The Claim Jumpers (3 page)

That would bring out the loafers. It all had to happen over again.

Bennington hoped that this performance would cease in time. It never did.

By a mental process, unnecessary to trace here, he modified his first views, and permitted Old Mizzou to get the mail. Spanish Gulch saw him no more.

After all, it was quite as good Western experience to wander in the hills. He did not regret the other. In fact, as he cast in review his research in Wild West literature, he perceived that the incidents of his town visits were the proper thing. He would not have had them different-to look back on. They were inspiring-to write home about. He recognised all the types-the miner, the gambler, the saloon-keeper, the bad man, the cowboy, the prospector-just as though they had stepped living from the pages of his classics. They had the true slouch; they used the picturesque language. The log cabins squared with his ideas. The broncos even exceeded them.

But now he had seen it all. There is no sense in draining an agreeable cup to satiety. He was quite content to enjoy his rambles in the hills, like the healthy youngster he was. But had he seen it all? On reflection, he acknowledged he could not make this statement to himself with a full consciousness of sincerity. One thing was lacking from the preconceived picture his imagination had drawn. There had been no Mountain Flowers. By that he meant girls.

Every one knows what a Western girl is. She is a beautiful creature, always, with clear, tanned skin, bright eyes, and curly hair. She wears a Tam o' Shanter. She rides a horse. Also, she talks deliciously, in a silver voice, about "old pards." Altogether a charming vision-in books.

This vision Bennington had not yet realized. The rest of the West came up to specifications, but this one essential failed. In Spanish Gulch he had, to be sure, encountered a number of girls. But they were red-handed, big-boned, freckled-faced, rough-skinned, and there wasn't a Tam o' Shanter in the lot. Plainly servants, Bennington thought. The Mountain Flower must have gone on a visit. Come to think of it, there never was more than one Mountain Flower to a town.

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That evening Old Mizzou returned from town with a watery eye and a mind that ran to horses.

"He is shore a fine cayuse," he asserted with extreme impressiveness. "He is one of them broncs you jestloves . An' he's jes 's cheap! I likes you a lot, sonny; I deems you as a face-card shore, an' ef any one ever tries fer to climb yore hump, you jest calls on pore Old Mizzou an' he mingles in them troubles immediate. You must have that cayuse an' go scoutin' in th' hills, yo' shore must! Ol' man Davidson'll do th' work fer ye, but ye shore must scout. 'Taint healthy not t' git exercise on a cayuse. It shorely ain't! An' you must git t' know these yar hills, you must. They is beautiful an' picturesque, and is full of scenery. When you goes back East, you wants to know all about 'em. I wouldn't hev you go back East without knowin' all about 'em for anythin' in the worl', I likes ye thet much!"

Old Mizzou paused to wipe away a sympathetic tear with a rather uncertain hand.

"Y' wants to start right off too, thet's th' worst of it, so's t' see 'em all afore you goes, 'cause they is lots of hills and I'm 'feared you won't stay long, sonny; I am that! I has my ideas these yar claims is no good, I has fer a fact, and they won't need no one here long, and then we'll lose ye, sonny, so you mus' shore hev that cayuse."

Old Mizzou rambled on in like fashion most of the evening, to Bennington's great amusement, and, though next morning he was quite himself again, he still clung to the idea that Bennington should examine the pony.

"He is a fine bronc, fer shore," he claimed, "an' you'd better git arter him afore some one else gits him."

As Bennington had for some time tentatively revolved in his mind the desirability of something to ride, this struck him as being a good idea. All Westerners had horses-in the books. So he abandonedAliris: A Romance of all Time , for the morning, and drove down to Spanish Gulch with Old Mizzou.

He was mentally braced for devilment, but his arch-enemy, Fay, was not in sight. To his surprise, he got to the post office quite without molestation. There he was handed two letters. One was from his parents. The other, his first business document, proved to be from the mining capitalist. The latter he found to inclose separate drafts for various amounts in favour of six men. Bishop wrote that the young man was to hand these drafts to their owners, and to take receipts for the amounts of each. He promised a further installment in a few weeks.

