The Man from the Bitter Roots Part 35

What a lot had happened since he had noticed the willows turning black last year! A lifetime of hopes and fears, and new experiences had been crowded into twelve flying months.

His mind straying for a moment from the work and its many problems, he fell to thinking of Helen Dunbar and her last letter. When he was not thinking of undercurrents or expanded metal riffles or wondering anxiously if the 10-inch and 8-inch pumps were going to raise sufficient water, or if the foundation built on piling, instead of cement, was "good enough," Bruce was thinking of the girl he loved.

She had written in her last letter--Bruce knew them all by heart--

I had a visitor yesterday. You will be as surprised, when I tell you who it was, as I was to see him. Have you guessed? I'm sure you haven't. None other than our friend Sprudell--very apologetic--very humble and contrite, and with an explanation to offer for his behavior that was really most ingenious. There's no denying he has cleverness of a kind--craft, perhaps, is a better word.

His humility was touching but so unlike him that I should have been alarmed if he had not been so obviously sincere.

Nevertheless his visit has upset me. I've been worried ever since. Perhaps you'll only laugh at me when I tell you that it is because I am afraid for _you_. Truly I am! I don't know that I can explain exactly so you'll understand but there was something disturbing which I _felt_ when he spoke quite casually of you. It was almost too intangible to put into words but it was like a gloating secret satisfaction, as though he had the best of you in some way, the whip-hand.

It may be just a silly notion, one of those fears that pop into one's head in the most inexplicable way and stick, refusing to be driven out by any amount of logic. Tell me, is there anything that he can do to you? Any way that he can harm you?

I am nervous--_anxious_--and I cannot help it.

She was anxious about him! That fact was paramount. Somebody in the world was worrying over _him_. He stopped short in the trail with fresh wonder of it. Every time he thought of it, it gave him a thrill. His face, that had been set in tired, harsh lines of late, softened with a smile of happiness.

And he did so long to give her substantial evidence of his grat.i.tude. If that machinery ever started--if the sc.r.a.pers ever got to hauling dirt--her reward, his reward, would come quick. That was one of the compensating features of mining; if the returns came at all they came quick. Bruce started on, hastening his footsteps until he almost ran.

The electrical genius was driving a nail with a spirit-level when Bruce reached the pump-house and Bruce flared up in quick wrath.

"Stop that, Banule! Isn't there a hammer on this place?"

"Didn't see one handy," Banule replied cheerfully, "took the first thing I could reach."

"It just about keeps one pack-train on the trail supplying you with tools."

"Guess I am a little careless." Banule seemed unruffled by the reproach--because he had heard it so many times before, no doubt.

"Yes, you're careless," Bruce answered vigorously, "and I'm telling you straight it worries me; I can't help wondering if your carelessness extends to your work. There, you know, you've got me, for I can't tell.

I must trust you absolutely."

Banule shrugged a shoulder--

"This ain't the first plant I've put up, you know." He added--"I'll guarantee that inside two weeks we'll be throwin' dirt. Eh, Smaltz?

Ain't I right?"

Smaltz, who was stooping over, did not immediately look up. Bruce saw an odd expression cross his face--an expression that was something like derision. When he felt Bruce looking at him it vanished instantly and he straightened up.

"Why, yes," with his customary grin, "looks like we orter make a _start_."

The peculiar emphasis did not escape Bruce and he was still thinking of the look he had caught on Smaltz's face as he asked Banule:

"Is this mica right? Is it the kind you need?"

Smaltz looked at Banule from the corner of his eye.

"'Taint exactly what I ought to have," Banule responded cheerfully. "I forgot to specify when I ordered, but I guess I can make it do--it's good enough."

It seemed to Bruce that his over-strained nerves snapped all at once. He did not recognize the sound of his voice when he turned on Banule:

"S'help me, I'm goin' to break every bone in your body if you don't cut out that 'good enough'! How many hundred times have I got to tell you that nothing's good enough on this plant until it's right?"

"I didn't mean anything," Banule mumbled, temporarily cowed.

Bruce heard Smaltz snicker as he walked away.

