INDICATIONS.
"What think you of it, Jack?"
"It is growing soft in the drift, Jim; the stringers of ore are growing stronger and giving promise of concentrating soon."
"So it strikes me," was the response, "and when Uncle Jimmie Fair was down here an hour ago, I put two things together, and they have kept me thinking ever since."
"And what were the two things, Jim?"
"Why, Jack, did you hear him sigh as he moved the candle along the face of the drift, and hear him say, 'You are doing beautifully, my sons, beautifully; I never had better men,' and then sighed again, and added, 'I fear it's no use; I fear we shall have to drop the work soon?' That was one of the things. The other was the light in his eyes when he examined the face of the drift. If I were a gambler, Jack, I would 'copper' what he said and wager all I had on the twinkle of his eyes."
"It looks good in the drift, surely; and, Jim, if we break into an ore body any time, it will not surprise me."
"Nor me, either, Jack; and if we strike ore here, it ought to be good, because, as I reckon it, since we left the Gould and Curry shaft, we have drifted out of the G. & C. ground, clear through the Best and Belcher, and some distance into the Consolidated Virginia, and by the trend of the lode, if we could find an ore body here, it would be in regular course from the Spanish and Ophir croppings."
"How long have you worked here, and how much have you saved, Jack?"
"It is three years and a month since I went to work in the Belcher," was the reply; "I made $400 in Crown Point stocks, and I have saved altogether $2,800 and odd."
"I beat you by a year's work, Jack, and I have, I believe, $3,300 or $3,400 in the bank. Suppose we try a little gamble in stocks. If we could get an ore body here, this stock would double in a week, and it will not fall very much lower if we do not find anything."
"All right, Jim, if you say so. Meet me to-morrow at eleven o'clock at the California Bank, and we will put in and buy a few shares."
"Agreed," was the answer; "but our twenty minutes are up and we must go. But, Jack, mum must be the word."
"Mum goes," said Jack.
It was a queer spot where this talk was held. It was by the air-pipe in the drift which was run from the 1,200-foot level of the Gould and Curry shaft on the Comstock ledge in Nevada, north toward where the great bonanza was found in the Consolidated Virginia Mine. In the face of the drift the temperature was 120 degrees, and miners could work for only forty minutes and then had to retire to the air-pipe to cool off. It was while resting at the air-pipe that these men, James Sedgwick and John Browning, talked.
They were stripped from the waist up; all their clothing consisted of canvas pantaloons held up by a belt, and miners' shoes; they each had a little band around the head in which was fastened a miner's candlestick. Thus exposed, in the candlelight, they were handsome men. The excessive perspiration caused by the heat of the mine made their faces as fair as the faces of women, and as they lounged, half-naked, carelessly in the drift, their muscles stood out in knots, and in the dim light of the candles, as they rose to return to work, their movements were supple and elastic as those of caged lions. The one who answered to the name of Browning was shorter than the other by an inch, but deeper-chested; the candlelight showed that his eyes were blue, and his mustache and short curly hair were of chestnut color. The other was a little taller, but not so compactly built, and in the uncertain light his eyes, hair and mustache seemed to be black; but really his eyes were gray and his hair brown. Both were young, perhaps twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, and both were perfect pictures of good health and good nature.
Their shift was from four in the afternoon to midnight; but when at midnight they went back through the drift to the shaft to be hoisted to the surface, the night foreman informed them that there was some trouble with the cage; that while they could still hoist rock, it was not deemed safe to trust men on the cage, and, accordingly, some blankets, mattresses, and supper had been sent down, and they would have to spend the night in a cross-cut running from the shaft.
The other miners growled. These two made no complaint, but ate their suppers, then took their beds and spread them in the cross-cut. Sedgwick and Browning went farthest into the cross-cut, made their beds together, and lay down. When they knew by the breathing of the miners nearest them that they were asleep, in low tones they began to talk.