Bennington felt very important. He looked the letter all over again, and examined the envelope idly. The Spanish Gulch postmark bore date of the day before.

"That's funny," said Bennington to himself. "I wonder why Mizzou didn't bring it up with him last night?" Then he remembered the old man's watery eye and laughed. "I guess I know," he thought.

The next thing was to find the men named in the letter. He did not know them from Adam. Mizzou saw no difficulty, however, when the matter was laid before him.

"They're in th' Straight Flush!" he asserted positively.

This was astounding. How should Old Mizzou know that?

"I don't exactly know," the old man explained this discrepancy, "but they generally is!"

"Don't they ever work?"

"Work's purty slack," crawfished Davidson. "But I tells you I don'tknow . We has to find out," and he shuffled away toward the saloon.

Anybody but Bennington would have suspected something. There was the delayed letter, the supernatural knowledge of Old Mizzou, the absence of Fay. Even the Easterner might have been puzzled to account for the crowded condition of the Straight Flush at ten in the morning, if his attention had not been quite fully occupied in posing before himself as the man of business.

When Mizzou and his companion entered the room, the hum of talk died, and every one turned expectantly in the direction of the newcomers.

"Gents," said Old Mizzou, "this is Mr. de Laney, th' new sup'rintendent of th' Holy Smoke. Mr. de Laney, gents!"

There was a nodding of heads.

Every one looked eagerly expectant. The man behind the bar turned back his cuffs. De Laney, feeling himself the centre of observation, grew nervous. He drew from his pocket Bishop's letter, and read out the five names. "I'd like to see those men," he said.

The men designated came forward. After a moment's conversation, the six adjourned to the hotel, where paper and ink could be procured.

After their exit a silence fell, and the miners looked at each other with ludicrous faces.

"An' he never asked us to take a drink!" exclaimed one sorrowfully. "That settles it. It may not be fer th' good of th' camp, Jim Fay, but I reckons it ain't much fer th' harm of it. I goes you."

"Me to," "and me," "and me," shouted other voices.

Fay leaped on the bar and spread his arms abroad.

"Speech! Speech!" they cried.

"Gentlemen of the great and glorious West!" he began. "It rejoices me to observe this spirit animating your bosoms. Trampling down the finer feelings that you all possess to such an unlimited degree, putting aside all thought of merely material prosperity, you are now prepared, at whatever cost, to ally yourselves with that higher poetic justice which is above barter, above mere expediency, above even the ordinary this-for-that fairness which often passes as justice among the effete and unenlightened savages of the East. Gentlemen of the great and glorious West, I congratulate you!"

The miners stood close around the bar. Every man's face bore a broad grin. At this point they interrupted with howls and cat-calls of applause. "Ain't he apeach !" said one to another, and composed himself again to listen. At the conclusion of a long harangue they yelled enthusiastically, and immediately began the more informal discussion of what was evidently a popular proposition. When the five who had been paid off returned, everybody had a drink, while the newcomers were made acquainted with the subject. Old Mizzou, who had listened silently but with a twinkle in his eye, went to hunt up Bennington.

They examined the horse together. The owner named thirty dollars as his price. Old Mizzou said this was cheap. It was not. Bennington agreed to take the animal on trial for a day or two, so they hitched a lariat around its neck and led it over to the wagon. After despatching a few errands they returned to camp. Bennington got out his ledger and journal and made entries importantly. Old Mizzou disappeared in the direction of the corral, where he was joined presently by the man Arthur.

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On his way to keep the appointment of the afternoon, Bennington de Laney discovered within himself a new psychological experience. He found that, since the evening before, he had been observing things about him for the purpose of detailing them to his new friend. Little beauties of nature-as when a strange bird shone for an instant in vivid contrast to the mountain laurel near his window; an unusual effect of pine silhouettes near the sky; a weird, semi-poetic suggestion of one of Poe's stories implied in a contorted shadow cast by a gnarled little oak in the light of the moon-these he had noticed and remembered, and was now eager to tell his companion, with full assurance of her sympathy and understanding. Three days earlier he would have passed them by.

