CHAPTER II
The sun, sinking low, for an instant shone through the gap in the distant hills in one splendid blaze of light, enfolding in its radiance, as if in friendly farewell, the little cabin which lay so snugly nestled away on the towering slope of Burnt Mountain.
Abe Peters, gaunt, unkempt, kindly of face and gentle of manner, turned for a moment from his methodical washing of the supper dishes to glance down and away far over the distant valley.
"An' there's another day gone," he said slowly, "an' there's old Ph[oe]be once again tellin' us good night. All sorts of ways she comes up over the mountain in the morning, and all sorts of ways she goes down behind the hills at night, but that's the way I like to see her set the best; sort of nice and peaceful like and calm."
He turned to the other occupant of the cabin. "But there," he added, after a moment, "I expect it seems kind of all-fired lonesome to a city man, don't it now? I expect you find us folks out here live pretty common."
Frost, short, stout, pleasant of face and manner, turned from the window. "No, sir," he said heartily, "not a bit of it. I'm a city man part of the time, but the other part I have to spend just knocking around the world, here, there and everywhere. And after all, Abe, four walls and a roof, a fire and a bit to eat and drink; that's all a man's got a right to expect, and that's all he needs, too."
Peters nodded in pleasant assent. "Yes, sir, that's right," he answered, "but it ain't every one that thinks the way you do. Most of 'em are crazy for somethin' they can't get; money mad, or liquor mad, or minin' mad, or somethin' of the kind. Speakin' in general, it ain't what you'd call a contented world, no ways at all."
Frost laughed. "Abe," he said good-humoredly, "you're a real philosopher. You've got about the same ideas concerning things that I have, and that's why I respect you and esteem you as a man of intelligence and good sense."
Up the path, standing out in shadowy relief against the fading afterglow in the west, a figure strode past the cabin window. Frost turned idly to his host. "There goes a late worker, Abe," he said. "I wonder if that might be Harrison you were telling me about."
Peters stepped to the window, shading his eyes with his hand as he gazed out into the fast gathering twilight. "No, that ain't Harrison," he replied. "Jack would be steppin' out sprier'n that. That must be the old man, I reckon. Yes, that's him, for sure."
Frost turned from the window, and, seating himself by the log fire, began leisurely to fill his pipe. "So we see the gentlemen to-night, do we?" he asked.
Peters nodded. "That's what we do," he answered, "and, Mr. Frost, I'm givin' this to you straight. I'm a friend of Jim's and I'm a friend of yours, and I want to see you both come out of this thing right. And the way to do it's for you to buy a half interest in the Ethel. That's best for him and it's best for you, too."
Frost smiled. "So you think half a loaf's better than no bread, do you?" he said. "Well, that's right enough sometimes, but where a man wants to buy the whole blamed bake-shop, why, then it doesn't quite seem to fit. Yes, I've got to do my best, anyway. And I wonder, Abe, which is the real man I ought to get next to here, Mason or Harrison."
Peters put the last dish away on the shelf, and in turn drew up his chair and, fumbling in his pocket, drew forth and lighted a grimy pipe. He shook his head doubtfully.
"That's more'n I can tell," he answered, "but we've got half an hour yet before we start, an' I can give you the story, anyway; then you can figure things out for yourself, an' you won't be blamin' me. How's that suit?"
Frost blew a beautifully rounded ring of smoke, and leisurely watched it float upward. "Fine," he assented. "Just what I was going to ask. I'm all attention, Abe. Let her go."
For some minutes Peters puffed in silence; then took his pipe from his mouth and began.
"In the first place," he said slowly, "Jim Mason's an all fired smart man. He wa'nt born and brought up here, like I was. He used to live down Octagon way. Soon as he left school, he went to copper minin'. I've heard him tell about it fifty times. 'I began,' he says, 'at the bottom o' the mine an' the bottom o' my trade, an' I worked pretty well up to the top in both of 'em.' An' it's the truth, too. He was one o' the best surface men at the lake, an' earnin' good money; layin' it away, too, an' that's more than a lot of 'em can say. Then he gets married an' settles down, an' then damned if a while after that an epidemic o' typhoid don't hit the Octagon camp, an' Jim's wife takes it an' dies in a week. Well, that breaks him up complete. After a while he finds he can't stand it round home noways, so he takes his little girl an' moves up here to Seneca. Always he's claimin' the Onondaga lode hits here somewheres after it dips. So he fools around for a while, an' then, after a year or so, he stakes out his claim, names it the Ethel after his little girl, hires a gang o' men, an' goes to work. Four years he's fitted out for, an' blamed if they don't turn out to be four hard luck years. First he strikes tough rock, then the price o' labor goes up on him, then he gets sick himself, an' it's most a year before he's right again; it's one thing here and another there, so finally he has to let his gang go, an' by that time he's so plumb crazy over his claim that he goes on workin' her by himself, everybody but him knowin' he couldn't do nothin' that way if he lived to be as old as Methusalem. Still, he don't seem to care, an' goes right on pluggin' away alone.