Browning was the first to speak. "By Jove, Jim," he said, "that cage story is too thin. It worked all right up to ten o'clock, for Mackay and Fair both came down and spent a good quarter of an hour in the end of the drift and kept tapping around with their hammers. I was mean enough to watch them on the sly and saw them both taking samples. If you keep awake, you will see John Mackay down here again by six o'clock in the morning, and you may make up your mind not to see any more daylight for three days or a week to come; that is, if the drift keeps on improving."
"I believe it, Jack," said Sedgwick; "did you notice that the last blast left nearly the whole face of the drift in ore? Then, did you notice as we met the car coming out, it had long drills in it, and the shift boss was following it up close? No blasting will be done to-night, but the drillings will be saved for assay, and I tell you the plan is that we shall tell no tales out of school. Believe me, that cage will not be safe again till as much stock shall be taken in as is needed by those in control."
"And so," said Browning, "when we get to the surface our little money will not buy enough stock to make it any object."
"I have been thinking of that," said Sedgwick, "and it makes me hot, for all day I have been dreaming of doubling my money."
"I have a notion," said Browning, "to try to work my way out on the ladders."
"That will not work," replied Sedgwick; "I looked, and all the lower ladders have been taken down."
Then a long silence followed, until at last Sedgwick spoke again. "I have it, Jack," said he. Lighting his candle, he groped around in the cross-cut, and found a splinter from a lagging. Fishing out a stump of a pencil from the pocket of his pantaloons, he said, "Where is your money, Browning?"
"In the California Bank," he replied.
"All right," was the response. Then on the splinter he wrote for a moment, and then said, "How is this?" and in a whisper read: "California Bank, Please pay to John W. Mackay whatever funds may be to our respective credits."
"What is your idea, Jim?" asked Browning.
"I mean to lay for Mackay, and when he comes down ask him, quietly, to read the writing when he gets up into daylight."
"But what will he think we want?" asked Browning.
"He will know mighty quick," said Sedgwick; "he knows where we work; he will understand that we know what we see, and that while we do not intend to give away the information, at the same time we do not want to 'get left out in the cold' on this deal."
"What think you he will do?" asked Browning.
"If he believes it safe, and the right kink is on him, he will draw our money and buy us some stock," said Sedgwick. "He made his money that way, and it is not long since he was a timberman on this same lode."
"Why not word it differently, and ask him squarely to buy the stock?" asked Browning.
"Why, Jack," was the reply, "that would be a dead give-away. He would never present such an order at the bank. It would be a notice to every man in the bank and every friend of every man in the bank, and that would mean everybody in town, that the miners who were kept down in the deeps were trying to buy the stock of the mine. I would rather risk it this way."
"All right, everything goes," said Browning, and both signed the order.
Then they talked for a long time. They had known each other slightly for a couple of years, having met first in the Belcher lower levels, and being thrown together in work on the face of the drift from the G. & C. shaft, they had, during the previous few days, each found that the other was a good and bright man, and had grown more and more intimate, and a warm friendship had sprung up between them. As they lay down again, Browning said to Sedgwick, "How did you come to be here, Jim?"
"Fate arranged it, I guess," was the reply. "You see, my home was in Ohio, in the valley of the Miami. My father had a big farm—400 acres—but there were two boys older than myself, and they needed the land. I took to books naturally, and the plan was to give me an education, and then add a learned profession, or set me up in some little business. So I went to school, and after awhile was sent to Oberlin College. Queer old place, that! Great place for praying and for teaching the universal brotherhood of man! The result, I used to think, was that a colored man commanded a premium over a white man there. I worried the thing through for three years and a half. There was a young mulatto student in the school named Deering, who was a great deal too big for his clothes. He was inclined to force himself into places where he was not wanted, and at anything like the manifestation of a desire to dispense with his society, he grew saucy in a moment. I did not mind him, but he was vinegar and brimstone to a young student from Tennessee, a slight, weakly lad, but as brave a little chap as you ever saw, named Thorne. Well, one day, for some impertinence, Thorne struck him. Deering was an athlete; he weighed twenty pounds more than I did, fifty more than Thorne, I guess; he was quick as lightning, was most handy with his props, and in an instant he smashed poor Thorne's face with a blow which knocked him half senseless.
