GATHERING FOR THE FEAST
Two hours later saw an extraordinary change at the foot of Devil's
Hill. The wonder of the "washout" had passed. Its awe was no longer
upon the human mind. The men of the camp regarded it with no more
thought than if the destruction had been caused by mere blasting
operations. They were not interested in the power causing the wreck,
but only in their own motives, their own greedy longings, their own
lust for the banquet of gold outspread before their ravening eyes.
The Padre watched these people his news had brought to the hill with
tolerant, kindly eye. He saw them scattered like a small swarm of bees
in the immensity of the ruin wrought by the storm. They had for the
time forgotten him, they had forgotten everything in the wild moment
of long-pent passions unloosed--the danger which overhung them, their
past trials, their half-starved bodies, their recent sufferings. These
things were thrust behind them, they were of the past. Their present
was an insatiable hunger for finds such as had been thrust before
their yearning eyes less than an hour ago.
He stood by and viewed the spectacle with a mind undisturbed, with a
gentle philosophy inspired by an experience which he alone could
appreciate. It was a wonderful sight. The effort, the haste, the
almost insane intentness of these people seeking the yellow metal, the
discovery of which was the whole bounds of their horizon. He felt
that it was good to see them. Good that these untamed passions should
be allowed full sway. He felt that such as these were the advance
guard of all human enterprise. Theirs was the effort, theirs the
hardship, the risk; and after them would come the trained mind,
perhaps the less honest mind, the mind which must harness the result
of their haphazard efforts to the process of civilization's evolution.
He even fancied he saw something of the influence of this day's work
upon the future of that mountain world.
But there was regret too in his thought. It was regret at the
impossibility of these pioneers ever enjoying the full fruits of their
labors. They would enjoy them in their own way, at the moment, but
such enjoyment was not adequate reward for their daring, their
sacrifice, their hardihood. Well enough he knew that they were but the
toilers in a weed-grown vineyard, and that it would fall to the lot of
the skilled husbandman to be the man who reaped the harvest.
It was a picture that would remain long enough in his memory. The
flaying picks rising and falling amongst the looser debris, the
grinding scrape of the shovel, turning again and again the heavy red
gravel. The shouts of hoarse voices hailing each other in jubilant
tones, voices thrilling with a note of hope such as they had not known
for weeks. He saw the hard muscles of sunburnt arms standing out
rope-like with the terrific labor they were engaged in. And in the
background of it all he saw the grim spectacle of the blackened hill,
frowning down like some evil monster, watching the vermin life eating
into a sore it was powerless to protect.
It was wonderful, the transformation of these things. And yet it was
far less strange than his witness of the spectacle of the beaten,
hopeless men he had helped so long up in the camp. He was glad.
He was glad, too, that even Buck had been caught in the fever of the
moment. He saw him with the rest, with borrowed tools, working with a
vigor and enthusiasm quite unsurpassed by the most ardent of the
professional gold-seekers. Yet he knew how little the man was tainted
with the disease of these others. He had no understanding whatever of
the meaning of wealth. And the greed of gold had left him quite
untouched. His was the virile, healthy enthusiasm for a quest for
something which was hidden there in the wonderful auriferous soil, a
quest that the heart of any live man is ever powerless to resist.
With him it would last till sundown, maybe, and after that the fever
would pass from his veins. Then the claims of the life that had always
been his would reassert themselves.
After a while the Padre's thoughts drifted to the pressing
considerations of the future. Several times he had heard the shouts of
men who had turned a nugget up in the gravel. And at each such cry he
had seen the rush of others, and the feverish manner in which they
took possession of the spot where the lucky individual was working and
hustled him out. It was in these rushes that he saw the danger lying
ahead.
Hitherto these men had been accustomed to the slow process of washing
"pay-dirt." It was not only slow, but unemotional. It had not the
power to stir the senses to a pitch of excitement like this veritable
Tom Tiddler's ground, pitchforked into their very laps by one of
Nature's freakish impulses.
With this thought came something very like regret at the apparent
richness of the find. Something must be done, and done without delay,
to regulate the situation. The place must be arranged in claims, and
definite regulations must be laid down and enforced by a council of
the majority. He felt instinctively that this would be the only way to
avert a state of anarchy too appalling to contemplate. It would be an
easy matter now, but a hopeless task to attempt later on. Yes, a big
trouble lay in those rushes, which seemed harmless enough at present.
And he knew that his must be the work of straightening out the
threatened tangle.
But for the moment the fever must be allowed to run riot. It must work
itself out with the physical effort of hard muscles. In the calm of
rest after labor counsel might be offered and listened to. But not
until then.
So that memorable day wore on to its close. The luck had come not in
the petty find such as these men had looked for, but in proportions of
prodigal generosity such as Nature sometimes loves to bestow upon
those whom she has hit the hardest. She had called to her aid those
strange powers of which she is mistress and hurled them headlong to do
her bidding. She had bestowed her august consent, and lo, the earth
was opened, and its wealth poured out at the very feet of those who
had so long and so vainly sought it.