X
"CAPITAL TAKES HOLT"
It is a safe wager that where two or three prospectors meet in a miningcamp or cabin, the length of time which will elapse before the subjectof conversation reverts to food will not exceed ten minutes and in thisrespect the inhabitants of Ore City who "bached" were no exception. Thetopic was introduced in the office of the Hinds House this morning assoon as there was a quorum.
"I declare, I doubts if I lives to see grass," said Yankee Samdespondently as he manicured a rim of dough from his finger-nails withthe point of a savage-looking jack-knife. "I opened my next-to-the-lastsack of flour this mornin' and 'twas mouldy. I got to eat it though, andlike as not t'other's the same. I tell you," lugubriously, "the pickin'sis gittin' slim on this range!"
"I know one thing," declared Judge George Petty, who was sober andirritable, "if N. K. Rippetoe sends me in any more of that dod-gastedInjun bakin' powder, him and me is goin' to fall out. I warned him onceI'd take my trade away and now he's gone and done it again. It won'traise nothin', not _nothin'_!"
"An' you can't _drink_ it," Lanningan observed pointedly.
"You remember them dried apples I bought off the half-breed lady down onthe Nez Perce Reserve? Well," said Porcupine Jim sourly, "they walkedoff day 'fore yistiddy--worms. I weighed that lady out cash gold, andlook what she's done on me! I wouldn't wonder if them apples wa'nt threeto four year old."
"If only we could find out what that Yellow-Leg's after." Lannigan'sface was cross-lined with anxiety. "If some of us could only unloadsomethin' on him, then the rest of us could borry till Capital took holtin the spring."
"S-ss-sh! That's him," came a warning whisper.
"Good morning, gentlemen. I seem to have slept late."
It was apparent to all that Mr. Dill's spirits were decidedly betterthan when he had retired.
Yankee Sam suggested humorously:
"I reckon they was a little slow gittin' around with the tea-kittle tothaw you out, so you could git up."
Mr. Dill declared that he had been agreeably disappointed in his night;that he really felt quite rested and refreshed.
"If it isn't too soon after breakfast, friends," he said tentatively, ashe produced a flask.
It was quickly made clear to him that it was never too soon, or toolate, for that matter, and a suggestion of force was necessary to tearthe flask from Yankee Sam's face.
"What? Teetotaler?" As Uncle Bill shook his head.
"Not exactly; sometimes I take a little gin for my kidnas."
Ore City looked at him in unfeigned surprise. Mr. Dill, however,believed he understood. The old man either knew him or had taken apersonal dislike--maybe both--at any rate he ceased to urge.
"Gentlemen," impressively, and Ore City felt intuitively that its acutesufferings, due to ungratified curiosity, were at an end, "no doubtyou've wondered why I'm here?"
Ore City murmured a hypocritical protest.
"That would be but natural," Mr. Dill spoke slowly, drawling his words,animated perhaps by the spirit which prompts the cat to prolong thestruggles of the dying mouse, "but I have postponed making my missionknown until rejuvenated by a good night's sleep. Now, gentlemen, if Ican have your support, your hearty co-operation, I may tell you that Iam in a position--to make Ore City boom! In other words--Capital IsGoing to Take Hold!"
Porcupine Jim, who, through long practice and by bracing the ball of hisfoot against the knob on the stove door, was able to balance himself onone rear leg of his chair, lost his footing on the nickel knob andcrashed to the floor, but he "came up smiling," offering for inspectiona piece of ore in his extended hand.
"Straight cyanidin' proposition, averagin' $60 to the ton with a tunnelcross-cuttin' the ore-shoot at forty feet that samples $80 where shebegins to widen--" Lack of breath prevented Porcupine Jim from sayingthat the hanging wall was of schist and the foot wall of granite and hewould take $65,000 for it, if he could have 10 per cent. in cash.
The specimen which Yankee Sam waved in the face of Capital'srepresentative almost grazed his nose.
