Placer-mining was a subject upon which Toy felt qualified to speak,
since, after a cramped journey from Hong Kong, smuggled in his uncle's
clothes hamper, he had started life in America at fourteen, carrying
water to his countrymen placering in "Chiny" Gulch; after which he
became one of a company who, with the industry of ants, built a trestle
of green timber one hundred and fifty feet high to carry water to the
Beaver Creek diggings and had had his reward when he had seen the
sluice-box run yellow with gold and had taken his green rice bowl
heaping full upon the days of division.
Those times were quick to pass, for the white men had come, and with
their fists and six-shooters drove them from the ground, but the
eventful days surcharged with thrills were the only ones in which he
counted he lived. He laundered now, or cooked, but he had never left the
district and he loved placer-mining as he loved his life.
Bruce had found small comfort in discussing his idea with Toy, for Toy
knew only the flume and the ditch of the days of the 60's, so he was
eager to submit his plan to some one who knew about such things and he
wished that he had had an opportunity of talking to the "Yellow-Leg." If
it was practicable, he wanted to get an idea of the approximate cost.
Bruce was thinking of the "Yellow-Leg" and envying him his education and
knowledge when a new sound was added to the audible slumbers of the
guests of the Hinds House and of the Snow family, who were not so
musical when asleep. Accustomed to stillness, as he was, the chorus that
echoed through the corridor had helped to keep him awake, this and the
uncommon softness of a feather pillow and a cotton mattress that Mr.
Dill in carping criticism had likened unto a cement block.
This new disturbance which came through the thin partition separating
his room from Dill's was like the soft patter of feet--bare
feet--running around and around. Even a sudden desire for exercise
seemed an inadequate explanation in view of the frigid temperature of
the uncarpeted rooms. Bruce was still more mystified when he heard Dill
hurdling a chair, and utterly so when his neighbor began dragging a
wash-stand into the centre of the room. Making all due allowance for the
eccentricities of Yellow-Legs, Bruce concluded that something was amiss,
so, slipping into his shoes, he tapped upon the stranger's door.
The activity within continuing, he turned the knob and stepped inside
where Mr. Dill was working like a beaver trying to add a heavy home-made
bureau to the collection in the middle of the floor. Shivering in his
striped pajamas he was staring vacantly when Bruce lighted the lamp and
touched him on the shoulder.
"You'd better hop into bed, mister."
Mr. Dill mumbled as he swung his arms in the gesture of swimming.
"Got to keep movin'!"
"Wake up." Bruce shook him vigorously.
The suspected representative of the "Guggenheimers" whined plaintively:
"Itty tootsies awfy cold!"
"Itty tootsies will be colder if you don't get 'em off this floor,"
Bruce said with a grin, as he dipped his fingers in the pitcher and
flirted the ice water in his face.
"Oh--hello!" Intelligence returned to Mr. Dill's blank countenance.
"Why, I must have been walking in my sleep. I always do when I sleep in
a strange place, but I thought I'd locked myself in. I dreamed I was a
fish freezing up in a cake of ice."
"It's not surprising."
"Say." Mr. Dill looked at him wistfully as he stood on one foot curling
his purple toes around the other knee. "I wonder if you'd let me get in
with you? I'm liable to do it again--sleeping cold and all."
"Sure," said Bruce sociably, leading the way. "Come ahead."
The somnambulist chattered:
"I've been put out of four hotels already for walking into other
people's rooms, and once I got arrested. I've doctored for it."
While lamenting his inability to discuss his proposition with the
engineer, the last thing Bruce anticipated was to be engaged before
daylight in the humane and neighborly act of warming Wilbur Dill's back,
but so it is that Chance, that humorous old lady, thrusts Opportunity in
the way of those in whom she takes an interest.
Bruce was so full of his subject that he saw nothing unusual in
propounding his questions in Mr. Dill's ear under the covers in the
middle of the night.
"How many horse-power could you develop from a two-hundred-feet head
with a minimum flow of eight hundred miners' inches?"
"Hey?" Mr. Dill's muffled voice sounded startled.
Bruce repeated the question, and added:
"I'm going out on the stage in the morning and it leaves before you're
up. I'd like mightily to know a few things in your line if you don't
mind my asking."
He was leaving, was he? Going out on the stage? Figuratively, Mr. Dill
sat up.
"Certainly not." His tone was cordial. "Any information at all----"
As clearly as he could, Bruce outlined the situation, estimating that a
flume half a mile in length would be necessary to get this
two-hundred-foot head, with perhaps a trestle bridging the cañon of Big
Squaw creek. And Dill, wide awake enough now, asked practical, pertinent
questions, which made Bruce realize that, as Uncle Bill had said,
whatever doubt there might be about his honesty there could be none at
all concerning his ability.
