The Cross-Cut Part 27

September came, and with it the grand jury. But here for once was a slight ray of hope. The inquisitorial body dragged through its various functionings, while Farrell stood ready with his appeal to the court for a lunacy board at the first hint of an investigation into Crazy Laura's story. Three weeks of prying into "vice conditions", gambling, profiteering and the usual petty nonsense with which so many grand juries have managed to fritter away time under the misapprehension of applying some weighty sort of superhuman reasoning to ordinary things, and then good news. The body of twelve good men and true had worn themselves out with other matters and adjourned without even taking up the mystery of the Blue Poppy mine. But the joy of Fairchild and Harry was short-lived. In the long, legal phraseology of the jury's report was the recommendation that this important subject be the first for inquiry by the next grand inquisitorial body to be convened,--and the threat still remained.

But before the two men were now realities which were worse even than threats, and Harry turned from his staging late one afternoon to voice the most important.

"We 'll start single-jacking to-morrow," he announced with a little sigh. "In the 'anging wall."

"You mean--?"

"We can't do much more up 'ere. It ain't worth it. The vein 's pinched down until we ain't even getting day laborer's wages out of it--and it's October now."

October! October--and winter on the way. October--and only a month until the time when Harry must face a jury on four separate charges, any one of which might send him to Canon City for the rest of his days; Harry was young no longer. October--and in the dreamy days of summer, Fairchild had believed that October would see him rich. But now the hills were brown with the killing touch of frost; the white of the snowy range was creeping farther and farther over the mountains; the air was crisp with the hint of zero soon to come; the summer was dead, and Fairchild's hopes lay inert beside it. He was only working now because he had determined to work. He was only laboring because a great, strong, big-shouldered man had come from Cornwall to help him and was willing to fight it out to the end. October--and the announcement had said that a certain girl would be married in the late fall, a girl who never looked in his direction any more, who had allowed her name to become affiliated with that of the Rodaines, now nearing the task of completing their two million. October--month of falling leaves and dying dreams, month of fragrant beauties gone to dust, the month of the last, failing fight against the clutch of grim, all-destroying winter. And Fairchild was sagging in defeat just as the leaves were falling from the shaking aspens, as the moss tendrils were curling into brittle, brown things of death. October!

For a long moment, Fairchild said nothing, then as Harry came from the staging, he moved to the older man's side.

"I--I did n't quite catch the idea," came at last. Harry pointed with his sledge.

"I 've been noticing the vein. It keeps turning to the left. It struck me that it might 'ave branched off from the main body and that there 's a bigger vein over there some'eres. We 'll just 'ave to make a try for it. It's our only chance."

"And if we fail to find it there?"

"We 'll put a couple of 'oles in the foot wall and see what we strike.

And then--"

"Yes--?"

"If it ain't there--we 're whipped!"

It was the first time that Harry had said the word seriously.

Fairchild pretended not to hear. Instead, he picked up a drill, looked at its point, then started toward the small forge which they had erected just at the foot of the little raise leading to the stope.

There Harry joined him; together they heated the long pieces of steel and pounded their biting faces to the sharpness necessary to drilling in the hard rock of the hanging wall, tempering them in the bucket of water near by, working silently, slowly,--hampered by the weight of defeat. They were being whipped; they felt it in every atom of their beings. But they had not given up their fight. Two blows were left in the struggle, and two blows they meant to strike before the end came.

The next morning they started at their new task, each drilling holes at points five feet apart in the hanging wall, to send them in as far as possible, then at the end of the day to blast them out, tearing away the rock and stopping their work at drilling that they might muck away the refuse. The stope began to take on the appearance of a vast chamber, as day after day, banging away at their drill holes, stopping only to sharpen the bits or to rest their aching muscles, they pursued into the entrails of the hills the vagrant vein which had escaped them.

