"Well, gettin" back, eh? Had a good trip?"
Once or twice the miner--he was evidently a miner--leaned from the window and waved his hat to some one on the crossing, shouted a cheery, "How goes it?" and the brakeman asked:
"How did you find the East?"
From all this I deduced that the miner had been away on a visit to New York, or Boston, or Washington.
As we rose the air became so cool, so clear, so crisp, that we seemed to be entering a land of eternal dew and roses, and as our car filled with the delicious scent of pine branches and green gra.s.ses, the miner, with a solemn look on his face, took off his hat and, turning to me, said, with deep intonation:
"This is what I call _air_. This is good for what ails me."
"You"ve been away," I stated rather than asked.
"I"ve been back East--back to see the old folks--first time in eleven years."
"What do you call East?" I pursued.
"Anything back of the Missouri River," he replied, smiling a little. "In this case it was Michigan--near Jackson."
"Citizen of the camp?" I nodded up the canon.
"Yes, I"m workin" a lease on Bull Hill."
"How"s the old camp looking?"
"All shot to pieces. Half the houses empty, and business gone to pot.
It"s a purty yellow proposition now."
"You don"t say! It was pretty slow when I was there last, but I didn"t suppose it had gone broke. What"s the matter of it?"
"Too many monopolists. All the good properties have gone into one or two hands. Then these labor wars have scared operators away. However, I"m not complainin". I"ve made good on this lease of mine." He grinned boyishly. "I"ve been back to flash my roll in the old man"s face. You see, I left the farm rather sudden one Sunday morning eleven years ago, and I"d never been back." His face changed to a graver, sweeter expression. "My sister wrote that mother was not very well and kind o"
grievin" about me, so, as I was making good money, I thought I could afford to surprise the old man by slapping him on the back. You see, when I left, I told him I"d never darken his door again--you know the line of talk a boy hands out to his dad when he"s mad--and for over ten years I never so much as wrote a line to any of the family."
As he mused darkly over this period, I insinuated another question.
"What was the trouble?"
"That"s just it! Nothing to warrant anything more than a cuss-word, and yet it cut me loose. I was goin" around now and then with a girl the old man didn"t like--or rather, my old man and her old man didn"t hitch--and, besides, her old man was a kind of shiftless cuss, one o"
these men that raised sparrows in his beard, and so one Sunday morning, as I was polishin" up the buggy to go after Nance, who but dad should come out and growl:
""Where ye goin" with that buggy?"
""None o" your dam" business," I snaps back, hot as h.e.l.l in a sec.u.n.t, "but just to touch you up, I"ll tell you. I"m goin" over to see Nance McRae."
"Well, sir, that set him off. "Not with my horses," says he, and, grabbin" the buggy by the thills, he sent it back into the shed. Then he turned on me:
""If you want to see that girl, you walk! I won"t have you usin" my tired animals to cart such trash--"
"I stopped him right there. He was a big, raw-boned citizen, but I was a husky chunk of a lad myself and ready to fight.
""Don"t you speak a word against Nance," I says, "for if you do I"ll waller ye right here and now; and as for your horse and buggy, you may keep "em till the cows come home. Here"s where I get off. You"ll never see me again."
"Gee! I was hot! I went in, packed up my grip, and hit the first train for the West."
"Just as thousands of other angry boys have done," I said, realizing to the minutest detail this scene. "They never think of going East."
"No, the West is the only place for a man in trouble--at least, so it seems to me."
"Where did you go? What did you do?"
He mused again as if recalling his struggles. "I dropped off in Kansas and got a job on a farm and fussed around there for the fall and winter.
Then I got the minin" fever and came to Victor. Of course, there wasn"t anything for a gra.s.s-cutter like me to do in the hills but swing a pick.
I didn"t like underground work, and so I went on a ranch again. Well, I kept tryin" the minin" game off and on, prospectin" here and there, and finally I got into this leasin" business, and two years ago I secured a lease on the "Red Cent" and struck it good and plenty. Oh, I don"t intend to say it"s any Portland--but it pays me and I"ve been stackin"
up some few dollars down at the Commercial Bank, and feelin" easy."
The man"s essential st.u.r.diness of character came out as he talked, and his face lost the heavy and rather savage look it had worn at first. I had taken a seat beside him by this time and my sincere interest in his affairs seemed to please him. He was eager to talk, as one who had been silent for a long time.
I led him back to the point of most interest to me. "And so at last you relented and went home? I hope you found the old folks both alive? Did they know where you were?"
"Yes. My sister saw my name in a paper--when I made my stake--and wrote, and mother used to send word--used to mention dad occasionally."
He laughed silently. "It sure is great fun, this goin" back to the home pasture with a fat wad in your pants pocket--Lord! I owned the whole town."
"Tell me about it!" I pleaded.
He was ready to comply. "Our house stood near the railway, about four miles this side of Jackson, and you bet I had my head out of the winder to see if it was all there. It was. It looked just the same, only the old man had painted it yellow--and seemed like I could see mother settin" on the porch. I"d had it all planned to hire the best automobile in town and go up there in shape to heal sore eyes--but changed my plan.
""I"ll give "em more of a shock if I walk out and pretend to be poor and kind o" meek," I says to myself.
"So I cached my valise at the station and I wallered out there through the dust--it was June and a dry spell and hot. Judas priest! I thought I"d sweat my wad into pulp before I got there--me just down from the high country! On the way I got to wonderin" about Nancy. "Is she alive, I wonder?"
"Do you mean to say you left _her_ without a word of good-by?"
He looked down at his knee and scratched a patch of grease there.
"That"s what! I was so blame mad I cut loose of the whole outfit. Once or twice sis had mentioned Nance in a casual kind of way, but as I didn"t bite--she had quit fishin", and so I was all in the dark about her. She might "ave been dead or married or crazy, for all I knew.
However, now that I was on my way back with nineteen thousand dollars in the bank and a good show for more, I kind o" got to wonderin" what she was sufferin" at."
"I hope she was married to a banker in town and the owner of an electric brougham. "Twould have served you right."
He smiled again and resumed his story. "By the time I reached the old gate I was dusty as a stage-coach, and this old corduroy suit made me look as much like a tramp as anybody. As I came onto the old man he was waterin" a span o" horses at the well. Everything looked about the same, only a little older--he was pretty gray and some thinner--and I calls out kind o" meek-like:
""Can I get a job here, mister?"
"He looked me over a spell, then says, "No, for I"m purty well supplied with hands."
""What you need is a boss," I says, grinnin".
"Then he knew me, but he didn"t do no fancy start--he just growled out kind o" surly:
""I"m competent to do all the bossin" on this place," he says.