THE autumn days were growing perceptibly shorter when the discoverers
of the “Little Jean” lode began to make preparations to be snowed in
for the winter in the western mountain fastnesses. By this time they
had heard enough about the mountain winters to know what they were
facing. With the first heavy snowfall blocking the passes they would
be shut off from the world as completely as shipwrecked mariners on a
desert island. But hardships which are still only anticipatory hold few
terrors for the inexperienced; and with the comforting figures of the
assays to inspire them, they thought more of the future spring and its
promise than of the lonely and toilsome winter which must intervene.
Since there was still sufficient grass in sheltered coves and forest
glades to feed the stock, they postponed the journey which one of them
would have to take to find winter quarters for the animals. The delay
was partly prudential. Though each added day of non-interference was
increasing their hope that their ruse at the shale slide had been
completely successful in throwing their pursuers off the track, they
had no reason to assume that the Neighbors party would turn back
without making an exhaustive search for the new “rich diggings”; and
Philip was cannily distrustful of the Neighbors purpose.
“It may be just as you say: that they are merely hungry gold-chasers,
breaking their necks to be the earliest stake-drivers in a new
district; but then, again, they may not be,” was the way he phrased
it for the less apprehensive Bromley. “If they happen to be the other
sort--the lawless sort--well, with both of us here to stand up for our
rights, they’d be five to our two. We can’t afford to make the odds
five to one. I’d rather wait and take the horses and jacks over the
range in a snow storm than to run the risk of losing our mine.”
“Meaning that we needn’t lose it if we can muster two to their five?”
said Bromley, grinning.
“Meaning that if anybody tries to rob us there’ll be blood on the moon.
Get that well ground into your system, Harry.”
“Ho! You are coming on nicely for a sober, peaceable citizen of
well-behaved New England,” laughed the play-boy. “But see here, didn’t
you tell me once upon a time that you had never fired a gun? If you
really believe there is a chance for a row, you’d better waste a few
rounds of ammunition finding out what a gun does when you aim it and
pull the trigger. It’s likely to surprise you. I’ve shot ducks in the
Maryland marshes often enough to know that pretty marksmanship is no
heaven-born gift.”
“Thanks,” returned Philip grimly. “That is a sensible idea. Evenings,
after we knock off work, we’ll set up a target and you can give me a
few lessons.”
Making the most of the shortening days, they had become pioneers,
felling trees for the building of a cabin, and breaking the two
broncos, in such primitive harness as they could contrive out of
the pack-saddle lashings, to drag the logs to a site near the tunnel
mouth. Like the drilling and blasting, axe work and cabin building were
unfamiliar crafts, to be learned only at a round price paid in the coin
of aching backs, stiffened muscles and blistered palms. Nevertheless,
at the end of a toiling fortnight they had a one-room cabin roofed in,
chimneyed and chinked with clay, a rude stone forge built for the drill
sharpening and tempering, and a charcoal pit dug, filled and fired to
provide the forge fuel. And though the working days were prolonged to
the sunset limit, Philip, methodically thorough in all things, did not
fail to save enough daylight for the shooting lesson, setting up a
target in the gulch and hammering away at it until he became at least
an entered apprentice in the craft and was able to conquer the impulse
to shut both eyes tightly when he pulled the trigger.
They were bunking comfortably in the new cabin when they awoke one
morning to find the ground white with the first light snowfall. It
was a warning that the time had come to dispose of the animals if
they were not to be shut in and starved. In his talk with Bromley,
Drew, the Leadville mine owner, had named a ranch near the mouth of
Chalk Creek where the borrowed saddle horses could be left, and where
winter feeding for the jacks might be bargained for; and after a hasty
breakfast Philip prepared to set out on the three-days’ trip to the
lower altitudes.
“I feel like a yellow dog, letting this herding job fall on you, Phil,”
protested the play-boy, as he helped pack a haversack of provisions for
the journey. “I’d make you draw straws for it if I had the slightest
idea that I could find the way out and back by myself.”
“It’s a stand-off,” countered the potential herd-rider. “I feel the
same way about leaving you to hold the fort alone. If that Leadville
outfit should turn up while I’m away----”
“Don’t you worry about the Neighbors bunch. It’s been three full weeks,
now, with no sign of them. They’ve lost out.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Better keep your eye peeled and not get too
far away from the cabin. If they should drop in on you----”
“In that case I’ll man the battlements and do my small endeavors to
keep them amused until you put in an appearance,” was the lighthearted
rejoinder. “But you needn’t run your legs off on that account. They’ve
given us up long ago.” Then, as Philip mounted and took the halter
of the horse that was to be led: “Are you all set? Where’s that old
pistol?”
“I don’t need the pistol. If I’ve got to walk back, lugging my own grub
and blankets, I don’t want to carry any more weight than I have to.”
“Just the same, you’re going prepared to back your judgment,” Bromley
insisted; and he brought out the holstered revolver and made Philip
buckle it on. “There; that looks a little more shipshape,” he approved.
“Want me to go along a piece and help you start the herd?”
“Nothing of the kind,” Philip refused; and thereupon he set out,
leading the extra horse and driving the jacks ahead of him.
It was his intention to back-track over the trail by which they had
first penetrated to their valley in the late summer, and being gifted
with a fairly good sense of direction, he found his way to the foot of
the first of the two enclosing mountain ranges without much trouble.
But on the ascent to the pass the difficulties multiplied themselves
irritatingly. The trail was blind and the snow was fetlock deep for
the animals. The led horse was stubborn and hung back; and wherever
a widening of the trail permitted, the jacks strayed and scattered.
Philip’s temper grew short, and by the time he had reached the high,
wind-blown, boulder-strewn notch which served as the pass over the spur
range, he was cursing the scattering burros fluently and fingering the
butt of the big revolver in an itching desire to bullet all three of
them.
“Damn your fool hides!” he was yelling, oblivious of everything but the
maddening impossibility of towing the reluctant bronco astern and at
the same time keeping the long-eared stupidities ahead in any kind of
marching order; “Damn your fool----”
He stopped short, swallowing the remainder of the shouting malediction
and flushing shamefacedly under his summer coat of tan. Seated beside
the trail on a flat-topped boulder from which the snow had been brushed
was a thick-chested, bearded giant of a man making his much-belated
midday meal on a sandwich of pan-bread and bacon; a grinning witness of
the outbreak of ill-temper. As Philip drew rein the giant greeted him
jovially.
“Howdy, pardner! Yuh must ’a’ had a heap o’ book-learnin’ to be fitten
to cuss thataway. Don’t blame yuh, though. It’s one hell-sweatin’ job
to herd canaries when they ain’t got no packs on ’em.”
Philip stared hard at the big man, his excellent memory for faces
serving him slowly but surely. When he spoke it was to say: “People are
always telling us this is a little world, and I’ll believe it, after
this. Don’t you remember me?--and the K.P. train last spring?”