And day after day, each, without mentioning it to the other, was tortured by the thought of that offer of riches, that mysterious proffer of wealth for the Blue Poppy mine,--tortured like men who are chained in the sight of gold and cannot reach it. For the offer carried always the hint that wealth was there, somewhere, that Squint Rodaine knew it, but that they could not find it. Either that--or flat failure. Either wealth that would yield Squint a hundredfold for his purchase, or a sneer that would answer their offer to sell. And each man gritted his teeth and said nothing. But they worked on.

October gave up its fight. The first day of November came, to find the chamber a wide, vacuous thing now, sheltering stone and refuse and two struggling men,--nothing more. Fairchild ceased his labors and mopped his forehead, dripping from the heat engendered by frenzied labor; without the tunnel opening, the snow lay deep upon the mountain sides, for it had been more than a week since the first of the white blasts had scurried over the hills to begin the placid, cold enwrapment of the winter. A long moment, then:

"Harry."

"Aye."

"I 'm going after the other side. We 've been playing a half-horsed game here."

"I 've been thinking that, Boy."

"Then I 'm going to tackle the foot wall. You stay where you are, for a few more shots; it can't do much good, the way things are going, and it can't do much harm. I was at the bank to-day."

"Yeh."

"My balance is just two hundred."

"Counting what we borrowed from Mother 'Oward?"

"Yes."

Harry clawed at his mustache. His nose, already red from the pressure of blood, turned purplish.

"We 're nearing the end, Boy. Tackle the foot wall."

They said no more. Fairchild withdrew his drill from the "swimmer" or straightforward powder hole and turned far to the other side of the chamber, where the sloping foot wall showed for a few feet before it dived under the muck and refuse. There, gad in hand, he pecked about the surface, seeking a spot where the rock had splintered, thereby affording a softer entrance for the biting surface of the drill. Spot after spot he prospected, suddenly to stop and bend forward. At last came an exclamation, surprised, wondering:

"Harry!"

"Yeh."

"Come here."

The Cornishman left his work and walked to Fairchild's side. The younger man pointed.

"Do you ever fill up drill holes with cement?" he asked.

"Not as I know of. Why?"

"There 's one." Fairchild raised his gad and chipped away the softer surface of the rock, leaving a tubular protuberance of cement extending. Harry stared.

"What the b.l.o.o.d.y 'ell?" he conjectured. "D' you suppose--" Then, with a sudden resolution: "Drill there! Gad a 'ole off to one side a bit and drill there. It seems to me Sissie La.r.s.en put a 'ole there or something--I can't remember. But drill. It can't do any 'arm."

The gad chipped away the rock. Soon the drill was biting into the surface of the foot wall. Quitting time came; the drill was in two feet, and in the morning, Fairchild went at his task again. Harry watched him over a shoulder.

"If it don't bring out anything in six feet--it ain't there," he announced. Fairchild found the humor to smile.

"You 're almost as cheerful as I am." Noon came and they stopped for lunch. Fairchild finished the remark begun hours before. "I 'm in four feet now--and all I get is rock."

"Sure now?"

"Look."

They went to the foot wall and with a sc.r.a.per brought out some of the muggy ma.s.s caused by the pouring of water into the "down-hole" to make the sittings capable of removal. Harry rubbed it with a thumb and forefinger.

"That's all," he announced, as he went back to his dinner pail.

Together, silently, they finished their luncheon. Once more Fairchild took up his work, dully, almost lackadaisically, pounding away at the long, six-foot drill with strokes that had behind them only muscles, not the intense driving power of hope. A foot he progressed into the foot wall and changed drills. Three inches more. Then--

"Harry!"

"What's 'appened?" The tone of Fairchild's voice had caused the Cornishman to lean from his staging and run to Fairchild's side. That person had cupped his hand and was holding it beneath the drill hole, while into it he was pulling the muck with the sc.r.a.per and staring at it.

"This stuff's changed color!" he exclaimed. "It looks like--"

"Let me see!" The older man took a portion of the blackish, gritty ma.s.s and held it close to his carbide. "It looks like something--it looks like something!" His voice was high, excited. "I 'll finish the 'ole and jam enough dynamite in there to tear the insides out of it. I 'll give 'er 'ell. But in the meantime, you take that down to the a.s.sayer!"