While seated in the office of the Hinds House, with his eyes rolled to
the ceiling, listening in well-feigned rapture to "Rippling Waves" on
the cabinet organ, and other numbers rendered singly and ensemble by the
Musical Snows, Mr. Dill in reality was wondering by what miracle he was
going to carry out Sprudell's specific instructions to keep his errand a
secret.
"The great, white light which plays upon a throne" is not more searching
than that which follows the movements of a possible Live One in a
moribund mining camp, and, in spite of his puttees, Ore City hoped
against hope that some benefit might be derived from the stranger's
presence.
Dill's orders were to get upon the ground which had been worked in a
primitive way by a fellow named Bruce Burt--now deceased he was
told--and relocate it in Sprudell's name together with seven other
contiguous claims, using the name of dummy locators which would give
Sprudell control of one hundred and sixty acres by doing the assessment
work upon one. Also Dill was instructed to run preliminary survey lines
if possible and lose no time in submitting estimates upon the most
feasible means of washing the ground.
Seated in his comfortable office in Spokane, Mr. Dill had foreseen no
great difficulties in the way of earning his ample fee, but it seemed
less ample after one hundred miles by stage over three summits, and a
better understanding of conditions. Between the stage-driver's sweeping
denunciations of road-supervisors in general and long and picturesque
castigations of the local road supervisor in particular, Mr. Dill had
adroitly extracted the information that the twenty-mile trail to the
river was the worst known, and snow-line blazes left by "Porcupine Jim"
were, in summer, thirty feet in the air.
Mr. Dill learned enough en route to satisfy himself that he was going to
earn every dollar of his money, and when he reached Ore City he was sure
of it. The problem before him was one to sleep on, or rather, thinking
with forebodings of the clammy sheets upstairs, to lie awake on.
However, something would perhaps suggest itself and Mr. Dill was
resourceful as well as unhampered by any restrictions regarding the
truth.
The Snow family were at their best that evening, and Ma Snow's rendition
of "The Gypsy's Warning" was received with such favor that she was
forced to sing the six verses twice and for a third encore the entire
family responded with "The Washington Post March" which enabled Mr.
Snow, who had tottered down from his aerie, to again demonstrate his
versatility by playing the concertina with long, yellow fingers, beating
the cymbals and working the snare-drum with his feet.
Ma Snow wore her coral-rose breast-pin, and a tortoise-shell comb thrust
through her knob of ginger-colored hair added to her dignity and height;
while Miss Vi and Miss Rosie Snow were buttoned into their stylish
princess gowns, with large red bows sprouting back of each ear. In
truth, the dress of each member of the family bore some little touch
which hinted delicately at the fact that with them it had not been
always thus.
All Ore City was present. Those who "bached" had stacked their dishes
and hurried from the supper-table to the Hinds House, where the regular
boarders were already tilted on the rear legs of their chairs with
their heads resting comfortably on the particular oily spot on the
unbleached muslin sheeting, which each recognized as having been made by
weeks of contact with his own back hair.
A little apart and preoccupied sat Uncle Bill with the clipping in his
wallet burning like a red-hot coal. He could have swallowed being
"carried down the mountain side," but the paragraph wherein "tears of
gratitude rained down his withered cheeks" stuck, as he phrased it, in
his craw. It set him thinking hard of Bruce Burt and the young fellow's
deliberate sacrifice of his life for one old "Chink." Somehow he could
not rid himself of blame that he had let him go alone. As soon as he
could get back to Ore City he had headed a search party that had failed
to locate even the tent under the unusual fall of snow. Well, if Burt
had taken a life, even accidentally, he had in expiation given his own.
As he brooded, occasionally the old man glanced at Wilbur Dill. He had
seen him before--but where? The sharp-faced, sharp-eyed Yellow-Leg was
associated in the older man's mind with something shady, but what it was
he could not for the time recall.
"Rosie, perhaps Mr. Dill would like to hear 'When the Robins Nest
Again,'" Ma Snow suggested in the sweet, ingratiating tones of a mother
with two unattached daughters.
Mr. Dill declared that it was one of his favorite compositions, so Miss
Rosie obligingly stood forth with the dog-eared music.
"When the Robins Nest Again, and the flower-r-rs--" she was warbling,
but they never bloomed, for Mrs. Snow started for the door, explaining:
"I'm sure I heard a scrunching." She threw it open and the yellow light
fell upon a gaunt figure leaning against the entrance of the snow
tunnel. The man was covered with frost and icicles where his breath had
frozen on his cap and upturned collar, while it was obvious from his
snow-caked knees and elbows that he had fallen often. He stood staring
dumbly at the light and warmth and at Ma Snow, then he stooped and began
fumbling clumsily at the strappings of his snow-shoes.
"Won't you-all come in?" Ma Snow, recovering a little from her surprise,
asked hospitably.
He pitched forward and would again have gone down but that he threw out
his hand and caught the door-jamb.
"Bruce Burt! Hell's catoots! Bruce Burt!" Uncle Bill was on his knees
outside in an instant, jerking and tugging at the snow-clogged buckles.
