CHAPTER XIV
"CALL IT THE 'ROSE GIRL'"
"What are you going to do with those things?" asked Winthrop. "Not burnthem?"
"Yep; every strap and tie-string," replied Overland, gathering togetherthe dead prospector's few effects. "Cause why? Well, Billy, if thisclaim ain't filed on,--and I reckon it ain't,--why, we files on her asthe original locators. Nobody gets wise to anything and it saves thechance of gettin' jumped. The bunch over there would make it interestin'for us if they knowed we was goin' to file on it. They'd put up a fightby law, and mebby one not by law. Sabe?"
"I think so. Going to burn that little--er--cradle arrangement, too?"
"Yep. Sorry, 'cause it's wood, and wood is wood here. That little rockeris a cradle all right for rockin' them yella babies in and then out. Thehand that rocks that cradle hard enough rules the world, as the potesays."
"So this is how gold is mined?" queried Winthrop, examining the cruderocker and the few rusted tools.
"One way. Pan, cradle, or sluice for free gold. They's about four otherways. This here's our way."
"Is it a rich claim?"
"Tolerable. I panned some up the branch. She runs about two dollars apan."
"Is that all?"
Overland smiled as he poked a smouldering corner of blanket into thefire. "It is and it ain't. I reckon you could pan fifty pans a day.That's a hundred dollars. Then I could do that much and the cookin',too. That's another hundred. Two hundred dollars a day ain't bad wagesfor two guys. It ought to keep us in grub and postage stamps and somechewin'-gum once in a while."
"Two hundred a day!" And Winthrop whistled. "That doesn't seem much inNew York--on the street, but out here--right out of the ground. Why,that's twelve hundred a week."
"Nope--not exactly. She's a rich one, and bein' so rich at the startshe'll peter out fast, I take it. I know these here kind. When we cometo the end of the canon we're at the end, that's all. Besides, she's sorich we won't work six days every week. If she was half as good, mebbywe would. You never done much fancy pick-handle exercise, did you?"
"No, but I'm going to. This beats signing checks all to pieces."
"Never got cramps that way myself," grunted Overland. "But I have fromswingin' a pick. Your back'll be so blame stiff in about three days thatyou'll wish you never seen a pan or a shovel. Then you'll get over thefever and settle down sensible. Three of us could do a heap better thantwo. I wish Collie was on the job."
"I'm willing," said Winthrop.
"'Course you are, but you get your half of this as agreed. Collie'sshare comes out of my half. I'm playin' this hand over the table, inplain sight."
Winthrop glanced quickly at Overland's inscrutable face. "Suppose Ishould tell you that my income, each week, is about equal to what weexpect to get from this claim?"
"Makes no difference," growled Overland. "It wasn't your money thatstood off the constable--and later out in the desert. It was _you_.They's some places left on this old map yet where a man is jest what histwo fists and his head is worth. This here Mojave is one of 'em. Are yousqueak to that?"
"I understand," said Winthrop.
* * * * *
They worked steadily until evening. They staked out their respective andadjoining claims, dropped the rusted tools in a bottomless crevice, andremoved the last shred and vestige of a previous occupancy.
"This here's been too easy," said Overland, as he sliced bacon for theevening meal. "When things comes as easy as this, you want to watch outfor a change in the weather. We ain't through with the bunch yet."
The Easterner, making the evening fire, nodded. "How are we to getprovisions?" he asked.
"First, I was thinkin' of packin' 'em in from Gophertown, over yonder.She's about thirty miles from here, across the alkali. 'T aint a regulartown, but they got grub. But if we got to comin' in regular, they'dsmell gold quicker than bees findin' orange-blossoms. They got mynumber, likewise."
"How's that?"
"They know I been standin' out on the edge ever since I had a littlefuss with some folks over at Yuma, quite a spell ago."
"Won't you tell me about it?"
"Sure! They was three parties interested--me and another gent and ahoss. I guess the hoss is still alive."
Winthrop laughed. "That's a pretty brief epic," he said.
