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Show r " i l By WILL IRWIN J1 w-rrr ..,rvt-. CopyrtrM b, Will Irwin j THE STOnY SO FAR fin rh.-lr via') 1. 1 Hi" new ('ot-... ('ot-... K-.l-l i!ir .'lii' I" ''!" !!. I" il : :- l-i. I , i t i : . i .,n, , ri, ,-r, an, I hi i li i il r, iturk H-. v ii. a v.ii.-ri.ii n.i I... r, v. il li'- i II.- I, .,!-!- il li "f li : , , ...... I-,,;, I'ii, 1 l o i.i V. I: I. h til.- 0X- t.r. i I... i.t f. ii l,. l',r" tls I,:, r,.r , nr.; (,.-.. I . i ;tt. Al-I. I t... I..,:, I il, v:. . iiii.i ii '.Il' I- '-M '-M ii, - I i. i,. iiii.i Mr . I.y. v. , , i n i i n il i t i, p, n ii I'.- ' a m:i n I 1,1 C'.,i I ..I, H i.L.I. (Ills, ,11 I.H-.-M ;.i,m, u , II:, ml, .-il.lur, i, n Iii.h way I Mia i ' 1 In- (a,l i,,ii vvi..,il I .' . , 1 1 r i . r . Arrivu.x In t'.-uu, in. J Ihiv'l.'i' toK-'Inr pn nha a milium mili-um . L im. a i in-, i ly '.. inn i: I-, i, .... il ,., i.y the lira wry or I'lirla M.i I ra I ii, Inwil liiitri.l.iil. CHAPTER IV Continued W'l- II-.Iiih-iI to him imli! Inn;; iiflcr j i i 1 1 1 i -1 I . I : cu linn, I lay inviike fur limits, wrnvili.;; C'.liliM Mini 1 1 l'-l i ii 1 1": I -malir (In-aiiis. Ami wlimi I ivuti: next iiinniinu, llu' ilaily rutitiiii' of ci.lm col-i--i. III'.. In Hi., scvi-nlii-.s sci-iuimI Ihii 1 1 1 1 . ! niiiniiriii. 'I lial mi.. .il ia-;Mnl, of cnurs;.. I am rV, sure ulirllnT I 1-viT I :l I K '( In Til-ili-n auain; (vrliiiiily, il v lint of tlif -si . I must have sirll lillll nil tim ilay ulimi ! look our iliplniiiii.s ami our riiiiv nil ii in ;i , illusory inKiro from llii" iiiTsiilnil, lull. I (In lint reinoiiibi'i'. 1. was Kiailiiali'il Willi a t-i i in lauilc; as lii-lil Inl n iMiMoiiiaii. I liail pro veil a j; I srliular lint nut loo Komi. So I I'oiiml myself liuck in my mot h-er's h-er's colonial lioincsl cui by Coliassot eoiiiinnii, willi my fiiluro us undeler-iniimil undeler-iniimil lis on tin; day when I iiiuti'icii-lali'il iiiuti'icii-lali'il at 1 Iarviirtl. It Inul always li.-ou iniilri'stood Hint, In spile of Hie family money, I should "do something." Our nlocic was still near enou;li to the ninny soil of New KiiKlantl to despise a loafer. My father, dying when I was n child from the linserinn eonse-(liieiices eonse-(liieiices of his wound at Cold Harbor, Inul incorporated before his death the wholesale wool house in lloslnn which was the foundation of our prosperities, mid bud turned bis other properties Into railroad bonds. In my mother, true to type. Judicious generosity was mixed with unlive thrift and economy; through her conservative but intelligent intel-ligent management the margin of the fori line had increased, even during the hard limey of '7.'!. f'.y the terms of my father's will my mother, as executrix, must dole out to me such sums as were necessary to my support and maintenance. main-tenance. On my thirtieth birthday the fortune would be divided; there were only three heirs: my mother, my sister Kinily now finishing at a select seminary for young ladies in I'.oston, and I. And in the course of lime and nature, half of my mother's share would come to me. My future, while undetermined, was secure far, far too secure. I passed the summer In Cohasset, trying to inhibit thought of the future; a pleasant period on the surface, but below that vaguely unsatisfactory. I sought excitement in a flirtation, which came near to being an entanglement, entangle-ment, with Nellie Ferris petite, plump, us was then the fashion in women, delicately featured, dowered with an active little mind and an acute little wit. I suppose that if I had remained In Cohasset, proximity would have done its full work. As it was, the nlTair never went further than kissing good by when I started West. I was reading one night by the student stu-dent lamp in the library and mother was writing letters at the escritoire in the corner, when I looked up to find her eyes fixed on me with an expression expres-sion bard yet quizzical. I retain yet a picture of her as she looked that night. She was forty-live. In that era. a woman of her years bad long anticipated the Inevitable, given up bright colors and such youthful fripperies frip-peries as croquet and sea bathing, and was preparing for her era of caps and kniiling. I thought of her, from the viewpoint