Chairs came down on their forelegs with a thump and Ore City shambled
forward in curiosity and awkward congratulation. Mr. Dill did not move.
He was gazing at the scene in mingled resentment and consternation. Was
this the Bruce Burt whose claims he was sent to survey? It was plain
enough that Bruce Burt "now deceased" was very much alive, and he, Dill,
had crossed three summits on a wild goose chase, since it was obvious he
could not relocate a man's ground while he was actually living upon it.
Why didn't Sprudell find out that he was deceased before he sent a busy
engineer on such a trip in winter? Mr. Dill sat frowning at Bruce, while
willing hands helped him out of the coat his fingers were too stiff to
unbutton.
"I've been coming since daylight." He spoke thickly, as though even his
tongue were cold. "I played out on the last big hill and sat so long I
chilled."
"And I guess you're hungry," Uncle Bill suggested.
Hungry! The word stabbed Ma Snow to the heart and her heels went
clickity-click as she flew for the kitchen.
Divested of his coat Bruce looked a big, starved skeleton. The cords of
his neck were visible when he turned his head, his cheeks were hollow,
his wrist-bones were prominent like those of a fever convalescent.
"You're some ga'nted up," Uncle Bill commented as he eyed him
critically. "Don't hardly look as though you'd winter."
The shadow of a smile crossed Bruce's dark face.
"Toy and I proved just about the length of time a man can go without
eating, and live."
"You made it then? You got to Toy--he's all right?"
"Yes," briefly, "but none too soon. The snow had broken the tent down,
so we made it over the ridge to an old tunnel . . . I killed a porcupine
but we ran out of matches and there was no dry wood or sticks to make a
fire."
"I et raw wolf onct in Alasky," Yankee Sam interjected reminiscently.
"'Tain't a dish you'd call for in a restauraw, and I reckon procupine's
got much the same flavor of damp dog. How did you get the Chinaman
down?"
"I rigged up a travois when he could travel and hauled him to the cabin,
where's he's waiting now. We are nearly out of grub, so I had to come."
Of the fierce hunger, the wearing, unceasing fight against Arctic cold,
and, when weakened and exhausted by both, the dumb, instinctive struggle
for life against the combination, Bruce said nothing; but in a dozen
commonplace sentences described physical sufferings sufficient for a
lifetime--which is the western way.
He walked to the desk, where the gifted tenor, clerk and post-master
stood pleased and expectant, pen in hand, waiting for him to register.
"Is there any mail for me?" He tried to speak casually but, to himself
the eager note in his voice seemed to shriek and vibrate. Making every
allowance for delays and changed addresses he had calculated that by now
he should have an answer from Slim's mother or sister. He did not
realize how positively he had counted on a letter until the clerk shook
his head.
"Nothing?" Bruce looked at him blankly.
"Nothing." The answer seemed to take the last scrap of his vitality. He
moved to the nearest chair and sat down heavily.
The thought of assuming Slim's responsibilities, of making up for his
own futile years, and bringing to pass at least a few of his mother's
dreams for him, had become a kind of obsession since that first night of
horror after his quarrel with Slim. It had kept him going, hanging on
doggedly, when, as he since believed, he might have given up. It seemed
to have needed the ghastly, unexpected happening in the lonely cabin to
have aroused in him the ambition which was his inheritance from his
mother. But it was awake at last, the stronger perhaps for having lain
so long dormant.
Failures, humiliating moments, hasty, ungenerous words, heartless deeds,
have a way of coming back with startling vividness in the still solitude
of mountains, and out of the passing of painful panoramas had grown
Bruce's desire to "make good." Now, in the first shock of his intense
disappointment he felt that without a tangible incentive he was done
before he had started.
"Mistah Bruce, if you'll jest step out and take what they is," announced
Ma Snow from the doorway. "And watch out foah yoah laig in this hole
heah." She called over her shoulder: "Mistah Hinds, I want you should
get to work and fix that place to-morrow or I'll turn yoah ol' hotel back
on yoah hands. You heah me?"
The threat always made Old Man Hinds jump like the close explosion of a
stick of giant powder.
Bruce looked at the "light" bread and the Oregon-grape "jell," the
steaming coffee and the first butter he had seen in months, while before
his plate on the white tablecloth at the "transient" end of the table,
sat a slice of ham with an egg! like a jewel--its crowning glory.
Ma Snow whispered confidentially:
"One of the hins laid day 'fore yistiddy." The prize had been filched
from Mr. Snow, one of whose diversions was listening for a hen to
cackle.
From his height Bruce looked down upon the work-stooped little woman and
he saw, not her churn-like contour nor her wrinkled face, but the light
of a kind heart shining in her pale eyes. He wanted to cry--he--Bruce
Burt! He fought the inclination furiously. It was too ridiculous--weak,
sentimental, to be so sensitive to kindness. But he was so tired, so
lonely, so disappointed. He touched Ma Snow's ginger-colored hair
caressingly with his finger tips and the impulsive, boyish action made
for Bruce a loyal friend.