The sluice-boxes upon which Bruce was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches were his particular pride. They were four feet wide and nearly a quarter of a mile in length. The eight per cent grade was steep enough to carry off boulders twice, three times, the size of a man's head when there was a force of water behind them.

The last box was well over the river at a point where it was sufficiently swift to take off the "tailings" and keep it free. The top earth, which had to be removed to uncover the sand-bank, was full of jagged rocks that had come down in snowslides from the mountain and below this top earth was a strata of small, smooth boulders--"river wash."

This troublesome "overburden" necessitated the use of iron instead of wooden riffles, as the b.u.mping and grinding of the boulders would soon have worn the latter down to nothing. So, for many weary trips, a string of footsore pack-horses had picked their way down the dangerous trail from Ore City, loaded to their limit with pierced iron strips, rods, heavy sacks of nuts and bolts.

It had been laborious, nerve-racking work and every trip had had its accident, culminating in the loss of the best pack-horse in the string, the horse having slipped off the trail, scattering its pack, as Smaltz announced it, "from h.e.l.l to breakfast."

But the iron strips and rods were made into riffles now, and laid. Bruce surveyed the whole with intense satisfaction as he stood by the sluice-boxes looking down the long grade. It was _his_ work and he knew that he had done it well. He had spared no labor to have it right--nothing had been just "good enough."

There was cocoa matting under the riffles of the first six boxes.

Half-way the length of the sluice-boxes the finest gravel, yellow and black sand, dropped through perforated sheet-iron grizzles into the "undercurrents" while the rocks and boulders rushed on through the sluice-boxes to the river.

At the end of the undercurrents there was a wide table having a slight grade, and this table was covered with canton flannel over which was placed more riffles of expanded metal. And, as a final precaution, lest some infinitesimal amount of gold escape, there was a mercury trap below the table. While Bruce was expecting to catch the greater part of it in the first six sluice-boxes he was not taking a single chance.

Now, as he stood by the sluice-boxes looking their length, he allowed himself to dream for a moment of the days when the mercury, turned to amalgam, should be lying thick with gold behind the riffles; to antic.i.p.ate the unspeakable happiness of telegraphing his success to Helen Dunbar.

Even with the tangible evidence before his eyes it was hard to realize that after all the struggle, he was so near his goal. The ceaseless strain and anxiety had left their marks upon his face. He looked older by years than when he had stood by the river dipping water into his old-fas.h.i.+oned cradle and watching "Slim" scramble among the rocks.

But it would be worth it all--all and more--he told himself exultingly, if he succeeded--as he must. His eyes shone with enthusiasm and he tingled with his joy, as he thought what success meant.

A sound behind him brought him back to earth. He turned to see Toy picking his way gingerly over the rocks.

"You old rascal!" he cried joyfully. "Dog-gone, I'm glad to see you, though you don't deserve it."

"I come back now," the Chinaman announced serenely. "No go way no more I think."

XXIV

THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

Toy raised his head sharply from his little flat pillow where he lay in his tent, pitched for convenience beside the kitchen, and listened. A sound like the cautious sc.r.a.ping of the sagging storehouse door on the other side of the kitchen had awakened him. He was not sure that he had not dreamed it or that it was not merely renewed activities on the part of his enemies, the pack-rats, between whom and himself there waged constant war. There was a possibility that some prowling animal might push in the door, but, as the month was now November and the nights were as cold as winter, he was not too anxious to crawl from his warm nest and investigate until he was sure.

Hearing nothing more he dropped back on his pillow sleepily, vowing fresh vengeance on the pack-rats who at that moment no doubt were carrying off rice and rolled oats. Suddenly there came a fresh sound, very distinct in the stillness, somewhat like the side of a big tin bulging where it had been dented. To ease his mind rather than because he expected to find anything Toy slipped his feet into his thick-soled Chinese slippers and shuffled out into the night.

The faintest gleam of light was coming through the opening in the storehouse door, which Toy himself had carefully closed. It was all of eleven o'clock and the men, Toy knew, had been in bed for hours. He stepped noiselessly inside and stared with all his eyes at Smaltz.

Smaltz was about to extinguish the candle which he had been s.h.i.+elding with his coat.