"Now here's where Harrison comes in. Jack's a pretty likely young man, an' he'd got to be Jim's foreman, an' was mighty sweet on the little girl. No blame to him, either. She's as pretty as a picture, an' smart as chain lightnin', but let to run wild like a colt. Long as she gets the old man's meals, an' keeps the house cleaned up, he don't care a mite what she does the rest o' the time. I guess, though, the girl's got discontented like, an' she'd be mighty glad to have the old man strike it rich, so's she could get out o' here for good an' move off to the city somewheres. Well, when the rest o' the gang goes, Harrison says he won't leave, but he'll work along a spell with the old man, an' if they strike things rich Jim can treat him any ways he thinks is right. Course, though, it ain't the old man or the mine Jack cares about; it's Ethel he's after, an' as I say, small blame to him.
"So there you are. The old man's the legal owner, but Jack's got a kind of a say-so about the mine, too. The old man's sensible enough about everythin' else, but half crazy about the mine, an' Jack's sensible enough about everythin' else, an' the mine, too, but he's half crazy about the girl. So that's the story, an' there you are."
Frost, rising, nodded. "I guess," he said slowly, "the old man's the one I want. I can tell better after I've seen 'em, though. What's the use of waiting, Abe? Let's go along over and size 'em up."
For answer Peters rose and put on his coat, and a moment later they had left the cabin.
Meanwhile, over at Mason's, Jack Harrison had come slowly up the path, the stoop of his broad shoulders and the slight stiffness of his usually springy gait showing that there are limits beyond which the strongest muscle and sinew can not with safety be driven. Entering the kitchen and seeing no one, he stepped out on to the broad veranda which surrounded the house, and came suddenly on the girl he was seeking, seated alone and gazing idly out over the broad sweep of the darkening valley.
To find Ethel Mason in an attitude even suggesting meditation was an occurrence so rare that the young man was fairly startled. "Hullo, Ethel," he exclaimed, "anythin' gone wrong?"
The girl started to her feet. Slight of figure, slender and graceful as a deer, the brown curls clustering around her pretty face made her at first sight seem little more than a child in appearance, an impression, however, no sooner formed than at once dispelled by the soft curves of her figure, and the poise and self-reliance of her manner as she answered him.
"Yes," she cried rebelliously, "there's plenty wrong. I'm just sick and tired of the way things are going on. He doesn't give me enough a week to keep house for a dog; I haven't had a cent to spend on myself for a month; and then last night there's a dance over at the Hall, and every girl in the county can go but me, and I haven't a single thing to my name I can wear, and so I have to stay at home. Cook the meals, wash the dishes, clean the house; if that's all the life I'm ever going to have, I'd a lot rather be dead."
The young man's face showed his dismay. "Don't say that, Ethel," he cried. "I'm sorry things are goin' so bad. It's Jim's fault, partly, and it's mine, too. I'm afraid I'm gettin' as crazy over the lode as he is, and pretty nigh forgettin' everythin' else. I'm sorry, Ethel. It is tough on you, and no mistake."
The girl shrugged her shapely shoulders. "Oh, it's all right," she said indifferently. "Everybody's got to have their troubles; and I wouldn't start telling you mine if it wasn't so's you could see what things are getting down to. You know what I think about you, anyway. I think you're a fool to stick around here. The old mine's never going to be any good, anyhow."
Harrison smiled grimly. "You know right well it ain't the mine I'm holdin' on for," he answered, a gleam of passion in his eyes. "It's for what goes with it when we strike the lode. And the man that's waitin' for that ain't got no cause to be called a fool."
The girl, not ill-pleased, tossed her head coquettishly. "You aren't sure of either of 'em," she cried, "the lode or the girl. We aren't regular promised, Jack. Maybe some day a better looking fellow with more money'll come along, and then you'll get left."
The young man's face grew dark with anger, and he took a quick step forward. "Don't you dare say that!" he cried fiercely. "If I thought you meant that, Ethel, I'd kill you! By God, I would!"
