A Waif of the Mountains Part 7

CHAPTER V

A HUNDRED FOLD

All this may seem a trifling matter to the reader who does not understand the real punishment suffered by these two men, who, like all the rest of their companions, had been accustomed to the use of ardent spirits for many years. There was no deprivation which they could not have borne with less distress, but their great consolation was that both knew the penalty was fully deserved, and they would not have complained had it been made more severe.

"I tell you," said Bidwell, at the end of the fourth day, when he had celebrated his release from purgatory, "it pays, Ruggles."

"What pays?"

"The reward you git for all this. At the end of a week you'll have a thirst that you wouldn't take a thousand dollars fur."

"But the week isn't much more'n half gone and I'd sell my thirst mighty cheap now."

"Don't you do it! Hold fast to it."

"That's what I'm doing, 'cause I can't help myself. Howsumever it's the thirst that's holding fast to me."

"That's the beauty of it; it'll git stronger and stronger, and then it's so big that you can't well handle it. It seems to me that ten minutes after I've had a drink, I'm thirsty agin, which reminds me; I'd like to invite you, Wade."

"Invite all you want to, 'cause it won't do any more hurt than good; don't let me keep you," added Ruggles, observing the longing eyes his friend cast in the direction of the Heavenly Bower. Bidwell moved off with pretended reluctance, out of consideration for the feelings of his friend, but once inside, he gave another demonstration of the truth of his remarks concerning thirst.

As for Ruggles, only he who has been similarly placed can appreciate his trial. No man is so deserving of sympathy as he who is making a resolute effort to conquer the debasing appet.i.te that has brought him to the gutter.

On that fourth night the thirst of the fellow was a raging fever. He drank copious draughts of spring water, but all the help it gave was to fill him up. The insatiate craving remained and could not be soothed. It seemed as if every nerve was crying out for the stimulant which it was denied.

"The only time I ever went through anything like this," he said to himself, "was twenty years ago, when a party of us were lost in the Death Valley. Three of 'em died of thirst, and I come so nigh it that it makes me shudder to think of it even at this late day."

A wonderful experience came to Wade Ruggles. To his unbounded amazement, he noticed a sensible diminution, on the fifth day, of his thirst. It startled him at first and caused something in the nature of alarm. He feared some radical change had taken place in his system which threatened a dangerous issue. When this misgiving pa.s.sed, it was succeeded by something of the nature of regret. One consoling reflection from the moment his torture began, was the reward which Al Bidwell had named, that is,--the glorious enjoyment of fully quenching his terrific craving, but, if that craving diminished, the future bliss must shrink in a corresponding ratio, and _that_ was a calamity to make a man like him shudder.

On the evening of the fifth day, he ventured for the first time during his penal term, to enter the Heavenly Bower. He wished to test his self-control. When he sat quietly and saw his friends imbibing, and was yet able to restrain himself from a headlong rush to join them, he knew that beyond all question, his fearful appet.i.te had lost a part of its control over him. Still he believed it was only a temporary disarrangement, and that the following day would bring a renewal of his thirst, with all its merciless violence.

But lo! on the sixth morning, the appet.i.te was weaker than ever. His craving was so moderate that, after a deep draught of mountain spring water, he was hardly conscious of any longing for liquor. He seemed to be losing his memory of it.

"I don't understand it," he mused, keeping the astonis.h.i.+ng truth to himself; "It's less than a week ago that I was one of the heaviest drinkers in New Constantinople, and if anyone had told me of this, I would have been sure he'd lost his senses, which the same may be what's the matter with me."

But there was no awakening of his torment during the day, and when he lay down at night, he was disturbed by strange musings.

"If we had a doctor in the place, I would ask him to tell me what it means. The queerest thing 'bout the whole bus'ness is that I feel three thousand per cent. better. I wonder if it can be on 'count of my not swallerin' any of Ortigies' pison which the same he calls Mountain Dew. I guess it must be that."

But that night he was restless, and gradually his thoughts turned into a new channel. A momentous problem presented itself for solution.

"If I've improved so much after goin' six days without drinkin', won't I feel a blamed sight better, if I try it for six weeks--six months--six years--_forever_."

And as an extraordinary, a marvelous resolution simmered and finally crystallized, he chortled.