But stranger still was his discovery that he hadalways noticed such things, and had remembered them. Observations of the sort had heretofore been quite unconscious. Without knowing it he had always been a Nature lover, one who appreciated the poetry of her moods, one who saw the beauty of her smiles, or, what is more rare, the greater beauty of her frown. The influence had entered into his being, but had lain neglected. Now it stole forth as the odour of a dried balsam bough steals from the corner of a loft whither it has been thrown carelessly. It was all delightful and new, and he wanted to tell her of it.

He did so. After a little he told her aboutAliris: A Romance of all Time , in which she appeared so interested that he detailed the main idea and the plot. At her request, he promised to read it to her. He was very young, you see, and very inexperienced; he threw himself generously, without reserve, on this girl's sympathies in a manner of which, assuredly, he should have been quite ashamed. Only the very young are not ashamed.

The girl listened, at first half amused. Then she was touched, for she saw that it was sincere, and youthful, and indicative of clear faith in what is beautiful, and in fine ideals of what is fitting. Perhaps, dimly, she perceived that this is good stuff of which to make a man, provided it springs from immaturity, and not from the sentimentalism of degeneracy. The loss of it is a price we pay for wisdom. Some think the price too high.

As he talked on in this moonshiny way, really believing his ridiculous abstractions the most important things in the world, gradually she too became young. She listened with parted lips, and in her great eyes the soul rose and rose within, clearing away the surface moods as twilight clears the land of everything but peace.

He was telling of the East again with a certain felicity of expression-have we not said he had the gift of words?-and an abandon of sentiment which showed how thoroughly he confided in the sympathy of his listener. When we are young we are apt to confide in the sympathy of every listener, and so we make fools of ourselves, and it takes us a long time to live down our reputations. As we grow older, we believe less and less in its reality. Perhaps by and by we do not trust to anybody's sympathy, not even our own.

"We have an old country place," he was saying; "it belonged to my grandfather. My grandfather came by it when the little town was very small indeed, so he built an old-fashioned stone house and surrounded it with large grounds." He was seeing the stone house and the large grounds with that new inner observation which he had just discovered, and he was trying to the best of his ability to tell what he saw. After a little he spoke more rhythmically. Many might have thought he spoke sentimentally, because with feeling; but in reality he was merely trying with great earnestness for expression. A jarring word would have brought him back to his everyday mood, but for the time being he was wrapt in what he saw. This is a condition which all writers, and some lovers, will recognise. "Now the place is empty-except in summer-except that we have an old woman who lives tucked away in one corner of it. I lived there one summer just after I finished college. Outside my window there was an apple tree that just brushed against the ledge; there were rose vines, the climbing sort, on the wall; and then, too, there was a hickory tree that towered 'way over the roof. In the front yard is what is known all over town as the 'big tree,' a silver maple, at least twice as tall as the house. It is so broad that its shade falls over the whole front of the place. In the back is an orchard of old apple trees, and trellises of big blue grapes. On one side is a broad lawn, at the back of which is one of the good old-fashioned flower gardens that does one good to look at. There are little pink primroses dotting the sod, sweet-william, lavender, nasturtiums, sweet peas, hollyhocks, bachelor's buttons, portulaca, and a row of tall sunflowers, the delight of a sleepy colony of hens. I learned all the flowers that summer." He clasped his hands comfortably back of his head and looked at her. She was gazing out over the Bad Lands to the East. "In the very centre, as a sort of protecting nurse to all the littler flowers," he went on, "is a big lilac bush, and there the bees and humming birds are thick on a warm spring day. There are plenty of birds too, but I didn't know so many of them. They nested everywhere-in the 'big tree,' the orchard, the evergreens, the hedges, and in the long row of maple trees with trunks as big as a barrel and limbs that touch across the street."