"I sprang to Thorne, at the same time telling Deering it was a cowardly act for one like him to strike a little fellow like Thorne. He answered something to the effect that for a trifle he would smash me a good deal worse than he had Thorne, and—well, in a minute more there were lively times in that neighborhood.
"It was a tough scrap. It was out on the green; the students gathered around us, and while some cried out to stop us, others shouted, 'Fair play!' and so we were not interfered with. I remember saying to myself, 'If I win, it must be a triumph of race and mind over matter;' but, Jack, that was mighty lively matter. We both had been rowing and practicing in the gymnasium; we were both as hard as iron. Deering was as supple as a boa-constrictor, and had a fist like a twelve-pound hammer. Later, the boys told me the fight lasted twenty minutes. The last I saw was Deering knocked out on the ground, and then my eyes closed, and the boys led me to my room. They swathed my eyes with raw beefsteaks and raw oysters, rubbed me down, and put me to bed. It was ten days before I got out; it was two weeks before Deering did. Then there was an investigation. It was shown that I took up a fight that Thorne commenced; that Thorne had gone for a gun in case I should get the worst of it. So Deering was reinstated, and Thorne and myself expelled. At the time I had a silver watch and four dollars in money. I sold the watch for fourteen dollars. I wrote the facts to my father, and told him I was going West, for he is a straight-laced Presbyterian; I knew he would feel eternally disgraced by my expulsion, and I did not want to hear his reproaches. Thorne wanted to give me money, but I told him I had plenty.
"I worked my way to Texas, and stopped one night at the house of a big cattle man named Thomas Jordan. I had just $1.50 left. He worked out of me my history, and when I explained why I was expelled from school, he laughed until he cried, and said: 'And yo' licked the coon!' and then went off again into a mighty fit of laughter.
"He was a man about thirty years of age, spare built, but wiry as an Indian. He had black hair and eyes; he was not educated, but was naturally a bright man; was brave as a lion; could ride like a Comanche; was a splendid shot, and had been West; took up a gold mine in Arizona, opened it, and sold it three years before I met him for $25,000, and with that bought the ranch and stock. He was originally from Tennessee; when a boy was in the Confederate army; had been knocked about until he was a perfect man of affairs, and the heart within him was simply just royal.
"Next morning, as we went out from breakfast, his vaqueros were trying to ride a vicious horse. He was a big buckskin stallion, six years old, and strong and fierce as a grizzly. The horse tossed three of them, one after the other, out of the saddle; neither one lasted a minute on his curved back. I was watching the performance when Jordan came up to me and, laughing, again said: 'But yo' licked the coon!'
"I said, 'Yes, but that was not much to brag about.'
"'Yo' licked the coon, but was afeerd to meet the governor, eh?' he said.
"I answered, 'That is about the size of it.'
"'And yo' did not go home?' he said.
"'No,' I replied.
"'Did not send for any money?'
"'No.'
"'How much did yo' have?'
"'Four dollars, and a watch which I sold for fourteen dollars.'
"'How much have yo' left?'
"'I believe, $1.50.'
"'What are yo' going to do?'
"'Going to work.'
"'Wat at?'
"'Anything I can get to do.'
"'Will yo' work for me?'
"'Yes.'
"'Know anything about herding and driving cattle?'
"'No, but I can learn it.'
"'All right, what about wages?'
"'Anything you like.'
"'All right,' said Jordan, 'I will have the boys fix yo' up a gentle mustang and give yo' a show.'
"I had overheard the cowboys the previous evening telling about a 'gentle broncho' that they had given a 'tenderfoot,' and how the tenderfoot was 'jolted.' I reflected that I was in Texas and might just as well establish myself at once. When a boy, I could ride anything on the farm or in the township. So I said:
"'Mr. Jordan, let me try the buckskin.'
"'What!' said Jordan, 'would yo' mount that wild beast? He's a devil. My best riders cannot sit him. Indeed, he has tossed half the cowboys in Texas.'
