Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories Part 7

The story of the tragedy was still the sensation of Nome when, a fortnight later, Laughing Bill Hyde showed up in town with the cheerful announcement that he had been fired. Ponatah was at the cabin when he arrived, and she did not try to conceal her joy at seeing him again.

"I've been so unhappy," she told him. "You've never been out of my thoughts, Billy."

"Ain't you got nothing better to think about than me?" he asked, with a smile. "Well, the psalm-shouter let me out--jerked the piller-slip from under me, you might say--and turned me adrift. He's got a high-chested, low-browed Swede in my place. It takes a guy with hair down to his eyebrows to be a buck chamber-maid."

"The old rascal!" Ponatah's face darkened with anger. "No wonder those men robbed him. I wish they had taken all his gold, and escaped."

"You're pretty sore on his heavenly nibs, ain't you?" Ponatah clenched her hands and her eyes blazed. "Well, you got this consolation, the Aurora ain't as rich as it was."

"It would have been rich enough for us."

"Us?"

"Yes. You'd marry me if I were rich, wouldn't you?"

"No, I wouldn't," Bill declared, firmly. "What's the use to kid you?"

"Why wouldn't you? Are you ashamed of me?"

Bill protested, "Say, what is this you're giving me, the third degree?"

"If I were as rich as--well, as Reindeer Mary, wouldn't you marry me?"

Ponatah gazed at the unworthy object of her affections with a yearning that was embarra.s.sing, and Laughing Bill was forced to spar for wind.

"Ain't you the bold Mary Ann--makin' cracks like that?" he chided.

"I'm ashamed of you, honest. I've pa.s.sed up plenty of frills in my time, and we're all better off for it. My appet.i.te for marriage ain't no keener than it used to be, so you forget it. Little Doc, he's the marrying kind."

"Oh yes. He tells me a great deal about his Alice. He's very much discouraged. If--if I had the Aurora I wouldn't forget him; I'd give him half."

"Would you, now? Well, he's the one stiffneck that wouldn't take it.

He's funny that way--seems to think money 'll bite him, or something.

I don't know how these pullanthrofists get along, with proud people always spurning their gifts. He's got my nan. You take my tip, Kid, and cling to your coin. Salt it down for winter. That's what I'm doing with mine."

"Are you?" Ponatah was not amused, she was gravely interested. "I thought you were broke, Billy."

"Where'd you get that at?" he demanded. "I've always got a pinch of change, I have. I'm lucky that way. Now then, you run along and don't never try to feint me into a clinch. It don't go."

Laughing Bill enjoyed a good rest in the days that followed. He rested hard for several weeks, and when he rested he lifted his hand to absolutely nothing. He was an expert idler, and with him indolence was but a form of suspended animation. In spite of himself, however, he was troubled by a problem; he was completely baffled by it, in fact, until, without warning and without conscious effort, the solution presented itself. Bill startled his cabin mate one day by the announcement that he intended to go prospecting.

"Nonsense!" said Thomas, when the first shock of surprise had pa.s.sed.

"This country has been run over, and every inch is staked."

"I bet I'll horn in somewhere. All I want is one claim where I got room to sling myself."

"If that's all you want I'll give you a claim. It has twenty acres. Is that room enough?"

"Plenty. Where is it?"

"It's on Eclipse Creek, I believe. A patient gave it to me for a bill."

"He won't call for a new deal if I strike it rich?"

"No. I paid his fare out of the country. But why waste your valuable time? Your time _is_ valuable, I presume?"

"Sure! I ain't got much left. You don't believe in hunches, do you? Well, I do. I've seen 'em come out. Look at Denny Slevin, for instance! I heard him say he had a hunch something unpleasant was going to happen to him, and it did. We'll go fifty-fifty on this Eclipse Creek."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Suit yourself. Fresh air won't hurt you."

The first frosts of autumn had arrived before Laughing Bill returned to town with the announcement that he had struck a prospect. Doctor Thomas was at first incredulous, then amazed; finally, when the true significance of those tiny yellow grains came home to him, his enthusiasm burst all bounds. He was for at once closing his office and joining actively in his partner's work, but Bill would not hear to such a thing.

"Stick to the pills and powders, Doc," he counseled. "You know that game and I know this. It's my strike and I don't want no amachoors b.u.t.ting in. I got options on the whole creek--she's eclipsed for fair--'cause I don't like neighbors. You shut your trap till spring and sit tight, then we'll roll our packs, stomp on the fire, and call the dog. Old Home Week for us."