"Uhuh. It was. But I reckon we got to hit the breeze out of here rightsoon. Here, le' me take that fry-pan a minute. It's this way. Me andyou's located this claim. Now we go and file. But first we got to getsome dough. I got a scheme. I'm thinkin' of gettin' a dudeoutfit--long-tailed coat and checker pants and a elevated lid with ashine to it. Then you and me to the State House and file on this hereclaim. You stay right in them kickie clothes and that puncher hat. Wefile, see? The gents supportin' the bars and store corners will be sointerested in seein' me do you for your pile that they'll forget toremember who I am, like I would be in me natural jeans. They'll size mefor a phoney promoter excavatin' your pocketbook. It's a chance--but wegot to take it."
"That's all very weird and wonderful," said Winthrop, "and not so veryflattering to me, but I am game. I'll furnish the expense money."
After the evening meal they drew nearer the fire and smoked in the chillsilence. The flames threw strange dancing shadows on the opposite cliff.
Winthrop, mindful of Overland's advice, slipped on his coat as the nightdeepened. "About your adopting a disguise," he began; "I should thinkyou would look well enough clean-shaven and dressed in some stylish,rough tweed. You have fine shoulders and--"
"Hold on, Billy! I'm a livin' statoo, I know. But listen! I got to gothe limit to look the part. You can't iron the hoof-marks of hell andTexas out of my mug in a hundred years. The old desert and the bordertowns and the bottle burned 'em in to stay. Them kind of looks don't gowith business clothes. I got to look fly--jest like I didn't know nobetter."
"Perhaps you are right. You seem to make a go of everything you tackle."
"Yep! Some things I made go so fast I ain't caught up with 'em yet. Youknow I used to wonder if a fella's face would ever come smooth again inheaven. That was a spell ago. I ain't been worryin' about it nonelately."
"How old are you?"
"Me? I'm huggin' thirty-five clost. But not so clost I can't hearthirty-six lopin' up right smart."
"Only thirty-five!" exclaimed Winthrop. Then quickly, "Oh, I beg yourpardon."
"That's nothin'", said Overland genially. "It ain't the 'thirty-five'that makes me feel sore--it's the 'only.' You said it all then. Butbelieve me, pardner, the thirty-five have been all red chips."
"Well, you have _lived_," sighed Winthrop.
"And come clost to forgettin' to, once or twice. Anyhow,--speakin' ofheaven,--I'd jest as soon take my chances with this here mug of mine,what shows I earned all I got, as with one of them there dead-fish facesI seen on some guys that never done nothin' better or worse than get upfor breakfast."
Winthrop smiled. "Yes. And you believe in a heaven, then?"
"From mornin' till night. And then more than ever. Not your kind of aheaven, or mebby any other guy's. But as sure as you're goin' to creasethem new boots by settin' too clost to the fire, there's somethin' upthere windin' up the works regular and seein' that she ticks right, andonce in a while chuckin' out old wheels and puttin' in new ones. Jesttake a look at them stars! Do you reckon they're runnin' right on timeand not jumpin' the track and dodgin' each other that slick--jestbecause they was throwed out of a star-factory promiscus like a shovelof gravel? No, sir! Each one is doin' its stunt because the other oneis--same as folks. Sure, there's somethin' runnin the big works; butwhether me or you is goin' to get a look-in,--goin' to be let in onit,--why, that's different."
Winthrop drew back from the fire and crossed his legs. He leanedforward, gazing at the flames. From the viewless distance came the howlof coyotes.
"They're tryin' to figure it out--same as us," said Overland, poking ahalf-burned root into the fire. "And they're gettin' abou
t as far alongat it, too. Like most folks does in a crowd--jest howlin' all together.Mebby it sounds good to 'em. I don' know."
"I'm somewhat of a scoffer, I think," said Winthrop presently.
"Most lungers is," was Overland's cheerful comment. "They're sore ontheir luck. They ain't really sore at the big works. They only think so.I've knowed lots of 'em that way."
"To-night,--here in this canon,--with the stars and the desert so near,you almost persuade me that there is something."
"Hold on, Billy! You're grazin' on the wrong side of the range if youthink I'm preachin'. My God! I hate preachin' worse than I could hatehell if I thought they was one. My little old ideas is mine. I roped 'emand branded 'em and I'm breakin' 'em in to ride to suit me. I ain'taskin' nobody to risk gettin' throwed ridin' any of my stock. Sabe?"
"But a chap may peek through the fence and watch, mayn't he?"
"Sure! Mebby you're breakin' some stock of your own like that. If youare, any little old rig I got is yours."