"'Let me try him,' said I.
"'All right,' said Jordan, 'come on.'
"We climbed into the big corral. One of the boys threw a rope upon the horse, drew him up to the center post, blinded him, and said to me:
"'Young feller! If you ride him, you'll be a good one, shore 'nough.'
"I took off my coat, vest and suspenders, tied a heavy handkerchief around my stomach, fixed the saddle, sprang upon the horse, and the blind was drawn off at the same moment. Then for ten minutes I had a game as lively as I had experienced with the coon. How he did jolt me! But I sat him. Then, when all his other tricks had failed, he started in a run for the center post of the corral, with the intention of raking me off. But it was his side that struck the post; my knee was on top of the saddle, and when the rebound knocked him away from the post it was not a second until I was back in the saddle; and then I assumed the offensive and drove the rowels into him. Between the shock of the blow and the surprise of the rowels, he gave up, made a feeble jump or two, stopped and stood trembling.
"I dismounted, and the cowboys threw up their hats and cheered the 'tenderfoot.' Then I took down the reins of the hackamore (the Mexican Jaquema), bent the brute's head around, and tied him in a half circle to his own tail. Then, borrowing a cowboy's whip, I tapped him gently with it, and kept him turning and tumbling until he was covered with foam, and I saw he was completely subdued. Then I untied the rope, gave him his head, and then sprang again (without a blind this time) into the saddle. He moved off in a walk; then I trotted him, then put him in a gallop, and after circling the corral two or three times, reined him up to the cowboys, stopped him, and dismounted.
"'No wonder he licked the coon!' said Jordan.
"And one of the cowboys standing near said, 'Bet y'r boots!'
"I went to work and was a cowboy for a year, and it was a happy year, for I had no trouble and any number of friends. I could ride and shoot with any of them, and soon learned to throw a rope. My riding the big stallion gave me a mighty prestige, for I learned later that many had tried him and no one had kept the saddle for two minutes. He was my vaquero horse, and many a cowboy stopped and looked as I rode by.
"I had been with Jordan but a short time when one evening he brought a book and said:
"'Jim! look at this. A preacher-lookin' chap stopped over night har a year ago and went off in the mornin', and forgot ter take it. See if yo' don't think it's ther durndest stuff yo' ever seen!'
"I looked at the book. It was the Iliad, Pope's translation.
"'Why, Jordan,' I said, 'this is a wonderful book.' Then I briefly explained what the great epic was, who the Greeks and who the Trojans were, the cause of the war between them, how nations fought in those days, what gods they worshiped, and added, 'Let me read you a little of it.'
"'Why, in course,' said Jordan. 'If yo' ken make a blamed thing out er it, we'd all like to har it; wouldn't we, boys?'
"They all assented. I was just out of school and read pretty well.
"So I opened the volume at random and it happened to be in Book XVI., where Pelides consents that Patroclus shall put on his own armor and lead his Myrmidons into the fight, where Achilles arouses and sets in array his terrible warriors, has the steeds yoked and prays Dodonian Jove to give to his friend the victory, and then to grant him safe return. After reading ten minutes, I closed the book, and asked Jordan if I should read anymore.
"'Sarten,' he said. 'That war fine. It are like that mornin' at Murfreesborough when all thar bugles war callin' 'nd ther big guns war beginnin' ter roar.'
"Then I opened at the beginning and read right along for an hour. All the company were greatly excited, declaring 'it war fine.'
"I read to them every evening the winter through, read the Iliad entire, and in the meantime Jordan had sent to Galveston for more books, begging me to select them, and declaring he would fill the house with them if I would only 'steer his buyin' so as not by his purchases 'ter make a holy show' of himself.
"When finally the great annual round-up came, I held my own with the best riders, on trial I could draw and shoot with the quickest and surest shots, and could handle a rope fairly well. I enjoyed the life.