"What'll the boys say? What'll the parson think? What'll I think? What would that good old mother of mine think, if she was alive? But she died afore she knowed what a good for nothin' man her boy turned out to be. G.o.d rest her soul!" he added softly, "she must have prayed over me a good many hundred times; if she's kept track of me all these years, this is an answer to her prayers."

Budge Isham was the partner of Wade, and shared his cabin with him. He slept across the room, and noticed how his friend tossed and muttered in his sleep.

"Great Gee!" he exclaimed, "but Wade's got it pretty bad; I wonder if it's the jim jams that is getting hold of him; I'll sleep with one eye open, for he will need looking after. What a blessed thing it is that he has only one more day. Then he can celebrate and be happy. I have no doubt that by the end of another week, he will have brought things up to their old average."

And with this conclusion, the man who a few years before took the first honors at Yale, s.h.i.+fted his position, so as to keep an eye on his comrade, and straightway proceeded to drop into a sound slumber, which was not broken until the sun rose on the following morning.

The sympathy for Wade was general. Had he not insisted upon carrying out in spirit and letter the full punishment p.r.o.nounced upon him, there would have been a unanimous agreement to commute his term by one or two days at least; but all knew the grit or "sand" of the fellow too well to propose it.

His actions on the seventh day caused considerable disquietude. He had labored in the mines, in a desultory fas.h.i.+on up to that time, but he did not do a stroke of work during the concluding hours of his ordeal.

It was observed by his partner, Budge Isham, that his appet.i.te was unusually good and he seemed to be in high spirits. His friends attributed this to the closeness of his reward for his abstention, but he took several walks up the mountain side and was gone for a good while. He wore a smiling face and Vose Adams declared that he overheard him communing with himself, when he thought he was too far off for the act to be noticed.

"No use of talkin'," whispered Vose; "Wade ain't quite himself; he's a little off and won't be exactly right till after two or three days."

"He has my sympathy," remarked the parson, "but it will serve as a lesson which he will always remember."

"And won't _we_ remember it?" said Ike Hoe, with a shudder. "When we're disposed to say one of them unproper words, the picture of that miserable scamp going a full week without a touch of Mountain Dew, will freeze up our lips closer than a clam."

That night the usual group was gathered at the Heavenly Bower. There were the same merry jests, the reminiscences, the conjectures how certain diggings would pan out, the small talk and the general good feeling. Common hards.h.i.+p and suffering had brought these rough men close to one another. They were indulgent and charitable and each one would have eagerly risked his life for the sake of the rest. Quick to anger, they were equally quick to forgive, mutually rejoicing in good fortune, and mutually sympathetic in sorrow.

There was more than one furtive glance at Ruggles, who was among the first arrivals. Whispers had pa.s.sed around of his strange actions, and the surprise would not have been great had it been found that he had gone clean daft; but nothing in his manner indicated anything of that nature. He was as full of quip and jest as ever, and none was in higher or more buoyant spirits than he.

He suddenly called:

"Dawson, what time is it?"

The latest comer among them carried a watch which he drew out and examined.

"It is exactly half-past nine."

"When did my punishment begin?"

"A week ago to-night, precisely at this hour; I began to fear that you had forgotten it."

"No danger of my ever forgetting it," grimly responded Ruggles; "what I want to know is whether I have served out my full term."

"You have unquestionably."

"Is there anyone here disposed to dispute this statement?" asked Wade, standing very erect and looking around in the faces of his friends.

No one interposed an objection. He had not only the sympathy but the respect of every one.

"You sarved your time like a man," remarked Ike Hoe; "the week is up and you've give good measure."

"Which the same being the case, I invite all to come forward and liquidate."

Never was an invitation responded to with more enthusiasm. The grinning Ortigies set out a couple of bottles, intending as a matter of course to join in the celebration. He feelingly remarked:

"Wade, my heart bled for you and thar ain't a pard here that wouldn't have been willing to take your place--that is for a limited time," the landlord hastened to add.

Each tumbler was half-filled with the fiery stuff and all looked in smiling expectancy at their host to give the cue. He poured a small quant.i.ty into his gla.s.s, and elevating it almost to a level with his lips, looked over the top.