"Thank you. And I'm not joking. Perhaps I'll get the right grip onthings later. I've been used to town and the pace. I've always hadmoney, but I never felt really clean, inside and out, until now. Inever before burned my bridges and went it under my own flag."
Overland nodded sagely. "Uhuh. It's the air. Your feelin' clean andreligious-like is nacheral up here. Don't worry if it feels queer to youat first--you'll get used to it. Why, I quit cussin', myself, wheneverything seems so dum' quiet. Sounds like the whole works had stoppedto listen to a fella. Swearin' ain't so hefty then. Sort of outdoorstage fright, I reckon. Say, do you believe preachin' ever did muchgood?"
"Sometimes I've thought it did."
"I seen a case once," began Overland reminiscently. "It was ToledoBlake. He was a kind of bum middleweight scrapper when he was workin' atit. When he wasn't trainin' he was a kind of locoed heavyweight--stewedmost of the time. It was one winter night in Toledo. Me and him wentinto one of them 'Come-In-Stranger' rescue joints. 'Course, they wassingin' hymns and prayin' in there, but it was warmer than outside, sowe stayed.
"After a while up jumps the foreman of that gospel outfit. His foretopwas long, and he wore it over one ear like a hoss's when the wind isblowin'.
"He commenced wrong, I guess. He points down the room to where me andToledo was settin', and he hollers, 'Go to the ant, you slugger!Consider her game and get hep to it,' or somethin' similar.
"That word 'slugger' kind of jarred Toledo. He jumps up kind of mad.'Mebby I am a slugger, and mebby I ain't, but you needn't to getpersonal about it. Anyhow, I ain't got no aunt.'
"'The text,' says the hoss-faced guy on the platform, 'the text, mybrother, is semaphorical.'
"Toledo couldn't understand that, so I whispers, 'Set down, you mutt!Semaphore is a sign ain't it? Well, he's givin' you the sign talk. Setdown and listen.'
"Toledo, he hadn't had a drink for a week, and he was naturally feelin'kind of ugly. 'All right,' he growls at the preacher guy. 'All right. Ipass.'
"'Ah, my brother!' says the hoss-faced guy. 'I see the spirits is atwork.' That kind of got Toledo's goat.
"'Your dope is _bum_,' says Toledo. 'I ain't had a drink for a week.First you tell a fella to go see his aunt, when she's been planted forten years. Then--'
"'Listen, brother!' says the preacher guy. 'I referred to ants--little,industrious critters that are examples of thrift to the idle, theindignant, the--'
"'Hold on!' says Toledo. 'Do you mean red ants or black ants?' And Iseen that a spark had touched Toledo's brainbox and that he waswrastlin' with somethin' that felt like thinkin'.
"'Either, my brother,' says the hoss-faced guy, smilin' clear up to hisback teeth.
"'Well, you're drawin' your dope from the wrong can,' says Toledo,shufflin' for the door. 'Because,' says he, turnin' in the doorway,'because, how in hell is a fella goin' to find any ants with two feet ofsnow on the ground?'
"And then Toledo and me went out. It was a mighty cold night."
Overland Red rolled a cigarette, pausing in his narrative to see whetherWinthrop, who sat with bowed head, was asleep or not.
Winthrop glanced up. "I'm awake," he said, smiling. "Very much awake. Ican see it all--you two, down on your luck, and the snow freezing andmelting on the bottoms of your trousers. And the stuffy little rescuemission with a few weary faces and many empty chairs; the 'preacherguy,' as you call him, earnest, and ignorant, and altogether wrong intrying to reason with Toledo Blake's empty stomach."
"That's it!" concurred Overland. "A empty stomach is a plumbunreasonable thing. But the preacher guy done some good, at that. He setToledo Blake to thinkin' which was somethin' new and original forToledo.
"It was nex' spring Toledo and me was travelin' out this way, inspectin'the road-bed of the Santa Fe, when we runs onto a big red-ant's nest inthe sand alongside of the track. Toledo, he squats down and looks. Thefirst thing he sees was a leetle pa ant grab up a piece of crust twicehis size and commence sweatin' and puffin' to drag it home to the kids.
"'The leetle cuss!' says Toledo. 'He's some strong on the lift!' AndToledo, he takes the piece of crust from the pa ant and sticks it at thetop of the hole, thinkin' to help the pa ant along. But the pa ant, hehustles right up and grabs the crust and waves her around his head acouple of times to show how strong he is, and then starts back to wherehe found the crust. Down he plumps it--gives it a h'ist or two and thengrabs it up. He waves it around in his mitts and wobbles off toward thehole again. Independent? Well, mostly!