of twenty-two, as incredibly nged. Yet, as she sat there facing me, her chestnut-brown hair, dressed in the innumerable waves and small curls of current fashion, showed no thread of while. The old lace of her Sunday finery foamed about her throat and bosom. l-'rom somewhere amidst a foam of lace, one ?t her plump but shapely forearms supported a tapered hand which was tapping a penholder against her lips. Her other band lay stretched out on the desk toward me in an attitude which merely liiuted at n'Tection. Mother's affections ran so deeply that site expressed them with difficulty. We New Kngkuiders are still very near In spirit to Old England Eng-land : ami we show it in nothing so inf.ch as in our shy repression of our deepest emo'ions. "Rob," said my mother, "what do you propose to do next?" "Enter law school in the fall," I replied. re-plied. Not until I expressed it in that bald manner did I realize how little the law really Interested me. "And then?" pursued my mother, continuing to tap her penholder against he, tightened lips. "Oh. practice, I suppose. Somewhere." Some-where." "Somewhere," repeated my mother dryly. "J ad somehow, Kob. does that vague pruspeet allure you?" "No," said I, jerked sud.-idy Into frankness witli her ami with myself. "Nn, It doesn't." .Molher nnddi-.l. "I thought so!" Ami suddenly my lazy young mind stirred and be::an to function with realities. I knew why life in Cohasset had seemed so Hat, and why my mind - not through fear Inu through boredom bore-dom had been refusing iii pi, -lure the future. Tildeh, during that all-night laik In Harrison's room, bad planted in u.e a seed mure vital than either of us knew. It bad been germinating all Mils time. Now, suddenly, It sprouted tn the surface. And "Mother, I think I want to go West," I said. She kept her eyes on mine, hut there was a break in her voice as she replied re-plied : "Not for good? "Oh, no!" said I. "Just for a year or so." Then I walked to the window, lest she see what might be in my face; sinnd looking out at the lights of Cohasset Co-hasset harbor. Mother spoke very gently from behind be-hind me : "I bad thought of every possibility but that. I was about to suggest that you go to sea for a while my tribe,, away back, were seafaring people. It's far from genlcel, the West." Her inference that the forecastle of a deep-sea vessel stood notable for an atmosphere of gentility amused nie, so that I dared turn back from the window win-dow and show my face. "P.ul there's steel in you," said mother moth-er now she was looking down into the pigeonholes of her old mahogany desk "though It's never been tempered tem-pered yet and some generations of gentlemen. No, Rob, you'll come through that. Of course, there's danger. dan-ger. Dreadful things happen out there." Mother had never in her life traveled west of Albany, and had formed her picture from the newspapers. "I'll risk that !" said I, my youthful pride in my own courage slightly piqued. "That's true," replied mother. "I said you had steel in you. Terhaps for me it isn't so easy." Then mother did what she had not done since I was a little boy. She had always kissed me perfunctorily at meeting and parting. But now she held out her arms to me. I came to her; and she patted and petted me silently. I looked up presently, to see that she was crying without sobs or sniffles just the big tears coursing down her cheeks. I wiped her eyes and "I won't go if you feel that way about. It," I said. Whereupon she became be-came at once her old, peppery self. She snatched the handkerchief away from me. finished the drying process, and jerked out : "Don't he a fool, Robert." - So we sat down and planned it all out practically. I remembered something some-thing Tilden had said during that conversation con-versation in Holworthy hall "You don't get that sort of tiling in California Califor-nia any more. We're growing civilized. Nowadays, the real wild life lies In the Rockies. People are just beginning to break into them." Offhand and without with-out further thought, I chose the Rockies. Then came the matter of funds. And there my mother became steel and adamant. If my wander years were going to do me any good, she said, I must pay my own way. She would get me out there. She would get me