He watched the night out, revelling in his enjoyment of the mystery of the coming morning, that phase of the day which never ceases to be unreal, and which calls out of the watcher sentiments and emotions he is a stranger to for the rest of the day.
The sun hung on the sharp point of Old Dog-Tooth like a portent, before he woke the boy.
Ches was all amazement for a second; then he gave a glad cry.
"Gee! Yer still here, ain"t yer? No pipe in dis." He looked all around him. "Say! Dis is a reg"lar teeayter uf er place, ain"t it?" he remarked.
"Dis is der scene where der villun almost gits der gent wid der sword, if der stage mannecher didn"t send sumun ter help "im out."
Jim laughed at the sophisticated infant. "You don"t believe in the theater much, then, Ches?"
"Aggh!" replied Ches. "If it ain"t seven it"s "leven on der stage--but it"s mostly c.r.a.ps in der street."
"Well, son, there are such points on the dice," admitted Jim. "But let"s have something to eat and we"ll feel better."
Ches rustled around after sticks in his funny, angularly active style, singing a song the while from the gladness of his heart. It was a merry song, about mother slowly going down the hectic path of phthisis pulmonalis, and sister, who has--one is led to believe--taken to small bottles, small hours and undesirable companions, refusing to come home and lift the mortgage which is shortly to be foreclosed--all in the narrow confines of twenty-five verses.
Jim listened to the inspiriting ditty in astonishment.
""Bird of the wilderness, blithesome and c.u.mberless, Sweet be thy matin o"er moorland and lea!""
he quoted. "For Heaven"s sake, child," he continued, in some irritation, "where did you learn that echo of the morgue?"
"Don"t you like "er?" asked Ches, in his turn astonished at such a lack of taste. "W"y, dat"s er gig in der city--everybuddy an" der ginnies wid der organs is givin" dat out all day long."
"Well, let "em," commanded Jim. "Don"t introduce it to this part of the country. As you render it, through the nose, and with the wail at the end, it is a thing to make a strong man lie down and give up the ghost in sheer disgust. Ches, does it really make you feel good to sing it?"
"Yessir--kinder," replied Ches hesitatingly.
"Lord!" thought Jim. "What a life, to make a song like that a recreation!" Then aloud: "It"s bad luck to sing before breakfast, Ches.
I"ll teach you a livelier song than that when we hit the trail again."
So it came to pa.s.s that during the first miles of their day"s journey the way was enlivened by the notes of _The Arkansas Traveler_, _Garry Owen_, _Where"s My Linda-Cinda Gone?_, _Baltimore Girls_, and other songs of a lively character.
Ches approved of these in moderation. Then Jim tried an experiment. With a serious face, but half an eye on the boy, he howled, moaned and grunted _The Cow-boy"s Lament_, which still presents the insoluble problem of whether the words or the music are drearier. "OooooOOO!!! Pla-a-ay your fifes l-o-o-w-l-y, a-a-nd beee-eat your drums sl-o-o-o-wly, and play the dead m-a-arch as you carry me o-o-o-on!" mourned Jim. Ches was all attention. "For I"m o-o-o-nly a p-o-o-o-r cow-boy, and I know I"ve done w-r-o-o-o-o-o-ng!" wailed the singer, in conclusion. "How"d you like that, Ches?"
"Say, dat"s a ringer!" cried the boy enthusiastically.
Jim sat him down by the roadside and laughed his fill. "I think you"re hopeless," he gasped.
The boy was hurt in a way he could not understand. Something pained him--a new sensation, of not being up to the requirements of another"s view. His forced acute intelligence made a bull"s-eye shot.
"P"r"aps w"en I"ve got er chist and t"umpers on me like you, I"ll like der udder kin" er song," he said.
Jim looked at the pathetic little figure on the burro, and his conscience smote him. "That"s right, boy," he replied very kindly. "I was only joking--ought not to be any ill feeling between friends over a joke, you know. Now, you sing ahead all you plenty please."
"Don"t say nuttin" more about it," replied Ches. "It"s all square."