"Toledo, he said nothin', but his eyes was pokin' out of his head tryin'to think. You never see a man sweat so tryin' to get both hands onto aidea at once. His dome was kind of flat, but he could handle one idea,in single harness, at a time.
"Anyhow, the next town we strikes, Toledo, he quits me and gets a sortof chambermaid's job tidyin' up around a little old boiler-factory andmachine-shop; pilin' scrap-iron and pig-iron and little things likethat. And he stuck, too.
"A couple of years after that I was beatin' it on a rattler goin' west,and I drops off at that town. About the first thing I seen was Toledocomin' down the street. Alongside of him was a woman carry in' a kid inher arms, and another one grazin' along close behind. And Toledo had aloaf of bread under his arm.
"'This here is Mrs. Blake,' says Toledo, kind of nervous.
"'I am glad she is,' says I. 'Toledo, you're doin' well. Don't knownothin' about the leetle colt in the blanket, but the yearlin' is builtright. He's got good hocks and first-class action.'
"Mrs. Toledo, she kind of sniffed superior, but said nothin'. You knowthat kind of sayin' nothin' which is waitin' for you to move on.
"'Won't you come up to the shack and have grub?' says Toledo, hopin' I'dsay 'No.'
"'Nope,' says I. 'Obliged jest the same. I see you got hep to the antall right.'
"'I'll let you know I'm nobody's aunt!' says Mrs. Toledo, yankin' theyearlin' off his hoofs and settin' him down again. For a fact, she thunkI was alludin' to her.
"'Of course not, madam,' says I, polite, and liftin' me lid. 'And Ijudge somebody's in luck at that.'
"I guess it was her not used to bein' spoke and acted polite to that gother goat. Mebby she smelt somethin' sarcastic. I dunno. Anyhow, she wasa longhorn with a bad eye. 'Go on, you chicken-lifter!' she says.
"Bein' no hand to sass a lady, I said nothin' more to _her_. But I handsToledo a jolt for bein' ashamed of his old pal.
"'Well, so long,' says I, kind of offhand and easy. 'So long. I'll tellLucy when I see her that you was run over by a freight and killed. Thenshe can take out them papers and marry Mike Brannigan that's beenwaitin' in the hopes you'd pass over. You remember Mike, the cop onCherry Street. You oughta. He's pinched you often enough. 'Course youdo. Well, so long. Little Johnny was lookin' fine the last I seen ofhim. He's gettin' more like his pa every day. But I got to beat it.'"
Overland Red leaned back and puffed a great cloud of smoke from a freshcigarette.
"Who was Lucy?" asked Winthrop.
&nbs
p; "Search me!" replied Overland. "They wasn't any Lucy or nobody likethat. But I'd like to 'a' stayed to hear Toledo explain that to Mrs.Toledo, though. She was a hard map to talk to."
"I suppose there's a moral attached to that, or, more properly, embodiedin that story. But it is good enough in itself without disemboweling itfor the moral."
"You can't always go by ants, neither," said Overland.
Winthrop nodded. His eyes were filled with the awe of great distancesand innumerable stars. "Gold!" he whispered presently, as one whispersin dreams. "Gold! Everywhere! In the sun--in the starlight--in theflowers--in the flame. In wine, in a girl's hair.... Gold! Mystery....Power ... and as impotent as Fate." Winthrop's head lifted suddenly."What shall we call the mine?" he asked.
Overland Red started, as though struck from ambush. "How did you guess?"he queried.
"Guess what?"
"That I was thinkin' about the claim?"
"I didn't guess it. I was dreaming. Suddenly I asked a question,without knowing that I was speaking."
"Mebby I was bearin' down so hard on the same idea that you kind of feltthe strain."
"Possibly. That's not unusual. What _shall_ we call it?"
"Wha--I was thinkin' of callin' it the 'Rose Girl' after a girl Collieand me knows up Moonstone Canon way."
"It's rather a good name," said Winthrop. "Is the girl pretty?"
"Pretty? Gosh! That ain't the word. Her real name is Louise Lacharme,and, believe me, Billy, she's all that her name sounds like, and thensome."