From Sand Hill to Pine Part 21

"She's no sardine," said Bray to himself emphatically, "but I suspect she'll catch it from her folks for this. I ought to have gone away at once, like a gentleman, hang it!"

He was even angrily debating with himself whether he ought not to follow her to protect her from her gesticulating relations as they all trailed up the hill with her, when he reflected that it would only make matters worse. And with it came the dreadful reflection that as yet he had not carried the water to his expecting and thirsty comrades. He had forgotten them for these lazy, sn.o.bbish, purse-proud San Franciscans--for Bray had the miner's supreme contempt for the moneyed trading cla.s.ses. What would the boys think of him! He flung himself over the bank, and hastened recklessly down the trail to the spring. But here again he lingered--the place had become suddenly hallowed. How deserted it looked without her! He gazed eagerly around on the ledge for any trace that she had left--a bow, a bit of ribbon, or even a hairpin that had fallen from her.

As the young man slowly filled the pail he caught sight of his own reflection in the spring. It certainly was not that of an Adonis!

He laughed honestly; his sense of humor had saved him from many an extravagance, and mitigated many a disappointment before this. Well! She was a plucky, handsome girl--even if she was not for him, and he might never set eyes on her again. Yet it was a hard pull up that trail once more, carrying an insensible pail of water in the hand that had once sustained a lovely girl! He remembered her reply to his badinage, "Of course not--if it were only a pail," and found a dozen pretty interpretations of it. Yet he was not in love! No! He was too poor and too level headed for that! And he was unaffectedly and materially tired, too, when he reached the road again, and rested, leaving the spring and its little idyl behind.

By this time the sun had left the burning ledge of the Eureka Company, and the stage road was also in shadow, so that his return through its heavy dust was less difficult. And when he at last reached the camp, he found to his relief that his prolonged absence had been overlooked by his thirsty companions in a larger excitement and disappointment; for it appeared that a well-known San Francisco capitalist, whom the foreman had persuaded to visit their claim with a view to advance and investment, had actually come over from Red Dog for that purpose, and had got as far as the summit when he was stopped by an accident, and delayed so long that he was obliged to go on to Sacramento without making his examination.

"That was only his excuse--mere flap-doodle!" interrupted the pessimistic Jerrold. "He was foolin' you; he'd heard of suthin better!

The idea of calling that affair an 'accident,' or one that would stop any man who meant business!"

Bray had become uneasily conscious. "What was the accident?" he asked.

"A d----d fool woman's accident," broke in the misogynist Parkhurst, "and it's true! That's what makes it so cussed mean. For there's allus a woman at the bottom of such things--bet your life! Think of 'em comin'

here. Thar ought to be a law agin it."

"But what was it?" persisted Bray, becoming more apprehensive.

"Why, what does that blasted fool of a capitalist do but bring with him his daughter and auntie to 'see the wonderful scenery with popa dear!' as if it was a cheap Sunday-school panorama! And what do these chuckle-headed women do but get off the coach and go to wanderin'

about, and playin' 'here we go round the mulberry bush' until one of 'em tumbles down a ravine. And then there's a great to do! and 'dear popa'

was up and down the road yellin' 'Me cheyld! me cheyld!' And then there was camphor and sal volatile and eau de cologne to be got, and the coach goes off, and 'popa dear' gets left, and then has to hurry off in a buggy to catch it. So WE get left too, just because that G.o.d-forsaken fool, Neworth, brings his women here."

Under this recital poor Bray sat as completely crushed as when the fair daughter of Neworth had descended upon his shoulders at the spring. He saw it all! HIS was the fault. It was HIS delay and dalliance with her that had checked Neworth's visit; worse than that, it was his subsequent audacity and her defense of him that would probably prevent any renewal of the negotiations. He had shipwrecked his partners' prospects in his absurd vanity and pride! He did not dare to raise his eyes to their dejected faces. He would have confessed everything to them, but the same feeling of delicacy for her which had determined him to keep her adventures to himself now forever sealed his lips. How might they not misconstrue his conduct--and HERS! Perhaps something of this was visible in his face.

"Come, old man," said the cheerful misogynist, with perfect innocence, "don't take it so hard. Some time in a man's life a woman's sure to get the drop on him, as I said afore, and this yer woman's got the drop on five of us! But--hallo, Ned, old man--what's the matter with your head?"

He laid his hand gently on the matted temple of his younger partner.

"I had--a slip--on the trail," he stammered. "Had to go back again for another pailful. That's what delayed me, you know, boys," he added. "But it's nothing!"

"Nothing!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Parkhurst, clapping him on the back and twisting him around by the shoulders so that he faced his companions. "Nothing!