"This here rock is from the greatest low-grade proposition in Americy!Porphery dike with a million tons in sight and runnin' $10 easy to theton and $40,000 buys it on easy terms. Ten thousand dollars down andreg'lar payments every six months, takin' a mortgage--"
"I'm a s-showin' y-you the best f-free-millin' proposition outside ofC-California," Judge George Petty stammered in his eagerness. "Thatthere mine'll m-make ten m-men rich. They's stringers in that thereledge that'll run $5,000--$10,000 to the ton. I t-tell you, sir, the'B-Bouncin' B-Bess' ain't no m-mine--she's a _b-bonanza_! And, when yougit down to the secondary enrichment you'll take it out in c-c-chunks!"
Inwardly, Lannigan was cursing himself bitterly that he had eaten "TheGold-Dust Twins," but, searching through his pockets, fortunately, hefound a sample from the "Prince o' Peace." He handed it to Mr. Dill,together with a magnifying glass.
"Take a look at this, will you?" He indicated a minute speck with hisfingernail.
Mr. Dill lost the speck and was some time in finding it and, while hesearched, the stove pipe separated at the joint, calling attention tothe fact that the sufferer upstairs was nervous. Pa Snow's voice came sodistinctly down the stove-pipe hole that there was reason to believe hewas on his hands and knees.
"Befoah you should do anything definite, we-all should like if you wouldlook ovah 'The Bay Hoss.' It's makin' a fine showin', and 'The UnderDawg' is on the market, too, suh."
In the excitement Uncle Bill sat puffing calmly on his pipe.
Mr. Dill with a gesture brushed aside the waving arms and eager hands:
"And haven't you anything to sell?" he asked him curiously. "Don't youmine?"
"Very little," Uncle Bill drawled tranquilly: "I dudes."
"You what?"
"I keeps an 'ad' in the sportin' journals, and guides."
"Oh, yes, hunters--eastern sportsmen--" Mr. Dill nodded. "But I thoughtI recognized an old-time prospector in you."
"They's no better in the hull West," Yankee Sam declared generously,while Uncle Bill murmured that there was surer money in dudes. "ShowDill that rar' mineral, Uncle Bill." To Dill in an aside: "He's got amountain of it and it's somethin' good."
Uncle Bill made no move.
"I aims to hold it for the boom."
"And what's your honest opinion of the country, Mr. Griswold?" Dillasked conciliatingly. "What do you think well find when we reach thesecondary enrichment?"
A pin dropping would have sounded like a tin wash boiler rollingdownstairs in the silence which fell upon the office of the Hinds House.Uncle Bill, looking serenely at the circle of tense faces, continued tosmoke while he took his own time to reply.
"I'm a thinkin',"--puff-puff--"that when you sink a hundred feet belowthe surface,"--puff-puff--"you won't git a damn thing."
Involuntarily Yankee Sam reached for the poker and various eyes soughtthe wood-box for a sizable stick of wood.
"Upon what do you base your opinion?" asked Mr. Dill, taken somewhataback. "What makes you think that?"
"Because we're in it now. The weatherin' away of the surface enrichmentmade the placers we washed out in '61-'64."
Judge George Petty glowered and demanded contemptuously:
"Do you know what a mine _is_?"
"Well," replied Uncle Bill tranquilly, "not allus, but ginerally a mineis a hole in the ground owned by a liar."
Yankee Sam half rose from his chair and pointed an accusing poker atUncle Bill.
"That old pin-head is the worst knocker that ever queered a camp. Ifwe'd a knowed you was comin'," turning to Mr. Dill, "we'd a put him in atunnel with ten days' rations and walled him up."
"They come clost to lynchin' me onct on Sucker Crick in Southern Oregonfor tellin' the truth," Uncle Bill said reminiscently, unperturbed.
Southern Oregon! Wilbur Dill looked startled. Ah, that was it! He lookedsharply at Griswold, but the old man's face was blank.
"We're all entitled
to our opinions," he said lightly, though hisassurance had abated by a shade, "but, judging superficially, from thetopography of the country, I'm inclined to disagree."
Ore City's sigh of relief was audible.
Mr. Dill continued:
"And I--we are willing to back our confidence in your camp by theexpenditure of a reasonable amount, in order to find out; but,gentlemen, you've raised your sights too high. Your figures'll have tocome down if we do business. A prospect isn't a mine, you know, andthere's not been much development work done, as I understand."
