The Magnetic North Part 108

"Colonel! here a minute. We thought it looked wonderful enough on the Big Chimney table--but Lord! to see it like this, out o' doors, mixed with sunshine and water!"

Still he stood there fascinated, leaning heavily against the sluice-box, still with his dripping hands full, when, after a hurried glance, the Colonel returned to his own box. None of the gang ever talked in the presence of the owner.

"Guess that looks good to you." Austin slightly stressed the p.r.o.noun.

He had taken a reasonless liking for the young man, who from the first had smiled into his frowning face, and treated him as he treated others. Or perhaps Austin liked him because, although the Boy did a good deal of "ga.s.sin' with the gang," he had never hung about at clean-ups. At all events, he should stay to-night, partly because when the blue devils were down on Scowl Austin nothing cheered him like showing his "luck" off to someone. And it was so seldom safe in these days. People talked. The authorities conceived unjust suspicions of a man's returns. And then, far back in his head, that vague need men feel, when a good thing has lost its early zest, to see its dimmed value shine again in an envious eye. Here was a young fellow, who, before he went lame, had been all up and down the creek for days looking for a job--probably hadn't a penny--livin' off his friend, who himself would starve but for the privilege Austin gave him of washing out Austin's gold. Let the young man stop and see the richest clean-up at the Forks.

And so it was with the acrid pleasure he had promised himself that he said to the visitor, bending over the double handful of gold, "Guess it looks good to you."

"Yes, it looks good!" But he had lifted his eyes, and seemed to be studying the man more than the metal.

A couple of newcomers, going by, halted.

"Christ!" said the younger, "look at that!"

The Boy remembered them; they had been to Seymour only a couple of hours before asking for work. One was old for that country--nearly sixty--and looked, as one of the gang had said, "as if, instid o'

findin' the pot o' gold, he had got the end of the rainbow slam in his face--kind o' blinded."

At sound of the strange voice Austin had wheeled about with a fierce look, and heavily the strangers plodded by. The owner turned again to the gold. "Yes," he said curtly, "there's something about that that looks good to most men."

"What I was thinkin'," replied the Boy slowly, "was that it was the only clean gold I'd ever seen--but it isn't so clean as it was."

"What do you mean?" Austin bent and looked sharply into the full hands.

"I was thinkin' it was good to look at because it hadn't got into dirty pockets yet." Austin stared at him an instant. "Never been pa.s.sed round--never bought anybody. No one had ever envied it, or refused it to help someone out of a hole. That was why I thought it looked good--because it was clean gold ... a little while ago." And he plunged his hands in the water and washed the clinging particles off his fingers.

Austin had stared, and then turned his back with a blacker look than even "Scowl" had ever worn before.

"Gosh! guess there's goin' to be trouble," said one of the gang.

CHAPTER XXI

PARDNERS

"He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight...."

It was morning, and the night-shift might go to bed; but in the absent Englishmen's tent there was little sleep and less talk that day. The Boy, in an agony, with a foot on fire, heard the Colonel turning, tossing, growling incoherently about "the light."

It seemed unreasonable, for a frame had been built round his bed, and on it thick gray army blankets were nailed--a rectangular tent. Had he cursed the heat now? But no: "light," "G.o.d! the light, the light!" just as if he were lying as the Boy was, in the strong white glare of the tent. But hour after hour within the stifling fortress the giant tossed and muttered at the swords of sunshine that pierced his semi-dusk through little spark-burnt hole or nail-tear, torturing sensitive eyes.

Near three hours before he needed, the Colonel got up and splashed his way through a toilet at the tin basin. The Boy made breakfast without waiting for the usual hour. They had nearly finished when it occurred to the Colonel that neither had spoken since they went to bed. He glanced across at the absorbed face of his friend.

"You'll come down to the sluice to-night, won't you?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"No reason on earth, only I was afraid you were broodin' over what you said to Austin."

"Austin? Oh, I'm not thinkin' about Austin."

"What, then? What makes you so quiet?"

"Well, I'm thinkin' I'd be better satisfied to stay here a little longer if----"

"If what?"

"If there was truth between us two."

"I thought there was."

"No. What's the reason you want me to stay here?"

"Reason? Why"--he laughed in his old way--"I don't defend my taste, but I kind o' like to have you round."

His companion's grave face showed no lightening. "Why do you want me round more than someone else?"

"Haven't got anyone else."

"Oh, yes, you have! Every man on Bonanza's a friend o' yours, or would be."

"It isn't just that; we understand each other."

"No, we don't."

"What's wrong?"

No answer. The Boy looked through the door across Bonanza to the hills.

"I thought we understood each other if two men ever did. Haven't we travelled the Long Trail together and seen the ice go out?"

"That's just it, Colonel. We know such a lot more than men do who haven't travelled the Trail, and some of the knowledge isn't oversweet."

A shadow crossed the kind face opposite.

"You're thinkin' about the times I pegged out--didn't do my share."

"Lord, no!" The tears sprang up in the young eyes. "I'm thinkin' o' the times--I--" He laid his head down on the rude table, and sat so for an instant with hidden face; then he straightened up. "Seems as if it's only lately there's been time to think it out. And before, as long as I could work I could get on with myself.... Seemed as if I stood a chance to ... a little to make up."

"Make up?"

"But it's always just as it was that day on the Oklahoma, when the captain swore he wouldn't take on another pound. I was awfully happy thinkin' if I made him bring you it might kind o' make up, but it didn't."

"Made a big difference to me," the Colonel said, still not able to see the drift, but patiently brushing now and then at the dazzling mist and waiting for enlightenment.

"It's always the same," the other went on. "Whenever I've come up against something I'd hoped was goin' to make up, it's turned out to be a thing I'd have to do anyway, and there was no make up about it. For all that, I shouldn't mind stayin' on awhile since you want me to----"