The Man from the Bitter Roots Part 15

"Wake up." Bruce shook him vigorously.

The suspected representative of the "Guggenheimers" whined plaintively: "Itty tootsies awfy cold!"

"Itty tootsies will be colder if you don't get 'em off this floor,"

Bruce said with a grin, as he dipped his fingers in the pitcher and flirted the ice water in his face.

"Oh--h.e.l.lo!" Intelligence returned to Mr. Dill's blank countenance.

"Why, I must have been walking in my sleep. I always do when I sleep in a strange place, but I thought I'd locked myself in. I dreamed I was a fish freezing up in a cake of ice."

"It's not surprising."

"Say." Mr. Dill looked at him wistfully as he stood on one foot curling his purple toes around the other knee. "I wonder if you'd let me get in with you? I'm liable to do it again--sleeping cold and all."

"Sure," said Bruce sociably, leading the way. "Come ahead."

The somnambulist chattered:

"I've been put out of four hotels already for walking into other people's rooms, and once I got arrested. I've doctored for it."

While lamenting his inability to discuss his proposition with the engineer, the last thing Bruce antic.i.p.ated was to be engaged before daylight in the humane and neighborly act of warming Wilbur Dill's back, but so it is that Chance, that humorous old lady, thrusts Opportunity in the way of those in whom she takes an interest.

Bruce was so full of his subject that he saw nothing unusual in propounding his questions in Mr. Dill's ear under the covers in the middle of the night.

"How many horse-power could you develop from a two-hundred-feet head with a minimum flow of eight hundred miners' inches?"

"Hey?" Mr. Dill's m.u.f.fled voice sounded startled.

Bruce repeated the question, and added:

"I'm going out on the stage in the morning and it leaves before you're up. I'd like mightily to know a few things in your line if you don't mind my asking."

He was leaving, was he? Going out on the stage? Figuratively, Mr. Dill sat up.

"Certainly not." His tone was cordial. "Any information at all----"

As clearly as he could, Bruce outlined the situation, estimating that a flume half a mile in length would be necessary to get this two-hundred-foot head, with perhaps a trestle bridging the canon of Big Squaw creek. And Dill, wide awake enough now, asked practical, pertinent questions, which made Bruce realize that, as Uncle Bill had said, whatever doubt there might be about his honesty there could be none at all concerning his ability.

He soon had learned all that Bruce could tell him of the situation, of the obstacles and advantages. He knew his reason for wishing to locate the pump-house at the extreme end of the bar, the best place to cross the river with the transmission wire, of the proximity of saw-timber, and of the serious drawback of the inaccessibility of the ground. Bruce could think of no detail that Dill had overlooked when he was done.

"Transportation is your problem," the engineer said, finally. "With the machinery on the ground the rest would be a cinch. But there's only the river or an expensive wagon-road. A wagon-road through such country might cost you the price of your plant or more. And the river with its rapids, they tell me, is a terror; so with the water route eliminated, there remains only your costly wagon-road."

"But," Bruce insisted anxiously, "what would be your rough estimate of the cost of such a plant, including installation?"

"At a guess, I'd say $25,000, exclusive of freight, and as you know the rates from the coast are almighty high."

"Twenty-five thousand dollars!" And five hundred, Bruce reminded himself, was about the size of his pile.

"Much obliged."

"Don't mention it," Mr. Dill yawned. "One good turn deserves another, and, thanks to you, I'm almost warm."

Because Mr. Dill yawned it did not follow that he slept. On the contrary, he was as wide awake as Bruce himself and when Bruce gently withdrew from the sociable proximity of a bed that sagged like a hammock, and tiptoed about the room while dressing, going downstairs to the office wash-basin when he discovered that there was skating in the water-pitcher, lest the sound of breaking ice disturb his bed-fellow, Dill was gratefully appreciative.

He really liked the fellow, he did for a fact--in spite of his first prejudice against him for being alive. Besides, since he was going outside, as he had told him, for an indefinite stay, he might not interfere so much with his plans after all, for Mr. Dill, too, had had an inspiration.

X

"CAPITAL TAKES HOLT"

It is a safe wager that where two or three prospectors meet in a mining camp or cabin, the length of time which will elapse before the subject of conversation reverts to food will not exceed ten minutes and in this respect the inhabitants of Ore City who "bached" were no exception. The topic was introduced in the office of the Hinds House this morning as soon as there was a quorum.

"I declare, I doubts if I lives to see gra.s.s," said Yankee Sam despondently as he manicured a rim of dough from his finger-nails with the point of a savage-looking jack-knife. "I opened my next-to-the-last sack of flour this mornin' and 'twas mouldy. I got to eat it though, and like as not t'other's the same. I tell you," lugubriously, "the pickin's is gittin' slim on this range!"

"I know one thing," declared Judge George Petty, who was sober and irritable, "if N. K. Rippetoe sends me in any more of that dod-gasted Injun bakin' powder, him and me is goin' to fall out. I warned him once I'd take my trade away and now he's gone and done it again. It won't raise nothin', not _nothin'_!"

"An' you can't _drink_ it," Lanningan observed pointedly.

"You remember them dried apples I bought off the half-breed lady down on the Nez Perce Reserve? Well," said Porcupine Jim sourly, "they walked off day 'fore yistiddy--worms. I weighed that lady out cash gold, and look what she's done on me! I wouldn't wonder if them apples wa'nt three to four year old."

"If only we could find out what that Yellow-Leg's after." Lannigan's face was cross-lined with anxiety. "If some of us could only unload somethin' on him, then the rest of us could borry till Capital took holt in the spring."

"S-ss-sh! That's him," came a warning whisper.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I seem to have slept late."

It was apparent to all that Mr. Dill's spirits were decidedly better than when he had retired.

Yankee Sam suggested humorously:

"I reckon they was a little slow gittin' around with the tea-kittle to thaw you out, so you could git up."

Mr. Dill declared that he had been agreeably disappointed in his night; that he really felt quite rested and refreshed.

"If it isn't too soon after breakfast, friends," he said tentatively, as he produced a flask.

It was quickly made clear to him that it was never too soon, or too late, for that matter, and a suggestion of force was necessary to tear the flask from Yankee Sam's face.

"What? Teetotaler?" As Uncle Bill shook his head.

"Not exactly; sometimes I take a little gin for my kidnas."

Ore City looked at him in unfeigned surprise. Mr. Dill, however, believed he understood. The old man either knew him or had taken a personal dislike--maybe both--at any rate he ceased to urge.

"Gentlemen," impressively, and Ore City felt intuitively that its acute sufferings, due to ungratified curiosity, were at an end, "no doubt you've wondered why I'm here?"