"Generally every one was my friend, but there was one rough customer, a man named Turner, who did not like me, though I had never done a thing in the world to offend him. He made his boasts that no one had ever 'got away' with him or ever would. He had a tough record and many people feared him, for he was a powerful man physically, and cruel in all his instincts.
"One day something was needed from the station, and I rode Buckskin down to get it. The station was a couple of miles from Jordan's house. Thirty or forty cowboys were there on a lark, and all had been drinking a little.
"They hailed me boisterously and wanted me to drink. I laughingly told them I never drank, and good-naturedly threatened to make it hot for the whole band if they did not behave themselves. I had neither coat nor vest on, and they could all see I had no weapons about me. They all laughed, for they were a jovial, good-hearted crowd.
"But just then this rough Turner showed up and said: 'Who is threatening to make it hot for us?'
"Half a dozen of the boys explained that I was only joking, but Turner was bent on mischief.
"'He won't drink with us, hey? Well, we'll drink with him,' he said, and turning to me ordered me to call up the crowd and treat, or tell the reason why.
"I replied that one reason was that I did not very often drink, and another was that I never drank on compulsion.
"He was frantic in a moment, and suddenly drew his revolver. I caught the barrel and turned it up just as he fired, then took it from him, handed it to one of the boys, and told him to keep it until Turner had time to reflect on what a fool he was making of himself.
"He was only the more furious at that. He sprang backward two or three feet, then drawing a huge knife made with it a savage lunge at me. I seized his wrist, and after a brief struggle wrenched the knife from his hand, but still holding his wrist told him that unless he grew quiet I should have to box his ears.
"The boys laughed and jeered at this, which only further incensed the ungovernable brute, and he declared that he would give $100 for the chance to whip me in a fair fist fight.
"At this I released his wrist and told him he should be accommodated. The boys gathered in a ring around us. Turner came at me like a wild beast, but he had no scientific use of his hands and I had had a little practice.
"I knocked aside his blow with my left, and with the open palm of my right hand gave him a sounding box on his left ear.
"The cowboys yelled with delight at this, crying, 'Turner, did you hear that?'
"Turner rallied and made another rush at me. This time I struck his blow aside with my right hand and boxed his right ear with the palm of my left hand.
"So the business continued for several seconds. I never closed my hands, but just boxed him right and left, the boys fairly screaming with joy, until I finally gathered all my strength and gave him one resounding cuff that sent him full length to grass, the most abject-looking, baffled bully that I ever saw.
"Seeing how completely whipped he was, I went to him, and taking him by the arm, said, 'Turner, you were right about my treating; come in and take a drink with me. There's nothing like exercise to make one thirsty.'
"But he would not drink. He arose, skulked away, got his gun and knife, mounted his mustang, and left that part of Texas.
"Next day the boys told Jordan about the scrap, and he danced for joy. He at once rode away to the station to get all the particulars, and when he returned at night he called me aside and said, 'Jim, yo' is thinkin' of leavin' har. We couldn't get along at all without yo'. I seen my lawyer ter-day and told him ter make a deed o' half this ranch 'nd stock ter Jim Sedgwick, and so thar firm now war "Tom and Jim" er "Jim and Tom," I don't give er continental which.'
"Of course I could not accept the gift, but it took me three days to satisfy the great-hearted man why I could not. I told him I was bound to go further West, that his heart had run away with his head, and he yielded at last, but insisted that the offer was a 'squar' one and would last always if I ever came back.
"When the year was up I had saved $212 at regular cowboy wages and would accept no more, though Jordan begged me to take 'sunthun decent.'
"I came West, learned a little of mining—how to hold and hit a drill—in Colorado, then took a run up into Montana, came down across Idaho and finally reached this place. Liking the ways of things here I went to work. I have not missed a dozen shifts in three years."
Browning chuckled at the story, and when Sedgwick ceased he said:
"Isn't it jolly queer that we have been thrown together? My home was in Devonshire, England. My step-father was a merchant who finally became a half banker and half broker. When I was a little kid my mother died, and my father after a while married a widow who had a little daughter five years younger than myself. My father died, and my stepmother married a man named Hamlin.
