Peak and Prairie Part 30

"Haven't got any!"

"I'd ask you in if we wasn't packin' up to go."

"Does your wife go with you?"

"Why, nat'rally!"

"Say," Wakefield queried, as the man turned in at the gate. "How did you go to work to get that job up in the canon?"

"Went to 'Bijah Lang, the street-commissioner."

"You haven't got any friend who would like you to pa.s.s the job over to him?"

"No."

"Think I could do it?"

"Wal, yes,--if you've got the gumption! Your arms and legs 'pear to be all right! Ever see any work of the kind?"

"Yes; I used to watch them on the road up Bear Mountain, at Lame Gulch."

"Know how to drill a hole in a rock?"

"Learned that when I was a boy."

"Know the difference between _joint_ powder and the black stuff?"

"Yes; though I never handled giant powder myself."

"Wal, don't be too free with it, that's all. And, say!" he called, as Wakefield in his turn made as if to go. "Look's like as though you'd got somethin' up to Lame Gulch. Wal, you hold on to it, that's all!"

"You believe in Lame Gulch, then?"

"Lame Gulch is all right. It's chockfull of stuff, now I tell ye! Only folks thought they was goin' to fish it out with a rod 'n line."

"Then you really think there 's something in it?"

"Somethin' in it? I tell ye, it's chockfull o' stuff! Only folks have got it into their heads that the one thing in this world they kin git without workin' for it, is _gold_! If that was so, what would it be wuth? Less than pig-iron! I tell ye, there ain't nothin' in this world that's to be got without workin' for it, 'n the more work it takes, the more it's wuth! 'N the reason gold's wuth more 'n most things, is because it takes more work 'n most things; more diggin' 'n more calc'latin'. Why!" he went on, waxing more and more emphatic. "Ef diggin' gold wa' n't no harder 'n mendin' roads, 't wouldn't _pay_ any better,--now I tell ye!"

"Perhaps you're right," Wakefield admitted, "but that's not what we're brought up to think."

"That's what my boys was brought up to think, 'n they're actin'

accordin'."

"Have you got some boys up at Lame Gulch?"

"Yes, four on 'em. 'N I've got a claim up there too, 'n they're workin'

it."

"Why don't you go up and work your claim yourself?" asked Wakefield.

A humorous twinkle came into the man's eyes.

"Wal, now I tell ye!" and his voice dropped to a confidential level.

"Railroadin' _pays better_, so far!"

"Do your boys get a living out of the mine?"

"Not yet, not yet. But they're skilled miners. 'N when they git hard up, a couple on 'em put in a month's work for some skalliwag 'company' or other, 'n so they keep agoin'. The three married ones ain't up there at all."

"So you've got seven sons?"

"Yes; seven boys, all told. We lost a girl," he added, with an indefinable change in his voice. "Her name was Loretty."

With that, Loretty's father pa.s.sed up the path and disappeared within the house.

"Nice old chap," Wakefield thought, as he walked on, past the little houses with the presumable mortgages on them. "Nice of him to go on caring for Loretty after he had lost her."

He wondered whether, after all, he had better make such a point of forgetting about Dorothy! Up there on the red hilltop, hobn.o.bbing with the yellow cactus, he had resolved never to think of her again; but down here among human habitations, fresh from the good human intercourse of the last ten minutes, he did not feel so sure about it. He thought that, on the whole, it might be as well to decide that question later.

Meanwhile, here was the street-commissioner's door, and here was a decision that must be come to on the spot.

Harry Wakefield always looked back upon the day when he first pried a big rock off its base, as a turning-point in his career; a move that put the game in his own hands. The sensation was different from what he had antic.i.p.ated. He had fancied that he was about to engage in a single-handed struggle, but no sooner had his grip closed upon the crowbar, no sooner had he felt the ma.s.s of rock yield to its pressure, than he found that he was not working single-handed. On the contrary, he had the feeling of having got right down among the forces of nature and of finding them ranged on his side. It was gravitation that gave the rock its weight, but, look there! how some other law, which he did not know the name of, dwelt in the resisting strength of the iron, worked in the action of his muscles. His legs trembled, as he braced himself to the effort; the veins of his neck throbbed hard; but the muscles of his arms and chest held firm as the crowbar they guided, and slowly, reluctantly, sullenly, the rock went over on its side. He dropped the crowbar from his stiffening grasp and drew himself up, flinging his shoulders back and panting deep and strong.

It was between six and seven o'clock in the morning, a radiant June morning, which seemed alive with pleasant things. As he stood with his head thrown back, taking a good draught of the delicious mountain air, a bluebird shot, like a bit of the sky, in and out among the solemn pines and delicate aspens. He looked down on the tangle of blossoming vines and bushes that latticed the borders of the brook, which came dashing down from the canon, still rioting on its way. The water would soon have another cause for clamor, in the big stone that had so long c.u.mbered the road. He should presently have the fun of rolling it over the bank and seeing it settle with a splash in the bed of the stream where it belonged by rights. After that there was a fallen tree to be tackled, a couple of rods farther on, and then he should take a rest with his shovel and fill in some holes near by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE BROOK, WHICH CAME DASHING DOWN FROM THE CAnON, STILL RIOTING ON ITS WAY."]

He had found a deserted lean-to, half way up the canon, where he had arranged to camp while the work went on. As he thought of Chittenden and Allery Jones and the rest, cooped up there in the town, still anxiously watching the fluctuations of the stock-market, he was filled with compa.s.sion for them, and he determined to have them out now and then and give them a camp stew.

