the spur, over the long canyon."
The leader ejaculated a short laugh. "Shiny, eh? shiny! Ye think THAT
a sign? Why, you might as well reckon that because Key's head, over
thar, is gray and silvery that he's got sabe and experience." As he
spoke he looked towards the man with a pleasant voice. The fire
shining full upon him revealed the singular fact that while his face
was still young, and his mustache quite dark, his hair was perfectly
gray. The object of this attention, far from being disconcerted by the
comparison, added with a smile:--
"Or that he had any silver in his pocket."
Another lapse of silence followed. The wind tore round the house and
rumbled in the short, adobe chimney.
"No, gentlemen," said the leader reflectively, "this sort o' thing is
played out. I don't take no more stock in that cock-and-bull story
about the lost Mexican mine. I don't catch on to that Sunday-school
yarn about the pious, scientific sharp who collected leaves and
vegetables all over the Divide, all the while he scientifically knew
that the range was solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers with
God-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun theory
that Key believes in about volcanic upheavals that set up on end
argentiferous rock, but I simply say that I don't see it--with the
naked eye. And I reckon it's about time, boys, as the game's up, that
we handed in our checks, and left the board."
There was another silence around the fire, another whirl and turmoil
without. There was no attempt to combat the opinions of their leader;
possibly the same sense of disappointed hopes was felt by all, only
they preferred to let the man of greater experience voice it. He went
on:--
"We've had our little game, boys, ever since we left Rawlin's a week
ago; we've had our ups and downs; we've been starved and parched,
snowed up and half drowned, shot at by road-agents and horse-thieves,
kicked by mules and played with by grizzlies. We've had a heap o' fun,
boys, for our money, but I reckon the picnic is about over. So we'll
shake hands to-morrow all round and call it square, and go on our ways
separately."
"And what do you think you'll do, Uncle Dick?" said his close-shaven
companion listlessly.
"I'll make tracks for a square meal, a bed that a man can comfortably
take off his boots and die in, and some violet-scented soap.
Civilization's good enough for me! I even reckon I wouldn't mind 'the
sound of the church-going bell' ef there was a theatre handy, as there
likely would be. But the wilderness is played out."
"You'll be back to it again in six months, Uncle Dick," retorted the
other quickly.
Uncle Dick did not reply. It was a peculiarity of the party that in
their isolated companionship they had already exhausted discussion and
argument. A silence followed, in which they all looked at the fire as
if it was its turn to make a suggestion.
"Collinson," said the pleasant voice abruptly, "who lives in the hollow
this side of the Divide, about two miles from the first spur above the
big canyon?"
"Nary soul!"
"Are you sure?"
"Sartin! Thar ain't no one but me betwixt Bald Top and
Skinner's--twenty-five miles."
"Of course, YOU'D know if any one had come there lately?" persisted the
pleasant voice.
"I reckon. It ain't a week ago that I tramped the whole distance that
you fellers just rode over."
"There ain't," said the leader deliberately, "any enchanted castle or
cabin that goes waltzing round the road with revolving windows and
fairy princesses looking out of 'em?"
But Collinson, recognizing this as purely irrelevant humor, with
possibly a trap or pitfall in it, moved away from the fireplace without
a word, and retired to the adjoining kitchen to prepare supper.
Presently he reappeared.
"The pork bar'l's empty, boys, so I'll hev to fix ye up with jerked
beef, potatoes, and flapjacks. Ye see, thar ain't anybody ben over
from Skinner's store for a week."
"All right; only hurry up!" said Uncle Dick cheerfully, settling
himself back in his chair, "I reckon to turn in as soon as I've rastled
with your hash, for I've got to turn out agin and be off at sun-up."
They were all very quiet again,--so quiet that they could not help
noticing that the sound of Collinson's preparations for their supper
had ceased too. Uncle Dick arose softly and walked to the kitchen
door. Collinson was sitting before a small kitchen stove, with a fork
in his hand, gazing abstractedly before him. At the sound of his
guest's footsteps he started, and the noise of preparation recommenced.
Uncle Dick returned to his chair by the fire. Leaning towards the
chair of the close-shaven man, he said in a lower voice:--
"He was off agin!"
"What?"
"Thinkin' of that wife of his."
"What about his wife?" asked Key, lowering his voice also.
The three men's heads were close together.
"When Collinson fixed up this mill he sent for his wife in the States,"
said Uncle Dick, in a half whisper, "waited a year for her, hanging
round and boarding every emigrant wagon that came through the Pass.
She didn't come--only the news that she was dead." He paused and
nudged his chair still closer--the heads were almost touching. "They
say, over in the Bar"--his voice had sunk to a complete whisper--"that
it was a lie! That she ran away with the man that was fetchin' her
out. Three thousand miles and three weeks with another man upsets some
women. But HE knows nothing about it, only he sometimes kinder goes
off looney-like, thinking of her." He stopped, the heads separated;
Collinson had appeared at the doorway, his melancholy patience
apparently unchanged.
"Grub's on, gentlemen; sit by and eat."
The humble meal was dispatched with zest and silence. A few
interjectional remarks about the uncertainties of prospecting only
accented the other pauses. In ten minutes they were out again by the
fireplace with their lit pipes. As there were only three chairs,
Collinson stood beside the chimney.
"Collinson," said Uncle Dick, after the usual pause, taking his pipe
from his lips, "as we've got to get up and get at sun-up, we might as
well tell you now that we're dead broke. We've been living for the
last few weeks on Preble Key's loose change--and that's gone. You'll
have to let this little account and damage stand over."
Collinson's brow slightly contracted, without, however, altering his
general expression of resigned patience.