back, if necessary. And, in any event, I must not stay more than two years. This at first both hurt and piqued me; I had pictured myself leaping leap-ing from adventure to adventure, without with-out thought of the morrow and always with plenty in my pockets. The cold, hard reality of making a living had not entered into my dreams of the West. Hut by the time I had slept on the matter, I perceived dimly that the true adventure must be sweetened with practical effort; otherwise it is all plums and no suet. And I accepted mothers conditions. Of course, I missed the deeper realities reali-ties of her decision, as youth always does. I bad to let maturity and experience expe-rience ripen my own understanding before be-fore I could appreciate the fullness of her sacrifice to the development of my character. It took a woman of her breed and time to do it. Others would merely have thought of it, or would have pulled back at the last moment. Mother played the game through. Only when I reached Denver did she seem to repent a little of her bargain with herself and me. From her first letter dropped a money order for three hundred dollars. "I am sending this so," she wrote, "because I am not sure there are banks out there. You are not to spend it now. I know, of course, that you will follow my wishes. It is just a reserve in case you are in trouble or for any other unexpected contingency." But I did not at first follow the trail of adventure clear through. Denver was the railroad terminus; last thrust of the civilization I knew. Then, as now, it stood gateway to the Rockies. Established in a cheap hotel down by the Union station, with fifty dollars in my pocket and the world before me, I spent two days acclimating my lungs to the rarefied atmosphere and my spirit to these entertaining new surroundings sur-roundings before I counted my money and thought of my material situation. The Rocky Mountain News displayed columns of adverliseinents under the beading "Help Wanted." I ran them over "teamsters" "railroad construction construc-tion gangs" "shovel gangs" "miners. H My eye grasped at this item. I took the mailer to the clerk at our hotel, my bureau of information on all things weslern. I found that "miner" meant not u romantic prospector, following the trail of fortune, but virtually a common laborer In the dark bowels of the earth. My face must have shown my spurt of dismay, for the clerk suddenly asked : "You're educated, ain't you?" "Yes," said I; and inhibited myself from saying how much I was educated. educat-ed. College breeding, I had found already, al-ready, did not recommend a young man in the far West. "If you bustle out there quick," said the clerk, "you can get a checking job in the grading gang out by Long-mount. Long-mount. Friend of mine had It. Happen Hap-pen to know he's quilting today." "Checking?" I asked. "Keepin' time on the gang. Hiring and firing mostly firing, nowadays," said the clerk. I drove out to Longmount in a rented livery backboard; making no more of a small matter, I got the job, buckled down to it witli all the interest in t lie world. With the boss, a taciturn and cynical old westerner whom I never came really to know, I "batched" in a . board shack. Uncommunicative as he it Next Morning I Was Weighing Sugar and Learning to Wrap Bundles. was, he did teach me something about that essential western art, shooting. He himself handled a 45-caliber Colt's with such magic efficiency as to make me suspect that his silence concealed a past. The autumn rains came; there were light snows in the heights above, and they spread over the peaks a bridal veil which with each succeeding storm grew heavier. When it had become a blanket of snow, we finished our job and paid off. I was out of work, and I had but forty dollars ahead. Then luck served me another good turn. Settling up our business with Reich-iiiitim, Reich-iiiitim, the German grocer from whom we drew our commissary, I found that he needed a clerk. So next morning I was weighing sugar and learning to wrap bundles ; and had found on Curtis Cur-tis street a modest boarding place." There I remained all winter. Denver, in those days, interested me; but, after all, it was not the West I bad come to see and to live. The West I wanted lay beyond that