ACROSS THE MONTHS.
The next two years came and went in Grizzly county without any events to be chronicled in the city press—no strikes or rich finds or stirring deeds; yet they were years that counted much in some lives.
Job went back to the mines, no longer behind the pay window, but as assistant superintendent. Never had so young a man had so responsible a place at the Yellow Jacket. The negotiations and intercourse with the outside world, and the complicated plans of a great company, were not his task. He was the soul of the mine. His it was to deal with the "hands," and stand between them and that intangible, soulless thing men call a corporation. He was the prophet of the company and priest pleading the needs of five hundred men at the doors of the directors. There was nothing in the laws of the company defining his position, and he could hardly have defined it himself. He only knew that he was there to make life a little brighter, home a little more sacred, the friction of business a little less, the higher part of manhood more valuable, to five hundred hard-working men of all creeds and races that lived on the bare mountain-side about the Yellow Jacket mine.
It was marvelous the changes that came. Personal influence and social power told as the days went by. The saloon-keepers felt it and grumbled, but the assistant superintendent was too great a favorite for them to dare say much. The Sunday work ceased. Every improvement for bettering the conditions under which the men worked was put in—better air-pumps; a large shaft-house with dressing-rooms for the men, to save them from going out while heated, to be exposed to winter's cold; a hospital for the sick; lower prices at the company's store; Finnegan's saloon enlarged and fitted up as a temperance club-house, with not a drop of liquor, but plenty of good cheer. More than once on Sundays Job talked to the men on eternal themes, from a spot where, on a never-to-be-forgotten Sunday, he had once faced a mob.
At last the company built a large, plain, attractive church, and the miners insisted on Job's being the "parson." But he firmly declined the honor. Yet he had his say about that church. He felt a wee bit of pride when, crowded to the doors with Scandinavians, Irishmen, Mongolians, Englishmen and Americans, with the Mexican and stalwart Indian not left out, he saw the preacher on the Frost Creek circuit and the priest from Gold City ascend the pulpit to dedicate it. It was to be for all faiths that point heavenward, all ethics that teach the mastery of self, all creeds that exalt Jesus Christ, all religions that really bind back to God. The company had said it; and the men knew that that meant Job.
It was a strange service. The Catholic choir sang "Adeste Fideles," and they all bowed and said the prayer of prayers. Some said "Our Father" and some "Paternoster," and they all meant the same. Job felt a strange thrill in his soul as all in the great audience joined in the last reverent "Amen." Both clergymen spoke, and when the preacher named the Savior, the Catholics crossed themselves; and when the priest said "Blessed Jesus," the Methodists responded "Amen." Both men caught the spirit of the hour; bigotry, creeds, conventionalities, were forgotten. They were face to face with hungry souls; with men who knew little of theology and ecclesiasticism, but much of actual life. God, sin, manhood, eternity, seemed very real to those speakers that day, and they made it plain to the tear-stained, sin-scarred faces that looked into theirs. When at last it was over and the priest had said "Dominus vobiscum" and the parson said "amen," Job slipped out of the rear door to escape the crowd and to pray for the Yellow Jacket and its five hundred men, while a voice whispered to his soul, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
These years had made great changes in Andrew Malden. Since that night-watch at Pine Tree Ranch, he had been a different man. Tony and Hans felt it; the mill men commented on it; the world of Gold City began to realize that the master of Pine Tree Mountain possessed a heart. The old town had more public spirit than for years, and everybody knew that it was "Judge" Malden, inspired by a life close to his own, who was back of all the improvements. But not everybody was pleased with his influence in public matters, and when the Board of Supervisors one spring refused to renew the license of the Monte Carlo, and passed an ordinance against gambling, all the baser element in Gold City united in bitter hatred against the one who they knew possessed the political power that brought these things to pass.
From that day Grizzly county saw an immense struggle for supremacy between righteousness and vice, in the persons of the two political leaders, Andrew Malden and "Col. Dick." Col. Dick was the most clerical-looking man in the community. Always dressed in immaculate white shirt, long coat and white tie, with his smooth face and piercing black eyes, no stranger would have dreamed, as he received his polite bow on the street, that this was the most notorious character in Grizzly county, the manipulator of its politics, the proprietor of its worst haunt, the most heartless man who ever stood behind a bar in a mining camp. But Richard Lamar—or, as all familiarly knew him, Col. Dick, in honor of his traditional war record—was all this. For nearly twenty years he had stood coolly behind that bar mixing drinks and planning politics. All men feared him. Only one man ever refused to drink with him, so far as is known, and then everybody who could, steered clear of jury duty on that case, and those who could not escape pronounced his death due to heart-failure.
The election the next year was the most hotly contested ever held in the county. Job used all the personal influence he had in the Yellow Jacket; Andrew Malden himself personally canvassed every house in the county where there was the slightest hope. Tony said, "Bress de Lawd! guess de old Marse and de gray team done gone de rounds, an' ebery dog in de county knows 'em!"
Dan, poor Dan, limping through the crowd on crutches, was Col. Dick's chief lieutenant, and used with the utmost shrewdness the "cash" which the saloon interest placed at his disposal. He knew by election day the price of every salable vote in the county. The night before election excitement ran high; a scurrilous sheet came out with cartoons of Andrew Malden and "Gambler Teale's kid." All the hard things that could be said were said. That night, before an audience that filled the old church and hung on the windows and packed the steps, Job made a speech which thrilled the souls of them all. He told his life story; told of what rum had done for him and his, told of Yankee Sam and the scene at his death, till hardened men wiped away the tears. No cut-and-dried temperance lecture was his. He talked of life as all knew it, of Gold City and facts no one could deny; talked till waves of deepest emotion passed over the crowd like the wind over grain on the far-reaching prairies. The meeting broke up with cheers and hisses, and men went out to face a fight at the polls that was talked of for many a long day afterward.
The ringing of the old church bell at dark on election day, the cheers sounding everywhere up and down the streets, the sour, scowling faces of Col. Dick and Dan as they slunk down the alley and in back of the Monte Carlo, told a story which thrilled the hearts of good citizens—that righteousness and good government had won.
That night, between midnight and dawn, Andrew Malden's lumber mill went up in flame and smoke. Who did it? No one knew; no one doubted. The north wind was blowing, and the mill hands worked vigorously, worked heroically—it meant bread and butter to them—but they could not save it. Only great heaps of ashes, twisted iron, a lone smoke-stack and great piles of ruined machinery, were left to tell the story, where for many years the whirl of industry had made music beside Pine Tree Creek.
Yet the man who had once sworn to shoot his enemy at sight uttered no complaint or showed the least spirit of revenge. He came and stood in the night air and watched the flames lick up the old mill, stood with the ruddy glow lighting up his furrowed face, and with never a word turned and went home.
Dan was drifting further and further into the downward life; and yet, strange to say, it had lost its charm for him. That night when the election failed and Col. Dick scored him for not doing his best, he parted company with the Colonel and the Monte Carlo. More and more strongly two passions ruled his life. One was love for Jane Reed; the love of a man conscious of his own utter badness for that holy life he secretly envies and outwardly scorns. The other was hatred for Job Malden, who, ever since he came upon the stage in the long ago, had stood between Daniel Dean and all his ambitions.
So the world moved on, the world of Grizzly county, hid away among the grand old mountains and lofty pines of the Sierras. Impulses were passing into deeds; actions and thoughts were crystallizing into character—character that should endure when the pines had passed into dust, when the mountains had tottered beneath the hand of the Creator, when earth itself had sunk into endless space and the story of Gold City had forever ended.