Of course the exultation of that first hour's work did not last. Before the day was out, Wakefield had found out what he was "in for." An aching back and blistered hands were providing him with sensations of a less exhilarating order than those of the early morning. At one time, soon after his "nooning" as he liked to call it, the sun blazed so fiercely that he had ignominiously fled before it and taken refuge for an hour or more among the trees. That was the episode which he least liked to remember. He did not quite see why mending a road in the sun should be so much more dangerous than playing polo at high noon, but, somehow, it hurt more; and he recollected that his late father, who was a physician, had once told him that pain was Nature's warning. Having, then, entered into a close alliance with Nature, he thought it well to take her hints.

Before many days his apprenticeship was over and he was working like a born day-laborer. After the first week he was well rid of aches and pains; the muscles of his back were strengthened, the palms of his hands were hardened, his skull, he thought to himself, must have thickened. In all things, too, he was tuned to a lower key. But if the exhilaration of that first morning was gone, it had only given place to something better; namely, a solid sense of satisfaction. He knew it was all an episode, this form of work at least; he knew that when his "job" was done he should go back into the world and take up the life he had once made a failure of; but he knew also that he should not fail again. A sense of power had come into him; he had made friends with work for its own sake. He believed that his brain was as good as his muscles, that it would respond as readily to the demands he should put upon it. And he had learned to be strenuous with himself.

Wakefield was in correspondence with a friend in San Francisco who wanted him to come out there and practise law. He decided, rather suddenly, to do so, coming to his decision the day after he was told that Dorothy Ray was engaged to be married.

It was d.i.c.k Dayton who brought him the news. As he listened, he felt something as he did that first day in the canon when the sun got too strong for him. He thought, after Dayton left him, that he should have given up the game then and there, if it had not been for some blasting he was to do in the morning. The holes were all drilled, and it would be a day's job to clear away the pieces and straighten things out at that point. He should hate to have another man go on with the job. They might cut him out with Dorothy,--that was sure to come, sooner or later,--but, by the Great Horn Spoon! they should not get his job away from him!

It was not until he had turned in for the night that it occurred to him that he had not asked whom Dorothy was engaged to. What did he care, any way? he said to himself. He had gambled away his chances long ago. Yet, Good Heavens, how dear she was! As he lay on the ground, outside the little lean-to, staring up at the stars that glittered in the thin air with what is called, at lower alt.i.tudes, a frosty brilliance, he seemed to see her before him more plainly than he had ever done in the old days when they had stood face to face. He had been too self-absorbed, too blinded and bewildered with the urgency of his own case, to see her as she really was. He remembered now,--something that he had never thought about before,--the little toss of her hair, up from her forehead, which was different from the way other girls wore their hair. It made a little billow there, that was like her free spirit. Yes, she had always had a free spirit. Perhaps it was the claim of ownership he had made, which had repelled her so strongly. As well set up a claim of ownership over those stars up there!

He tried to hope that the other fellow was man enough to deserve her; but that was beyond his magnanimity. The only way to bear it, for the present at least, was to leave the "other fellow" out of the question.

He was glad he did not know his name. And all night long, as he watched the stars, their slow, imperceptible progress marked only by the intervening tree-twigs, Dorothy's face was fairly visible to him, her voice came to him distinct as an echo; her sweet, free nature unfolded itself to his awakened consciousness.

Since then he had worked as if his life had depended upon it, and now, after those ten days of fierce labor, his "job" was almost done. He had worked his way well up into the canon, quite to the end of the distance contracted for. A few days more would complete the job. He thought, with a pang of regret, that his lines would never again fall in such glorious places. He knew the canon by heart; he had seen it in every phase of its summer beauty, by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm, and now the autumn had come and the sensitive green of the aspens had turned to yellow. They gleamed along the brook-side; they showed like an outcrop of gold on the wall of rock over there, and in among the blue-green pines; their yellow leaves strewed the ground on which he stood. It was eight o'clock in the morning, and he was about to do his last blasting.

There was n.o.body up the canon, and n.o.body was likely to come from below for an hour yet. The big boulder was not to thrust itself into the road any more; another minute, and all that protruding side of it would be blown off and there would be room for two teams to pa.s.s each other.

Hark! Was not that a horse's hoofs down below? He was already in the act of "touching her off," holding the lighted match in the hollow of his two hands. As he turned his head to listen, the fuse ignited with a sharp _spit!_ scorching and blackening the palms of his hands, and causing him to jump as violently as he used to do before his nerves were trained to the business. Somewhat disgusted with his want of nerve, he picked up his tools in a particularly leisurely manner, and deposited them at a safe distance from the coming crash. Then, to make up for this bit of bravado, he ran swiftly down the road,--"walluped" he said to himself, thinking of Loretty's father,--and when he espied the horse, he shouted and waved his arms in warning.

The horse stopped, and Wakefield slackened his pace. The moment he had done so he recognized the rider. He was not conscious of any surprise at seeing Dorothy Ray riding, all by herself, up the canon. He did not pause to question as to how she got there, to wonder what she would think of him, turned day-laborer. He felt nothing but an absolute content and satisfaction in having her there before him; it seemed so natural and so right that he did not see how it could have been otherwise! He strode down the road to where she stood, and as she dropped the bridle and held out both hands to him, he flung his old hat away and clasped them in his powder-blackened palms.

"O Harry!" she cried with a joyful ring in her voice; "I never was so glad to see anybody in my life!"