He soon had learned all that Bruce could tell him of the situation, of
the obstacles and advantages. He knew his reason for wishing to locate
the pump-house at the extreme end of the bar, the best place to cross
the river with the transmission wire, of the proximity of saw-timber,
and of the serious drawback of the inaccessibility of the ground. Bruce
could think of no detail that Dill had overlooked when he was done.
"Transportation is your problem," the engineer said, finally. "With the
machinery on the ground the rest would be a cinch. But there's only the
river or an expensive wagon-road. A wagon-road through such country
might cost you the price of your plant or more. And the river with its
rapids, they tell me, is a terror; so with the water route eliminated,
there remains only your costly wagon-road."
"But," Bruce insisted anxiously, "what would be your rough estimate of
the cost of such a plant, including installation?"
"At a guess, I'd say $25,000, exclusive of freight, and as you know the
rates from the coast are almighty high."
"Twenty-five thousand dollars!" And five hundred, Bruce reminded
himself, was about the size of his pile.
"Much obliged."
"Don't mention it," Mr. Dill yawned. "One good turn deserves another,
and, thanks to you, I'm almost warm."
Because Mr. Dill yawned it did not follow that he slept. On the
contrary, he was as wide awake as Bruce himself and when Bruce gently
withdrew from the sociable proximity of a bed that sagged like a
hammock, and tiptoed about the room while dressing, going downstairs to
the office wash-basin when he discovered that there was skating in the
water-pitcher, lest the sound of breaking ice disturb his bed-fellow,
Dill was gratefully appreciative.
He really liked the fellow, he did for a fact--in spite of his first
prejudice against him for being alive. Besides, since he was going
outside, as he had told him, for an indefinite stay, he might not
interfere so much with his plans after all, for Mr. Dill, too, had had
an inspiration.
X
"CAPITAL TAKES HOLT"
It is a safe wager that where two or three prospectors meet in a mining
camp or cabin, the length of time which will elapse before the subject
of conversation reverts to food will not exceed ten minutes and in this
respect the inhabitants of Ore City who "bached" were no exception. The
topic was introduced in the office of the Hinds House this morning as
soon as there was a quorum.
"I declare, I doubts if I lives to see grass," said Yankee Sam
despondently as he manicured a rim of dough from his finger-nails with
the point of a savage-looking jack-knife. "I opened my next-to-the-last
sack of flour this mornin' and 'twas mouldy. I got to eat it though, and
like as not t'other's the same. I tell you," lugubriously, "the pickin's
is gittin' slim on this range!"
"I know one thing," declared Judge George Petty, who was sober and
irritable, "if N. K. Rippetoe sends me in any more of that dod-gasted
Injun bakin' powder, him and me is goin' to fall out. I warned him once
I'd take my trade away and now he's gone and done it again. It won't
raise nothin', not _nothin'_!"
"An' you can't _drink_ it," Lanningan observed pointedly.
"You remember them dried apples I bought off the half-breed lady down on
the Nez Perce Reserve? Well," said Porcupine Jim sourly, "they walked
off day 'fore yistiddy--worms. I weighed that lady out cash gold, and
look what she's done on me! I wouldn't wonder if them apples wa'nt three
to four year old."
"If only we could find out what that Yellow-Leg's after." Lannigan's
face was cross-lined with anxiety. "If some of us could only unload
somethin' on him, then the rest of us could borry till Capital took holt
in the spring."
"S-ss-sh! That's him," came a warning whisper.
"Good morning, gentlemen. I seem to have slept late."
It was apparent to all that Mr. Dill's spirits were decidedly better
than when he had retired.
Yankee Sam suggested humorously:
"I reckon they was a little slow gittin' around with the tea-kittle to
thaw you out, so you could git up."
Mr. Dill declared that he had been agreeably disappointed in his night;
that he really felt quite rested and refreshed.
"If it isn't too soon after breakfast, friends," he said tentatively, as
he produced a flask.
It was quickly made clear to him that it was never too soon, or too
late, for that matter, and a suggestion of force was necessary to tear
the flask from Yankee Sam's face.
"What? Teetotaler?" As Uncle Bill shook his head.
"Not exactly; sometimes I take a little gin for my kidnas."
Ore City looked at him in unfeigned surprise. Mr. Dill, however,
believed he understood. The old man either knew him or had taken a
personal dislike--maybe both--at any rate he ceased to urge.
"Gentlemen," impressively, and Ore City felt intuitively that its acute
sufferings, due to ungratified curiosity, were at an end, "no doubt
you've wondered why I'm here?"
Ore City murmured a hypocritical protest.