"How was you aimin' to work it," Uncle Bill asked mildly, "in case you_did_ git anything? The Mascot burned its profits buyin' wood fersteam."
"The riddles of yesterday are the commonplaces of to-day, my friend. Theworld has moved since the arrastre was invented and steam is nearly asobsolete. Hydro-electric is the only power to-day and that's whatI--we--propose to use."
Ore City's eyes widened and then they looked at Uncle Bill. Whatdrawback would he think of next? He never disappointed.
"There ain't water enough down there in Lemon Crick in August to run achurn."
Mr. Dill laughed heartily: "Right you are--but how about the river downbelow--there's water enough in that, if all I'm told is true."
For once he surprised the old man into an astonished stare.
"The river's all of twenty mile from here."
"They've transmitted power from Victoria Falls on the Zembesi River, inRhodesia, six hundred miles to the Rand."
Chortling, Ore City looked at the camp hoodoo in triumph.--_That_ shouldhold him for a while.
"I wish you luck," said Uncle Bill, his complacency returning, "but OreCity ain't the Rand. You'll never pull your money back."
"And in our own country they send 'juice' two hundred and forty-fivemiles from Au Sable to Baltic Creek, Michigan."
* * * * *
Before his departure Bruce had arranged with Porcupine Jim to load atoboggan with provisions and snowshoe down to Toy. Mr. Dill wasdelighted when he learned this fortunate circumstance, for it enabledhim to make a trip to the river for the purpose, as he elaboratelyexplained, of "looking out a power-site, and the best route to stringthe wires."
While he was gone, properties to the value of half a million in theaggregate changed hands--but no cash. It was like the good old days tocome again, to see the embryo magnates whispering in corners, to feelonce more a delicious sense of mystery and plotting in the air. Realestate advanced in leaps and bounds and "Lemonade Dan" overhauled thebar fixtures in the Bucket o' Blood, and stuffed a gunny-sack into abroken window pane with a view to opening up. In every shack there wasan undercurrent of excitement and after the dull days of monotony fewcould calm themselves to a really good night's sleep. They talked inthousands and the clerk's stock of Cincos, that had been dead money onhis hands for over three years, "moved" in three days--sold out to thelast cigar!
When the time arrived that they had calculated Dill should return, evento the hour, the person who was coming back from the end of the snowtunnel at the front door of the Hinds House, that commanded a good viewof the trail, always met someone going out to ask if there was "anysight of 'em?" and he, in turn, took his stand at the mouth of thetunnel, until driven in by the cold. In this way, there was nearlyalways someone doing lookout duty.
Ore City's brow was corrugated with anxiety when Dill and Porcupine Jimhad exceeded by three days the time allotted them for their stay.Wouldn't it be like the camp's confounded luck if Capital fell off ofsomething and broke its neck?
Their relief was almost hysterical when one evening at sunset Lanniganshouted joyfully: "Here they come!"
They dashed through the tunnel to see Mr. Dill dragging one footpainfully after the other to the hotel. He seemed indifferent to theboisterous greeting, groaning merely:
"Oh-h-h, what a hill!"
"We been two days a makin' it," Jim vouchsafed cheerfully. "Last nightwe slept out on the snow."
"You seem some stove up." Uncle Bill eyed Dill critically. "And lookslike you have fell off twenty pounds."
"Stove up!" exclaimed Dill plaintively. "Between Jim's cooking and thathill I took up four notches in my belt. I wouldn't make that trip againin winter if the Alaska Treadwell was awaiting me as a gift at the otherend."
"You'll git used to it," consoled Uncle Bill, "you'll learn to like itwhen you're down there makin' that there 'juice.' I mind the time I wentto North Dakoty on a visit--I longed for one of these hills to climb torest myself. The first day they set me out on the level, I ran away--ittook four men to head me off."
"We found where we kin develop 250,000 jolts," Porcupine Jim announced.
"Volts, James," corrected Mr. Dill, and added, dryly, "Don't start in toput up the plant until I get back."
He _was_ coming back then--he _was_! Figuratively, all Ore City fell athis feet, though strictly only two scrambled for the privilege ofunbuckling his snow-shoes, and only three picked up his bag.