"But, Billy, we can't work out that claim in one winter," protested the physician.

"How d'you know we can't? Mebbe it's just a pocket."

"We'll find other pockets. We have the whole creek--"

"Say, how much d'you need to satisfy you?" Bill inquired, curiously.

"I--don't know. A hundred thousand dollars, perhaps."

"A hundred thousand! Whew! You got rich tastes! This ain't no bonanza."

"But if it's any good at all it will net us that much, probably more."

Bill considered briefly, then he announced: "All right, bo, I got your idea. When I hand you a hundred thousand iron men we quit--no questions, no regrets; Is that it? But you've hiked the limit on me; I dunno's I'll make good."

By the time snow flew the tent on Eclipse Creek had been replaced by a couple of warm shacks, provisions had been bought, and a crew hired.

Work commenced immediately, and it continued throughout the winter with Bill in charge. The gravel was lean-looking stuff, but it seemed to satisfy the manager, and whenever Thomas came out from town he received encouraging reports from his partner. Hyde ceased playing solitaire long enough to pan samples in his tub of snow water. Now had the younger man been an experienced placer miner he might have noted with suspicion that whenever Bill panned he chewed tobacco--a new habit he had acquired--and not infrequently he spat into the tub of muddy water. But Thomas was not experienced in the wiles and artifices of mine-salters, and the residue of yellow particles left in the pan was proof positive that the claim was making good. It did strike him as strange, however, that when he selected a pan of dirt and washed it una.s.sisted he found nothing. At such times Bill explained glibly enough that no pay dump carried steady values, and that an inexperienced sampler was apt to get "skunked" under the best of circ.u.mstances. Concentrates lay in streaks and pockets, he declared.

Then to prove his a.s.sertions Bill would help his partner pan, and inasmuch as he wore long finger-nails, underneath which colors of gold could be easily concealed, it was not surprising that he succeeded in finding a prospect where the doctor had failed. For fear Thomas should still entertain some lingering doubts, Bill occasionally sent him down into the shaft alone, to sample the pay streak, but in each instance he took pains to go down beforehand with a shot-gun and some sh.e.l.ls of his own loading and to shoot a few rounds into the face of the thawed ground.

The winter pa.s.sed quickly enough, Bill's only concern arising from the fact that his strike had become common knowledge, and that men were clamoring to buy or to lease a part of the creek. It was a tiny creek, and he had it safely tied up under his options, therefore he was in a position to refuse every offer. By so doing he gained the reputation of being a cautious, cagey man and difficult to deal with.

Bill paid off his crew out of the first spring cleanup, from the dust he had managed to dump into the sluices at night. Thereafter he sent the gold to town by Doctor Thomas, who came after it regularly. When he closed down the works, in June, he and his partner held bank deposit slips for a trifle over one hundred thousand dollars. Rumor placed their profits at much more.

Bill saw little of Ponatah after his return to Nome, for the girl avoided him, and when he did see her she a.s.sumed a peculiar reserve.

Her year and a half of intimate a.s.sociation with cultured people had in reality worked an amazing improvement in her, and people no longer regarded her as an Indian, but referred to her now as "that Russian governess," nevertheless she could retreat behind a baffling air of stolidity--almost of sullenness--when she chose, and that was precisely the mask she wore for Bill. In reality she was far from stolid and anything but sullen.

For his part he made no effort to break down the girl's guard; he continued to treat her with his customary free good nature.

Notwithstanding the liberal margin of profit on his winter's operations, Bill realized that he was still shy approximately half of the sum which Doctor Thomas had set as satisfactory, and when the latter began planning to resume work on a larger scale in the fall Mr.

Hyde was stricken with panic. Fearing lest his own lack of enthusiasm in these plans and his indifference to all affairs even remotely concerning Eclipse Creek should awaken suspicion, he determined to sell out his own and his partner's interests in accordance with their original understanding. Without consulting Thomas he called upon Doctor Slayforth.

The pious mine-owner was glad to see him; his manner was not at all what it had been when Bill worked for him. His words of greeting fairly trickled prune juice and honey.

"Say, Doc, I got a load on my chest! I'm a strayed lamb and you being a sort of shepherd I turns to you," Bill began.