"I'm sorry for you, boys," he said slowly, "and" (diffidently) "kinder
sorry for myself, too. You see, I reckoned on goin' over to Skinner's
to-morrow, to fill up the pork bar'l and vote for Mesick and the
wagon-road. But Skinner can't let me have anything more until I've
paid suthin' on account, as he calls it."
"D'ye mean to say thar's any mountain man as low flung and mean as
that?" said Uncle Dick indignantly.
"But it isn't HIS fault," said Collinson gently; "you see, they won't
send him goods from Sacramento if he don't pay up, and he CAN'T if I
DON'T. Sabe?"
"Ah! that's another thing. They ARE mean--in Sacramento," said Uncle
Dick, somewhat mollified.
The other guests murmured an assent to this general proposition.
Suddenly Uncle Dick's face brightened.
"Look here! I know Skinner, and I'll stop there-- No, blank it all! I
can't, for it's off my route! Well, then, we'll fix it this way. Key
will go there and tell Skinner that I say that I'LL send the money to
that Sacramento hound. That'll fix it!"
Collinson's brow cleared; the solution of the difficulty seemed to
satisfy everybody, and the close-shaven man smiled.
"And I'll secure it," he said, "and give Collinson a sight draft on
myself at San Francisco."
"What's that for?" said Collinson, with a sudden suffusion on each
cheek.
"In case of accident."
"Wot accident?" persisted Collinson, with a dark look of suspicion on
his usually placid face.
"In case we should forget it," said the close-shaven man, with a laugh.
"And do you suppose that if you boys went and forgot it that I'd have
anything to do with your d--d paper?" said Collinson, a murky cloud
coming into his eyes.
"Why, that's only business, Colly," interposed Uncle Dick quickly;
"that's all Jim Parker means; he's a business man, don't you see.
Suppose we got killed! You've that draft to show."
"Show who?" growled Collinson.
"Why,--hang it!--our friends, our heirs, our relations--to get your
money, hesitated Uncle Dick.
"And do you kalkilate," said Collinson, with deeply laboring breath,
"that if you got killed, that I'd be coming on your folks for the worth
of the d--d truck I giv ye? Go 'way! Lemme git out o' this. You're
makin' me tired." He stalked to the door, lit his pipe, and began to
walk up and down the gravelly river-bed. Uncle Dick followed him.
From time to time the two other guests heard the sounds of alternate
protest and explanation as they passed and repassed the windows.
Preble Key smiled, Parker shrugged his shoulders.
"He'll be thinkin' you've begrudged him your grub if you don't--that's
the way with these business men," said Uncle Dick's voice in one of
these intervals. Presently they reentered the house, Uncle Dick saying
casually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the bar when you're
ready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was presumed to have ended.
But Collinson did not glance in the direction of Parker for the rest of
the evening; and, indeed, standing with his back to the chimney, more
than once fell into that stolid abstraction which was supposed to be
the contemplation of his absent wife.
From this silence, which became infectious, the three guests were
suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of the
mountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near,
increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine gravel of
the river-bed against the sides of the house, and then passed in a gust
of wind that shook the roof and roared in the chimney. With one common
impulse the three travelers rose and went to the door. They opened it
to a blackness that seemed to stand as another and an iron door before
them, but to nothing else.
"Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to Collinson. "Didn't
you hear it?"
"Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from the chimney.
"What in God's name was it, then?"
"Only some of them boulders you loosed coming down. It's touch and go
with them for days after. When I first came here I used to start up
and rush out into the road--like as you would--yellin' and screechin'
after folks that never was there and never went by. Then it got kinder
monotonous, and I'd lie still and let 'em slide. Why, one night I'd a'
sworn that some one pulled up with a yell and shook the door. But I
sort of allowed to myself that whatever it was, it wasn't wantin' to
eat, drink, sleep, or it would come in, and I hadn't any call to
interfere. And in the mornin' I found a rock as big as that box, lying
chock-a-block agin the door. Then I knowed I was right."
Preble Key remained looking from the door.
"There's a glow in the sky over Big Canyon," he said, with a meaning
glance at Uncle Dick.
"Saw it an hour ago," said Collinson. "It must be the woods afire just
round the bend above the canyon. Whoever goes to Skinner's had better
give it a wide berth."
Key turned towards Collinson as if to speak, but apparently changed his
mind, and presently joined his companions, who were already rolling
themselves in their blankets, in a series of wooden bunks or berths,
ranged as in a ship's cabin, around the walls of a resinous, sawdusty
apartment that had been the measuring room of the mill. Collinson
disappeared,--no one knew or seemed to care where,--and, in less than
ten minutes from the time that they had returned from the door, the
hush of sleep and rest seemed to possess the whole house. There was no
light but that of the fire in the front room, which threw flickering
and gigantic shadows on the walls of the three empty chairs before it.
An hour later it seemed as if one of the chairs were occupied, and a
grotesque profile of Collinson's slumbering--or meditating--face and
figure was projected grimly on the rafters as though it were the
hovering guardian spirit of the house. But even that passed presently
and faded out, and the beleaguering darkness that had encompassed the
house all the evening began to slowly creep in through every chink and
cranny of the rambling, ill-jointed structure, until it at last
obliterated even the faint embers on the hearth. The cool fragrance of
the woodland depths crept in with it until the steep of human warmth,
the reek of human clothing, and the lingering odors of stale human
victual were swept away in that incorruptible and omnipotent breath.
An hour later--and the wilderness had repossessed itself of all.
Key, the lightest sleeper, awoke early,--so early that the dawn
announced itself only in two dim squares of light that seemed to grow