Look at him, gentlemen; and he says it's 'nothing.' That's how a MAN takes it! HE didn't go round yellin' and wringin' his hands and sayin'

'Me pay-l! me pay-l!' when it spilt! He just humped himself and trotted back for another. And yet every drop of water in that overset bucket meant hard work and hard sweat, and was as precious as gold."

Luckily for Bray, whose mingled emotions under Parkhurst's eloquence were beginning to be hysterical, the foreman interrupted.

"Well, boys! it's time we got to work again, and took another heave at the old ledge! But now that this job of Neworth's is over--I don't mind tellin' ye suthin." As their leader usually spoke but little, and to the point, the four men gathered around him. "Although I engineered this affair, and got it up, somehow, I never SAW that Neworth standing on this ledge! No, boys! I never saw him HERE." The look of superst.i.tion which Bray and the others had often seen on this old miner's face, and which so often showed itself in his acts, was there. "And though I wanted him to come, and allowed to have him come, I'm kinder relieved that he didn't, and so let whatsoever luck's in the air come to us five alone, boys, just as we stand."

The next morning Bray was up before his companions, and although it was not his turn, offered to bring water from the spring. He was not in love with Eugenia--he had not forgotten his remorse of the previous day--but he would like to go there once more before he relentlessly wiped out her image from his mind. And he had heard that although Neworth had gone on to Sacramento, his son and the two ladies had stopped on for a day or two at the ditch superintendent's house on the summit, only two miles away. She might pa.s.s on the road; he might get a glimpse of her again and a wave of her hand before this thing was over forever, and he should have to take up the daily routine of his work again. It was not love--of THAT he was a.s.sured--but it was the way to stop it by convincing himself of its madness. Besides, in view of all the circ.u.mstances, it was his duty as a gentleman to show some concern for her condition after the accident and the disagreeable contretemps which followed it.

Thus Bray! Alas, none of these possibilities occurred. He found the spring had simply lapsed into its previous unsuggestive obscurity,--a mere niche in the mountain side that held only--water! The stage road was deserted save for an early, curly-headed schoolboy, whom he found lurking on the bank, but who evaded his company and conversation.

He returned to the camp quite cured of his fancy. His late zeal as a water-carrier had earned him a day or two's exemption from that duty.

His place was taken the next afternoon by the woman-hating Parkhurst, and he was the less concerned by it as he had heard that the same afternoon the ladies were to leave the summit for Sacramento.

But then occurred a singular coincidence. The new water-bringer was as scandalously late in his delivery of the precious fluid as his predecessor! An hour pa.s.sed and he did not return. His unfortunate partners, toiling away with pick and crowbar on the burning ledge, were clamorous from thirst, and Bray was becoming absurdly uneasy. It could not be possible that Eugenia's accident had been repeated! Or had she met him with inquiries? But no! she was already gone. The mystery was presently cleared, however, by the abrupt appearance of Parkhurst running towards them, but WITHOUT HIS PAIL! The cry of consternation and despair which greeted that discovery was, however, quickly changed by a single breathless, half intelligible sentence he had shot before him from his panting lips. And he was holding something in his outstretched palm that was more eloquent than words. Gold!

In an instant they had him under the shade of the pine-tree, and were squatting round him like schoolboys. He was profoundly agitated.

His story, far from being brief, was incoherent and at times seemed irrelevant, but that was characteristic. They would remember that he had always held the theory that, even in quartz mining, the deposits were always found near water, past or present, with signs of fluvial erosion!

He didn't call himself one of your blanked scientific miners, but his head was level! It was all very well for them to say "Yes, yes!" NOW, but they didn't use to! Well! when he got to the spring, he noticed that there had been a kind of landslide above it, of course, from water cleavage, and there was a distinct mark of it on the mountain side, where it had uprooted and thrown over some small bushes!

Excited as Bray was, he recognized with a hysterical sensation the track made by Eugenia in her fall, which he himself had noticed. But he had thought only of HER.

"When I saw that," continued Parkhurst, more rapidly and coherently, "I saw that there was a crack above the hole where the water came through--as if it had been the old channel of the spring. I widened it a little with my clasp knife, and then--in a little pouch or pocket of decomposed quartz--I found that! Not only that, boys," he continued, rising, with a shout, "but the whole slope above the spring is a ma.s.s of seepage underneath, as if you'd played a hydraulic hose on it, and it's ready to tumble and is just rotten with quartz!"

The men leaped to their feet; in another moment they had s.n.a.t.c.hed picks, pans, and shovels, and, the foreman leading, with a coil of rope thrown over his shoulders, were all flying down the trail to the highway.

Their haste was wise. The spring was not on THEIR claim; it was known to others; it was doubtful if Parkhurst's discovery with his knife amounted to actual WORK on the soil. They must "take it up" with a formal notice, and get to work at once!