"That would be but natural," Mr. Dill spoke slowly, drawling his words,
animated perhaps by the spirit which prompts the cat to prolong the
struggles of the dying mouse, "but I have postponed making my mission
known until rejuvenated by a good night's sleep. Now, gentlemen, if I
can have your support, your hearty co-operation, I may tell you that I
am in a position--to make Ore City boom! In other words--Capital Is
Going to Take Hold!"
Porcupine Jim, who, through long practice and by bracing the ball of his
foot against the knob on the stove door, was able to balance himself on
one rear leg of his chair, lost his footing on the nickel knob and
crashed to the floor, but he "came up smiling," offering for inspection
a piece of ore in his extended hand.
"Straight cyanidin' proposition, averagin' $60 to the ton with a tunnel
cross-cuttin' the ore-shoot at forty feet that samples $80 where she
begins to widen--" Lack of breath prevented Porcupine Jim from saying
that the hanging wall was of schist and the foot wall of granite and he
would take $65,000 for it, if he could have 10 per cent. in cash.
The specimen which Yankee Sam waved in the face of Capital's
representative almost grazed his nose.
"This here rock is from the greatest low-grade proposition in Americy!
Porphery dike with a million tons in sight and runnin' $10 easy to the
ton and $40,000 buys it on easy terms. Ten thousand dollars down and
reg'lar payments every six months, takin' a mortgage--"
"I'm a s-showin' y-you the best f-free-millin' proposition outside of
C-California," Judge George Petty stammered in his eagerness. "That
there mine'll m-make ten m-men rich. They's stringers in that there
ledge that'll run $5,000--$10,000 to the ton. I t-tell you, sir, the
'B-Bouncin' B-Bess' ain't no m-mine--she's a _b-bonanza_! And, when you
git down to the secondary enrichment you'll take it out in c-c-chunks!"
Inwardly, Lannigan was cursing himself bitterly that he had eaten "The
Gold-Dust Twins," but, searching through his pockets, fortunately, he
found a sample from the "Prince o' Peace." He handed it to Mr. Dill,
together with a magnifying glass.
"Take a look at this, will you?" He indicated a minute speck with his
fingernail.
Mr. Dill lost the speck and was some time in finding it and, while he
searched, the stove pipe separated at the joint, calling attention to
the fact that the sufferer upstairs was nervous. Pa Snow's voice came so
distinctly down the stove-pipe hole that there was reason to believe he
was on his hands and knees.
"Befoah you should do anything definite, we-all should like if you would
look ovah 'The Bay Hoss.' It's makin' a fine showin', and 'The Under
Dawg' is on the market, too, suh."
In the excitement Uncle Bill sat puffing calmly on his pipe.
Mr. Dill with a gesture brushed aside the waving arms and eager hands:
"And haven't you anything to sell?" he asked him curiously. "Don't you
mine?"
"Very little," Uncle Bill drawled tranquilly: "I dudes."
"You what?"
"I keeps an 'ad' in the sportin' journals, and guides."
"Oh, yes, hunters--eastern sportsmen--" Mr. Dill nodded. "But I thought
I recognized an old-time prospector in you."
"They's no better in the hull West," Yankee Sam declared generously,
while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. "Show
Dill that rar' mineral, Uncle Bill." To Dill in an aside: "He's got a
mountain of it and it's somethin' good."
Uncle Bill made no move.
"I aims to hold it for the boom."
"And what's your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?" Dill
asked conciliatingly. "What do you think well find when we reach the
secondary enrichment?"
A pin dropping would have sounded like a tin wash boiler rolling
downstairs in the silence which fell upon the office of the Hinds House.
Uncle Bill, looking serenely at the circle of tense faces, continued to
smoke while he took his own time to reply.
"I'm a thinkin',"--puff-puff--"that when you sink a hundred feet below
the surface,"--puff-puff--"you won't git a damn thing."
Involuntarily Yankee Sam reached for the poker and various eyes sought
the wood-box for a sizable stick of wood.
"Upon what do you base your opinion?" asked Mr. Dill, taken somewhat
aback. "What makes you think that?"
"Because we're in it now. The weatherin' away of the surface enrichment
made the placers we washed out in '61-'64."
Judge George Petty glowered and demanded contemptuously:
"Do you know what a mine _is_?"
"Well," replied Uncle Bill tranquilly, "not allus, but ginerally a mine
is a hole in the ground owned by a liar."
Yankee Sam half rose from his chair and pointed an accusing poker at
Uncle Bill.
"That old pin-head is the worst knocker that ever queered a camp. If
we'd a knowed you was comin'," turning to Mr. Dill, "we'd a put him in a
tunnel with ten days' rations and walled him up."