white mountain barrier. bar-rier. When spring came, I would go-somewhere. go-somewhere. It descended upon us suddenly, sud-denly, bringing the coltonwoods to bud overhead, mushing to an impenetrable morass the unpaved roadways underfoot. under-foot. And, sharp on that, the Rocky Mountain News splashed across its first iage the story of a strike at Cottonwood, Cot-tonwood, which I knew as a mining camp, but recently opened, somewhere up in Hie ranges. I closed out with Reichmann, who nearly wept to see me abandon a good job for the illusory business of mining, and went with my winter savings to Plested's, jumping-oi'f jumping-oi'f place for the dash across the peaks. I Intended to proceed by stage. Next neighbor on the floor of a big tent which served as a lodging house, I met P.uek, breakfasted with him, reviewed the prospect of reaching Cottonwood in time to stake a decent claim, became be-came intrigued with his honesty, his charily revealed experience, his technical techni-cal knowledge of his business. Ruck was just out of a partner, one Shorty, who had come down with him from Idaho, having fallen before the wiles of woman and taken himself a wife in Denver. Hesitatingly I made bold to propose that we join forces, adding that I had a little money. For this contingency, I felt, justified me in dipping dip-ping into my mother's emergency fund. Buck accepted with a promptness which In him amounted to eagerness. So, a day later, we were toiling behind be-hind our jack-trains toward Cottonwood, Cotton-wood, This digging along Bear creek was, therefore, my first encounter with actual, ac-tual, hard, physical work. And wdien the fascination of golden sand began to pall, I realized that man does not by choice toil with the sweat of his face, but by hard necessity. He must discipline himself to work with his hands; life had not given me that form of discipline. At first unconsciously, then consciously, I began to loaf. When Buck's back was turned I stood long minutes at a time, contemplating the mountains or trying to peer round the opaque corner of the hill at Cottonwood Cotton-wood camp. I invented chores. An hour ahead of the event, I was waiting wait-ing for Buck's cheerful "Well, better lay off and clean up, kid." And about the fourth day we found the clear white bottom of the stream-bed stream-bed streaked with another kind of sand, troublesome to shovel and almost al-most impossible to rock and wash. In color a dirty yellowish wdiite, in substance sub-stance it resembled very hard sugar. Its ' heavy particles, enamel-surfaced and shiny like those of ordinary bottom bot-tom sand, were yet extremely brittle. They ground under pressure into a cutting powder as hard as emery. A dozen times that clay we were forced to stop work and scrape this disturbing disturb-ing substance from the riffles of our washer. And when we cleaned up an experimental pan, we found not a streak of gold. Disgusted, Buck pulled up stakes and moved operations to the other bank. His reward, which "quite restored his drooping spirits, was a good day's yield. All day he had been cursing the strange substance. That night, however, he forgave It sufficiently sufficient-ly to scoop up a double handful and inspect it by the light of our candle. "D n college-bred mining expert might think he saw something in this here stuff." he remarked. "What, for example?" I asked. "Oh. most anything that come into his mind, I guess. What a mining expert ex-pert looks for ain't value. All he needs is a sucker." Saturday afternoon brought the ion-eat hours of my life. To my indescribable inde-scribable relief, Buck gave even before be-fore the sun had dipped below he western range, the signal for quitting time We cleaned up the rocker, cooked a hasty supper. I bathvd, shivering, in the creek, shaved, put on mv single clean shirt and that suit of store clothes which I had unpacked and hung up In the vain hope that some of Its creases would disappear. Buck washed his face and neck, brushed his bristly, unruly brown hair, wiped the mud from his boots with a -unnv sack, and let it go at that. So walking witli eager haste through the deepening twilight, we plunged into the joyous, confused babble of Saturday Satur-day night In camp. Cottonwood Camp, in the five