The girl shrank a little before the storm she had unwittingly raised. "There, there," she cried, "don't be so foolish, Jack. I didn't mean it. You run along and fix up, and don't bother me. I've got to get supper. Where'd you leave the old man?"
Even before Harrison had started to reply, the door swung open and Mason entered, stooping, unkempt, weary, but with eye still bright and his whole expression alert and aglow with the lust of battle.
"I knew it, Jack!" he cried. "I told you the farther we worked to the eastward, the richer that fifth level was going to open up. Look at this! And this! And this!" and he tossed the chunks of rock on the piazza table.
Harrison, a trifle shamefaced, picked them up and nodded. They were in truth splendid samples, fairly blazing with copper.
"I tell you," Mason went on, "if we haven't really struck the lode, and I believe we have, we're right next door to it, anyway. Perhaps I haven't mined that rock year in and year out for ten years without finding out a little something about it. Perhaps I don't know the look of it and the feel of it, and pretty near the taste of it. I'll bet you anything you want, Jack, that inside a month we'll strike as rich copper as ever was mined at the lake."
All through supper he talked on in a like strain. Ethel and Jack listening in silence. Then, after the supper dishes were cleared away, and the old man had settled down, pipe in mouth, in front of the kitchen stove, Harrison had his say.
"Look here, Jim," he said abruptly, "I did somethin' last night that I suppose is goin' to get you mad. I met Abe Peters walkin' home, an' he tells me he's got one of those eastern sharps stayin' with him, investigatin' likely claims, Abe says, with the idea to buy 'em if they comes up to standard. Abe says he starts to tell him about the Ethel, an' the man seems to be better posted than Abe is himself. Anyways, we fixed it up that Abe's goin' to bring him over to-night after grub, an' we'll have a little talk with him. Can't do no harm, an' the way things is goin' now ain't right to none of us; not to you nor to me nor to the girl here, neither. So you want to treat 'em civil when they come."
The old man straightened up in his chair with a glare of resentment, and banged the table with his clenched fist.
"No, sir," he exclaimed, "I won't see him or have nothing to do with him, and neither will you. I'll have no man nosing into my claim, or talking of buying it, either. It ain't a mite of use, Jack. The claim ain't for sale, and I won't have 'em coming round bothering me about it. You can get rid of Abe your own way, but I don't let him set foot in this house, him or his mining sharp or anybody else. I won't do it, Jack, for you nor no man."
Harrison's jaw set with a resolution quieter, perhaps, but every bit as determined as Mason's.
"Jim," he said, "that talk don't go. I've stuck to you and the mine for two years now, fair and square, and it looks like I'd got a right to some say about what we're going to do. Now, I've been figuring it out pretty careful, and this is just about the way we're fixed. Supposin', just for argument, we strike the lode to-morrow, why, even at that we can't ever develop that mine alone. It stands to reason we've got to have an awful pile of money back of us. Give us all the men we want, and all the machinery, and God knows what else, and then it's goin' to take two years and more to make her a dividend payer. No, sir, we've got to have money, Jim, and the only way to get it's to hitch up with some one like this cuss that's out here now. We can look out for our end all the time. You hold out for a big lot of stock, and getting yourself appointed superintendent, and me assistant, and that way we'll be doing right by the mine, and we'll get plenty rich, too. So that's sense, Jim, and nothing but sense, and you've got to talk to this man to-night, or, by God, Jim, I'll get out to-morrow, as sure as we're sitting here, and leave you to go it alone."
Mason, completely taken aback, fairly gasped. Suddenly he had realized, perhaps for the first time, his utter dependence on the younger man. "You—you wouldn't really do that, Jack," he faltered tremulously.
Harrison, more from the old man's manner than from the words themselves, felt that the victory was won. He nodded decisively.
"That's just what I'd do," he answered firmly. "I don't mean to go against you any way at all, Jim, but I know what's common sense, and you'll see it yourself some day, too. I'm not bluffing. I'd hate to do it, but I mean every word just the way I say."
The old man sighed, as if half the joy had suddenly gone out of his life. Then he nodded with resignation.
"All right, Jack," he said, with a trace of bitterness in his tone, "I can't say but what you've used me straight as a string all the way through. Mining's a young man's work, I guess. Maybe you'd act a mite foolish over the old claim yourself, Jack, if you'd wintered and summered with her the way I have. Never mind, though. Have it your own way."
Harrison had started to reply, when heavy footsteps sounded on the path without. "Good for you, Jim," he said quickly, "it won't hurt to talk it over, and we'll be careful we don't make any mistake. I guess that's them now."