"They come clost to lynchin' me onct on Sucker Crick in Southern Oregon
for tellin' the truth," Uncle Bill said reminiscently, unperturbed.
Southern Oregon! Wilbur Dill looked startled. Ah, that was it! He looked
sharply at Griswold, but the old man's face was blank.
"We're all entitled to our opinions," he said lightly, though his
assurance had abated by a shade, "but, judging superficially, from the
topography of the country, I'm inclined to disagree."
Ore City's sigh of relief was audible.
Mr. Dill continued:
"And I--we are willing to back our confidence in your camp by the
expenditure of a reasonable amount, in order to find out; but,
gentlemen, you've raised your sights too high. Your figures'll have to
come down if we do business. A prospect isn't a mine, you know, and
there's not been much development work done, as I understand."
"How was you aimin' to work it," Uncle Bill asked mildly, "in case you
_did_ git anything? The Mascot burned its profits buyin' wood fer
steam."
"The riddles of yesterday are the commonplaces of to-day, my friend. The
world has moved since the arrastre was invented and steam is nearly as
obsolete. Hydro-electric is the only power to-day and that's what
I--we--propose to use."
Ore City's eyes widened and then they looked at Uncle Bill. What
drawback would he think of next? He never disappointed.
"There ain't water enough down there in Lemon Crick in August to run a
churn."
Mr. Dill laughed heartily: "Right you are--but how about the river down
below--there's water enough in that, if all I'm told is true."
For once he surprised the old man into an astonished stare.
"The river's all of twenty mile from here."
"They've transmitted power from Victoria Falls on the Zembesi River, in
Rhodesia, six hundred miles to the Rand."
Chortling, Ore City looked at the camp hoodoo in triumph.--_That_ should
hold him for a while.
"I wish you luck," said Uncle Bill, his complacency returning, "but Ore
City ain't the Rand. You'll never pull your money back."
"And in our own country they send 'juice' two hundred and forty-five
miles from Au Sable to Baltic Creek, Michigan."
* * * * *
Before his departure Bruce had arranged with Porcupine Jim to load a
toboggan with provisions and snowshoe down to Toy. Mr. Dill was
delighted when he learned this fortunate circumstance, for it enabled
him to make a trip to the river for the purpose, as he elaborately
explained, of "looking out a power-site, and the best route to string
the wires."
While he was gone, properties to the value of half a million in the
aggregate changed hands--but no cash. It was like the good old days to
come again, to see the embryo magnates whispering in corners, to feel
once more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Real
estate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled the
bar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into a
broken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there was
an undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony few
could calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked in
thousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money on
his hands for over three years, "moved" in three days--sold out to the
last cigar!
When the time arrived that they had calculated Dill should return, even
to the hour, the person who was coming back from the end of the snow
tunnel at the front door of the Hinds House, that commanded a good view
of the trail, always met someone going out to ask if there was "any
sight of 'em?" and he, in turn, took his stand at the mouth of the
tunnel, until driven in by the cold. In this way, there was nearly
always someone doing lookout duty.
Ore City's brow was corrugated with anxiety when Dill and Porcupine Jim
had exceeded by three days the time allotted them for their stay.
Wouldn't it be like the camp's confounded luck if Capital fell off of
something and broke its neck?
Their relief was almost hysterical when one evening at sunset Lannigan
shouted joyfully: "Here they come!"
They dashed through the tunnel to see Mr. Dill dragging one foot
painfully after the other to the hotel. He seemed indifferent to the
boisterous greeting, groaning merely:
"Oh-h-h, what a hill!"
"We been two days a makin' it," Jim vouchsafed cheerfully. "Last night
we slept out on the snow."
"You seem some stove up." Uncle Bill eyed Dill critically. "And looks
like you have fell off twenty pounds."
"Stove up!" exclaimed Dill plaintively. "Between Jim's cooking and that
hill I took up four notches in my belt. I wouldn't make that trip again
in winter if the Alaska Treadwell was awaiting me as a gift at the other
end."
"You'll git used to it," consoled Uncle Bill, "you'll learn to like it
when you're down there makin' that there 'juice.' I mind the time I went
to North Dakoty on a visit--I longed for one of these hills to climb to
rest myself. The first day they set me out on the level, I ran away--it
took four men to head me off."
"We found where we kin develop 250,000 jolts," Porcupine Jim announced.
"Volts, James," corrected Mr. Dill, and added, dryly, "Don't start in to
put up the plant until I get back."
He _was_ coming back then--he _was_! Figuratively, all Ore City fell at
his feet, though strictly only two scrambled for the privilege of
unbuckling his snow-shoes, and only three picked up his bag.