"When I became twenty-two years old, my step-father wanted me to marry this little girl. I declined, first, because she seemed to me a sister, and second, I was head and ears in love with the step-daughter of the village barrister. The girl was my sister's running mate, so to speak, and though I had never said one word of love to her, my heart was on the lowest level in the dust at her feet. It was, by Jove!
"In those days I was a bit wild, I guess. I did not get out of school with much honor. I used to ride steeple-chase and hurdle races and dance all night. Sometimes, too, I had a scrap, and was careless about the money I spent. The old barrister—his name was Jenvie—believed I was the worst kid in the United Kingdom. One evening Rose Jenvie—her real name was Leighton, she was my glory, you know—had been visiting my foster-sister, and remaining until after dark, I walked home with her. It was a starlit night in summer, and we talked as we walked as young people do. The gate to the path leading up to her house was open, and I continued to walk by her side until we were almost at the door, when the 'Governor' sprang up from a bench on the little lawn, where he had been sitting, and, rudely seizing his step-daughter by the arm, broke out with a torrent of insulting reproaches that she should dare to be walking alone at night by the side of the most worthless scapegrace in all England.
"The dear girl tried to explain that my part of the affair was merely an act of courtesy, but the old chap was hot, and that only made him rave the worse.
"I stood it a minute, and then said, 'Never mind, Miss Rose! You go within doors, please, and your governor will feel better when he has time to think.'
"At this he turned upon me, ordered me off the grounds, and added that if I did not go at once he would kick me over the hedge. Then I laughed and said: 'Oh, no, Mr. Jenvie, you certainly would not do that.'
"Something in my voice, I guess, vexed him, for he sprang at me like a Siberian wolf. He was a big, hearty fellow, about forty years old, and the blow he aimed at me would have felled a shorthorn. But I knocked it aside, as he made the rush, which swerved him a little to one side, and the opportunity was too good. Bless my soul! Before I thought, I planted him a stinger on the neck, and he went down like a felled ox. And he lay there for fully a minute. The beautiful girl never screamed or uttered a word, except, 'O, Jack, I hope you are not hurt!' She had never called me Jack before, and by Jove, it sounded sweeter to me than a wedding march. The old chap in a dazed way rose up on his hands. I saw he was coming out of it, and with a hasty 'Good night, Miss Rose,' I got out of the way. I went home and told my governor the whole story, and wasn't he mad! Jenvie was his closest friend, you know, and so he ordered me to go and apologize to the old barrister. I told him flatly I would not. Then he ordered me out of the house, and, first bidding mother and sister Grace good-bye, I left. I had four pounds six, and with it I went down to an old aunt's of mine in Cornwall. After three days there I met some miners, had a night with them, which ended by their initiating me into their clan. Next morning, thinking it over, my better self asserted itself, and the whim took me to learn the mining business.
"I worked a year, and when off shift I read all the books on geology and mining that I could find; I found a pamphlet telling me all about this lode and its possibilities. I had worked steadily and had saved money enough to pay my way here; I came, and went to work the second day after arriving on the lode."
"What are your plans, Browning?" asked Sedgwick.
"I have no certain plans," was the answer. "I have just lived on an impossible dream, you know, of making £5,000, then going back, and if Rose Jenvie is not married to try to steal her away. If I could make a good bit of money I would buy a place, a big tract of downs in Devonshire. I could, by draining it and running it my way, make it double in value in three years."
"And I," said Sedgwick, "have been nursing just such another dream, which is to make $30,000 to go back and cancel the mortgage of $5,000 on the old home place, and then to buy old Jasper's farm on the hill. It is a daisy. It contains 300 acres and is worth $40 an acre. If I could do that, I believe I could reconcile the old gent, and make him think I was not so mightily out of the way after all when I fought at college and ran away. But $30,000—good Lord! when will a man get $30,000 working for $4 a day on the Comstock?"
"It is a close, hard game," said Browning. Then there was silence, the candle burned out, and in a moment more both miners were asleep.