In an hour they were scattered over the mountain side, like bees clinging to the fragrant slope of laurel and myrtle above the spring. An excavation was made beside it, and the ledge broadened by a dozen feet. Even the spring itself was utilized to wash the hastily filled prospecting pans. And when the Pioneer Coach slowly toiled up the road that afternoon, the pa.s.sengers stared at the scarcely dry "Notice of Location" pinned to the pine by the road bank, whence Eugenia had fallen two days before!

Eagerly and anxiously as Edward Bray worked with his companions, it was with more conflicting feelings. There was a certain sense of desecration in their act. How her proud lip would have curled had she seen him--he who but a few hours before would have searched the whole slope for the treasure of a ribbon, a handkerchief, or a bow from her dress--now delving and picking the hillside for that fortune her accident had so mysteriously disclosed. Mysteriously he believed, for he had not fully accepted Parkhurst's story. That gentle misogynist had never been an active prospector; an inclination to theorize without practice and to combat his partners' experience were all against his alleged process of discovery, although the gold was actually there; and his conduct that afternoon was certainly peculiar. He did but little of the real work; but wandered from man to man, with suggestions, advice, and exhortations, and the air of a superior patron. This might have been characteristic, but mingled with it was a certain nervous anxiety and watchfulness. He was continually scanning the stage road and the trail, staring eagerly at any wayfarer in the distance, and at times falling into fits of strange abstraction. At other times he would draw near to one of his fellow partners, as if for confidential disclosure, and then check himself and wander aimlessly away. And it was not until evening came that the mystery was solved.

The prospecting pans had been duly washed and examined, the slope above and below had been fully explored and tested, with a result and promise that outran their most sanguine hopes. There was no mistaking the fact that they had made a "big" strike. That singular gravity and reticence, so often observed in miners at these crises, had come over them as they sat that night for the last time around their old camp-fire on the Eureka ledge, when Parkhurst turned impulsively to Bray. "Roll over here," he said in a whisper. "I want to tell ye suthin!"

Bray "rolled" beyond the squatting circle, and the two men gradually edged themselves out of hearing of the others. In the silent abstraction that prevailed n.o.body noticed them.

"It's got suthin to do with this discovery," said Parkhurst, in a low, mysterious tone, "but as far as the gold goes, and our equal rights to it as partners, it don't affect them. If I," he continued in a slightly patronizing, paternal tone, "choose to make you and the other boys sharers in what seems to be a special Providence to ME, I reckon we won't quarrel on it. It's a mighty curious, singular thing. It's one of those things ye read about in books and don't take any stock in! But we've got the gold--and I've got the black and white to prove it--even if it ain't exactly human."

His voice sank so low, his manner was so impressive, that despite his known exaggeration, Bray felt a slight thrill of superst.i.tion. Meantime Parkhurst wiped his brow, took a folded slip of paper and a sprig of laurel from his pocket, and drew a long breath.

"When I got to the spring this afternoon," he went on, in a nervous, tremulous, and scarcely audible voice, "I saw this bit o' paper, folded note-wise, lyin' on the ledge before it. On top of it was this sprig of laurel, to catch the eye. I ain't the man to pry into other folks'

secrets, or read what ain't mine. But on the back o' this note was written 'To Jack!' It's a common enough name, but it's a singular thing, ef you'll recollect, thar ain't ANOTHER Jack in this company, not on the whole ridge betwixt this and the summit, except MYSELF! So I opened it, and this is what it read!" He held the paper sideways toward the leaping light of the still near camp-fire, and read slowly, with the emphasis of having read it many times before.

"'I want you to believe that I, at least, respect and honor your honest, manly calling, and when you strike it rich, as you surely will, I hope you will sometimes think of Jill.'"

In the thrill of joy, hope, and fear that came over Bray, he could see that Parkhurst had not only failed to detect his secret, but had not even connected the two names with their obvious suggestion. "But do you know anybody named Jill?" he asked breathlessly.

"It's no NAME," said Parkhurst in a sombre voice, "it's a THING!"

"A thing?" repeated Bray, bewildered.

"Yes, a measure--you know--two fingers of whiskey."

"Oh, a 'gill,'" said Bray.

"That's what I said, young man," returned Parkhurst gravely.

Bray choked back a hysterical laugh; spelling was notoriously not one of Parkhurst's strong points. "But what has a 'gill' got to do with it?" he asked quickly.

"It's one of them Sphinx things, don't you see? A sort of riddle or rebus, you know. You've got to study it out, as them old chaps did. But I fetched it. What comes after 'gills,' eh?"

"Pints, I suppose," said Bray.

"And after pints?"

"Quarts."

"QUARTZ, and there you are. So I looked about me for quartz, and sure enough struck it the first pop."

Bray cast a quick look at Parkhurst's grave face. The man was evidently impressed and sincere. "Have you told this to any one?" he asked quickly.