In the office, Mr. Dill was noticeably abstracted. His smiling suavity,
his gracious manner, had given place to taciturnity and Ore City's
choicest _bon mots_, its time-tested pleasantries, fell upon inattentive
ears. As a matter of fact, his bones ached like a tooth from three long,
hard days in the mail-carrier's sledges, and also he recognized certain
symptoms which told him that he was in for an attack of dyspepsia due to
his enforced diet en route, of soda-biscuit, ham, and bacon. But these
were minor troubles as compared to the loss of the fee which in his mind
he had already spent. The most he could hope for, he supposed, was
compensation for his time and his expenses.
He sat in a grumpy silence until Bruce came out of the dining-room, then
he stated his intention of going to bed and asked for a lamp. As he said
good-night curtly he noticed Uncle Bill eyeing him hard, as he had
observed him doing before, but this time there was distinct hostility in
the look.
"What's the matter with that old rooster?" he asked himself crossly as
he clumped upstairs to bed.
"I know that young duck now," said Uncle Bill in an undertone, as Bruce
sat down beside him. "He's a mining and civil engineer--a good one,
too--but crooked as they come. He's a beat."
"He's an engineer?" Bruce asked in quick interest.
"He's anything that suits, when it comes to pulling off a mining deal.
He'd 'salt' his own mother, he'd sell out his grandmother, but in his
profession there's none better if he'd stay straight. I knowed him down
in Southern Oregon--he was run out."
"Have you heard yet from Sprudell?"
"Yes," Uncle Bill answered grimly. "As you might say, indirectly. I want
you should take a look at this."
He felt for his leather wallet and handed Bruce the clipping.
"Don't skip any," he said acidly. "It's worth a careful peruse."
There was a little likelihood of that after Bruce had read the
headlines.
"I hopes you takes special note of tears of gratitude rainin' down my
withered cheeks," said Uncle Bill savagely, "I relishes bein' published
over the world as a sobbin' infant."
Bruce folded the clipping mechanically many times before he handed it
back. There was more in it to him than the withholding of credit which
belonged to an obscure old man, or the self-aggrandizement of a pompous
braggart. To Bruce it was indicative of a man with a moral screw loose,
it denoted a laxity of principle. With his own direct standards of
conduct it was equivalent to dishonesty.
"You didn't git no answer to your letter, I notice," Griswold commented,
following Bruce's thoughts.
"No."
They smoked in silence for a time, the target of interested eyes, Bruce
unconscious that the stories of his feats of strength and his daring as
a boatman had somehow crossed the almost impassable spurs of mountain
between Ore City and Meadows to make a celebrity of him, not only in
Ore City but as far as the evil reputation of the river went.
"You'll hardly be startin' back to-morrow, will you, Burt?"
"To-morrow? No, nor the next day." There was a hard ring in Bruce's
voice. "I've changed my mind. I'm going outside! I'm going to
Bartlesville, Indiana, to see Sprudell!"
"Good!" enthusiastically. "And if you has cause to lick that pole kitty
hit him one for me."
Wilbur Dill, who had not expected to close his eyes, was sleeping
soundly, while Bruce in the adjoining room, who had looked forward to a
night of rest in a real bed, was lying wide awake staring into the dark.
His body was worn out, numb with exhaustion, but his mind was
unnaturally alert. It refused to be passive, though it desperately
needed sleep. It was active with plans for the future, with speculation
concerning Sprudell, with the rebuilding of the air castles which had
fallen with his failure to find mail. In the restless days of waiting
for Toy to get well enough to leave alone for a few days while he went
up to Ore City for mail and provisions, a vista of possibilities had
unexpectedly opened to Bruce. He was standing one morning at the tiny
window which overlooked the river, starting across at Big Squaw creek,
with its cascades of icicles pendant from its frozen mouth.
What a stream Big Squaw creek was, starting as it did all of thirty
miles back in the unknown hills, augmented as it came by trickling
rivulets from banks of perpetual snow and by mountain springs, until it
grew into a roaring torrent dashing itself to whiteness against the
green velvet boulders, which in ages past had crashed through the
underbrush down the mountainside to lie forever in the noisy stream!
And the unexpected fern-fringed pools darkened by overhanging boughs,
under which darted shadows of the trout at play--why he had thought, if
they had Big Squaw creek back in Iowa, or Nebraska, or Kansas, or any of
those dog-gone flat countries where you could look further and see less,
and there were more rivers with nothing in them than any other states in
the Union, they'd fence it off and charge admission. They'd--it was then
the idea had shot into his mind like an inspiration--they'd _harness_
Big Squaw creek if they had it back in Iowa, or Nebraska, or Kansas, and
make it work! They'd build a plant and develop power!
The method which had at once suggested itself to Sprudell was slow in
coming to Bruce because he was unfamiliar with electricity. In the
isolated districts where he had lived the simpler old-fashioned,
steam-power had been employed and his knowledge of water-power was
chiefly from reading and hearsay.
But he believed that it was feasible, that it was the solution of the
difficulty, if the expense were not too great. With a power-house at the
mouth of Squaw creek, a transmission wire across the river and a
pump-house down below, he could wash the whole sand-bar into the river
and all the sand-bars up and down as far as the current would carry! In
his excitement he had tried to outline the plan to Toy, who had more
that intimated that he was mad.