records that simply can't be beat! You wait till
I get out my instrument."
He broke open a box in which was packed with many wrappings a polished
and expensive phonograph, but as he was clearing a space on a rickety
old table the Professor broke into a cackle.
"Dere! Dere!" he cried, "don't you hear her now? 'Ah, ah, ah, oo, oo,
oo, oo!' Vell, dat's what we get from morning till night--by golly, it
makes me sick!"
"Aw, that's all right," said Denver after listening critically, "she's
just getting ready to sing."
"Getting ready!" sneered the Professor, "don't you fool yourself
dere--she'll keep dat going for hours. And in the morning she puts on
just one thin white dress and dances barefoot in the garden. I come by
dere one time and looked over the vall--and, psst, listen, she don't
vare no corsets! She ought to be ashamed."
"Well, what about you, you danged old stiff?" inquired Denver with
ill-concealed scorn. "If Old Bunk had seen you he'd have killed you."
"Ah--him?" scoffed the Professor, "no, he von't hurt nobody. Lemme tell
you something--now dis is a fact. When he married his vife--and she's an
awful fine lady--all she asked vas dat he'd stop his tammed fighting.
You see? I know everyt'ing--every little t'ing--I been around dis place
too long. She came right out here from the East and offered to marry
him, but he had to give up his fighting. He was a bad man--you see? He
was quick with a gun, and she was afraid he'd go out and get killed. So
I laugh at him now and he goes avay and leaves me--but he von't let me
talk with his vife. She's an awful nice woman but----"
"Danged right she is!" put in Denver with sudden warmth and after a
rapid questioning glance the Professor closed his mouth.
"Vell, I guess I'll be going," he said at last and Denver did not urge
him to stay.