days since we left for our claim, had grown like an exhalation. The two-story building which housed the Black Jack was still the most imposing structure on Main street. However, the vacant lots which, when I saw this thoroughfare thorough-fare last, had interspersed cabin, tent and board shack, were now filled up with other cabins, tents and shacks. Clear at the end of the street rose a tent. Its sign read : "STEGEL'S BEER HALL SCHOONERS 25 CENTS." "Beer!" exclaimed Buck. "Say, a beer would go good !" We pushed through the canvas door. Siegel, in his haste to get custom, had not taken the trouble to floor his tent. Along the farther end ran two long tables, eadi bearing kegs. Bartenders in blue shirts, working like mad while the harvest lasted, were drawing full steins, setting them forth along the tables, making change, chucking the receipts into a box. And the crowd before the tables milled like cattle for a chance at the beverage which Is the special solace of overworked tissues. We got to the tables at last ; our foaming beers stood before us and Buck was in the act of paying, when a hand shot from behind under his arm, seized his schooner. I wheeled. A man as short and squatty as some marine monster stood drinking Buck's beer. Over the rim of the schooner shone a pair of black eyes that glistened glis-tened humorously; and his marine resemblance re-semblance was pointed by a mustache, now flecked with foam, which dropped above an aggressive chin like that of a sea lion. Buck's eyes snapped with resentment ; then his expression changed and he broke into a string of expletives which I cannot here tran1 scribe. " Shorty, you hamstrtlng old hoss, you I" it ended. "Same to you and many of 'em !" replied Shorty, removing from his Hps the empty glass and wiping the foam from his mustache with the back of his hand. "Staked yet?" he Inquired. "H 1, yes!" replied Buck. "After you went back on me, I throwed in with this kid tenderfoot here kid, shake hands with Shorty." 'Tut her thar, kid !" said Shorty, but though his language was hearty, his manner was perfunctory ; his keen black eyes scarcely left Buck's facfe. "Big thing?" he asked. "Looks like pay dirt." "Shoot ! A placer proposition !" "Only proposition that is 1 Did you bring your woman along?" "Ain't any woman's far's I'm concerned," con-cerned," replied Shorty, his countenance counte-nance for the first time almost serious, "or won't be soon's I've raised the wind for a divorce. She was a " Here Shorty dropped an Anglo-Saxon noun describing without shadow or equivocation the oldest profession.. "Thought so," said Buck. "What ye got against placer?" he inquired. "Bigger fish," replied Shorty. "How long you been vegetatin' on your placer claim? Don't you read the news?" From the capacious pocket of his woolly overcoat, Shorty produced a folded newspaper, opened its grimy creases. "The Cottonwood Courier," it was headed. And I realized how much we had missed ; and also the enterprise of Marcus Handy. Hazily, I had catalogued cata-logued the first appearance of the first newspaper in camp as an event of the distant future. Bu there it was already al-ready Volume 1, Number 2 its front page a worn and ill-aligned patchwork of scarehcads. Or wdiat were scare-heads scare-heads for those days. The main item, indeed, ran clear across two columns! and began : "Latest Find Rich Beyond Calculation Cottonwood Camp, Crown City of the Rockies, Does It Again Unlimited Wealth Pours Into Laps of Lucky Locators on Liverpool Hill It's Gold Quartz This Time, but They're Striking Everything. 'Greatest Camp That Ever Was,' Say Experienced Mining Men!" "Gold quartz!" commented Shorty. "Maybe the mother lode that your little tailings come from." "Well, 'tain't a poor man's proposition," proposi-tion," remarked Buck. "Them lucky locators is working for Wall street. Staked anything for yourself?" "Nope, just got here." "Anything in sight?" "There's a hundred-dollar bill burled somewhere on me," answered Shorty "Find it on me, and it's yours. It's all she left me." "I guess, pardner," said Buck, "you wish to h 1 you'd stayed with me." "I wish to h 1 I had !" How to edit a mining camp newspaper is one of the rare treats in store for readern in the next installment. (TO BS CONTINUED.) |