A little farther on Jim noticed a piece of quartz outcrop with a metal stain on it. Now, a miner can no more pa.s.s such a thing than some others could refuse to pick up the pin shining at their feet, so he took a stone and hammered off a specimen for future reference. In the meantime Ches, on the burro, got around the turn of the trail.
Suddenly the boy set up a shout of excitement. "Oh, Mister!" he yelled, with a string of profanity, his promise forgotten in his heat. "Come quick, an" look at der cat! Come quick, quick, quick! What a cat! You never see sich a cat!"
Jim dashed forward. "Well, I should say cat!" he remarked, as he took in the situation. On a ledge about fifty feet above the road crouched a full-grown mountain lion, ears back, eyes furtively glimpsing every avenue of escape, yaggering at the intruders savagely.
The small boy in Jim Felton rose on the instant. "Pelt him, Ches! Pelt him!" he cried, and let fly the rock in his hand by way of ill.u.s.tration.
A wild animal seems to have little idea of a missile.
The lion held his ground and let the stone strike him in the side. Then, with a screech like the vital principle of forty thousand tom-cat fights--a screech that left a sediment in the ear-drums of the listeners for the balance of the morning--he fairly flew up the straight side of the cliff, followed by a rain of projectiles.
"Ches, we oughtn"t to have done that," said Jim soberly. "If that fellow had been of another mind, he"d have made this the warmest day of our lives."
"W"y! Will dey fight?" asked Ches, his eyes wide open.
"They will that, son, sometimes," replied Jim. Then he launched into the tales of wild beast hunts, drifted from that to the romance of the gold field, the riches coming in a day--the whole glamour of it.
Never did narrator have more attentive listener. There was a sort of white joy in the boy"s face.
"Oh, ain"t I glad to git in dis!" he cried. "Here"s just wot I been lookin" fur." Suddenly he struck Jim on the shoulder with a tightly clenched fist. "I made fur youse der first t"ing--didn"t yer see me? I know me man all right. Der secont I put me peeps on yer I ses ter meself, "Dat feller won"t t"row yer down, Chimmy"--ain"t I right, hey? Ain"t I right, Mister?"
Jim patted him on the back. "I think you"re right, old man," he said.
"I"ll do anything I can for you."
"Yer don"t hafter tell me dat--I know it," replied the boy. A sudden sob gathered in his throat and choked him. "Yer don"t know wot I been t"rough, Mister--it "ud laid out many er big stiff ten times me size.
I"d--don"t youse laugh at me now, becus I"m only a kid--I"d give me heart"s blood fur youse, s" help me, I would, now!"
"Shake hands, pardner," said Jim, his own voice a trifle hoa.r.s.e. "We"ll do fine together--I know we will."
III
They crested the last sharp rise, and looked down upon the little cabin huddling in the spruces--an island of humanity in the beautiful sea of the wilderness.
It seemed to Jim as if the small house brightened in appearance at the return of its soul; his heart in turn rose with a home feeling; his belief in the treasure which lay where the new channel cut across the old wash--that treasure which would make the world so different--came back to him like a renewed love. His hands ached for a grip on pick and shovel.
His strong muscles twitched with eagerness to be at work again.
Suddenly a ponderous and gross sound, out of all proportion to the size of its source, smashed the mountain silence into slivers. It was the burro"s greeting to his companions, and the echoes fluttered it from cliff to cliff until it faded into the merest tint.
"Kerissmus! How many of dem is dere?" asked Ches, astonished at the demonstration. At that instant the herd welcomed the returned one.
The canon was full of brays; colliding, rising, falling and swelling in a tumult of noise against which the dreadful shouting of the G.o.ds at the fall of Troy would have seemed as the wail of a kitten.
"Say, I don"t like dat!" said Ches. "What"s loose?"
Jim had watched the growing astonishment of the boy"s face with suppressed emotion, but now he hugged himself and uproariously laughed his laugh out.
"That, Ches," he replied, "is a matter of fifteen or twenty donkeys and an echo--did you think it was the end of the world?"