PROSPERITY
Billy did not think so, however. He posed to himself as the most industrious man in the territory. He had so much to see to that year, for throughout the mild winter that succeeded he had pushed forward with the greatest rapidity all work on the Great Snake and its sister claims. The log structures, the plans of which he had displayed to Lafond, were completed, so far as the mere erection of them went, within a fortnight. Billy gave a great deal of personal direction to this work; but after all it was simple enough, so he managed to chink in a moment here and there for the completion of certain bargains which came to him. For instance, a man in Spring Creek Valley offered eight draught horses at a marvellously low figure. That made two teams. Billy did not need two teams just then; but of course later, when the mill was up, he would need a great many more than two teams for the purpose of carting ore; and it seemed criminal to let such a bargain go. Then he found he required a man to take care of them. Some days later he came to the conclusion that it would be good economy to buy the ore wagons now instead of waiting until later, for the following ingenious reason: the horses must be fed; hay costs fifteen dollars a ton in the hills and five on the prairie; with wagons the horses could be utilized to haul their own forage from the plains at a net saving of ten dollars a ton on all consumed. So Billy placed an order for two heavy wagons, and dismissed the matter from his mind until they were delivered. During the interim he sat on top of a ladder and dabbed contentedly at a scroll-work cornice with a small red paint brush.
From that elevation he bought a whim, also a bargain. The man was anxious to sell, and it was a very good whim. To be sure one might have argued that inasmuch as whims are machines for hauling ore from depths which Billy's operations would not attain for a year at least, the purchase was a little premature; but then it is equally certain that all mines own whims, and another opportunity for getting one so cheap might never again present itself.
When the wagons came, he and the man drove fifty miles to Rapid, where they hobnobbed with Tom Sweeny and looked over his establishment. Billy bought his household goods. He also took a fancy to some large brass-bound collar hoods for the horses which he had marked with the company's initials "G. S. M. & M. Co.," also in brass. The return trip was made with difficulty on account of the low-hanging branches of trees. Then Billy spent an ecstatic week distributing things to suit him.
The work in the shafts went steadily forward. Billy was willing to offer a bonus on the contract price for a quick job, so the contractors took on extra men. They averaged almost a foot and a half a day, which is wonderfully good. The work indeed went on so well that Billy saw he would need the mill sooner than he had expected, so he resolved to begin its erection at once. He hired all the available men, but soon found that he would have to seek elsewhere for a gang adequate to such an undertaking. He imported one from Rockerville. As the winter came on, he found it expedient to start the boarding house in order, as he said, "To get those cusses up in the mornin' afore the sun sets." The move necessitated a cook and "cookee," and the weekly purchase of provisions. Since he had the men handy, he argued, there was no reason why he should not finish up the small details and odds and ends of the camp in a respectable manner, and so he made many little extraneous improvements, such as a flag pole and a rockery of pink quartz from the Custer trail. Three or four were always away from the mill, levelling up, clearing out or decorating. From Kansas City he imported some chickens with crested heads and a number of pigeons of ancient lineage. The latter promptly flew back to Kansas City. As the novelty of them had worn off Billy took their loss philosophically. In regard to externals the camp began to wear a very prosperous air.
Copper Creek too was busy. Over forty men were hard at work on the Great Snake itself. Upward of fifty claims were in the course of development near at hand. With the completion of the mill would begin the crushing of ore; with the crushing of ore would begin the camp's commercial output; with that, provided it were satisfactory, would come more capitalists anxious to invest. It behooved the claim owner to have his exhibit of shaft and tunnel ready for the public inspection. When you reflect that three men usually worked on a claim and that Copper Creek's entire population at that date was a little over two hundred and fifty, you can readily see that it was indeed a lively camp. Even those who were not actually engaged in prospecting operations found their time fully occupied in providing for those who were. Black Jack had an assistant now. Moroney's paper came out as often as once a fortnight and was beginning to be mentioned by the Deadwood Miner as "our esteemed contemporary." Bill Martin had been seen sweeping out his own office. The dozen of women and girls who had drifted in with newcomers, scrubbed, cooked, washed and sewed in a struggle to keep even with muddy boots, miners' appetites, and the destructive demands of miners' work. Even Frosty improved his customary mooning slouch.
The men who seemed to enjoy unlimited leisure could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Cheyenne Harry laughed at it all. His one claim was known to be a mere excuse for existence, a symbolic reason for his connection with Copper Creek. Everybody knew really why he stayed. He was supposed to be independently rich, though none claimed any knowledge of how he came to be so. Then there was the gambler, the faro man, who sat on the hotel "porch" all the morning smoking endless cigarettes, his broad straight hat tipped a little sideways, his moustache brushed neatly away to show his white teeth, his fine inscrutable eyes looking cynically from his equally fine clear-cut face, speaking seldom, smiling never, imperturbable, indifferent, cat-like. And there was Durand, but he did not count. And there was Michaïl Lafond.
To be sure the half-breed was building a new dance hall, to which the camp entire looked with anticipatory delight, but that was a matter of four walls and a smooth floor. He needed only to give his orders. After a perfunctory morning inspection he had the day to himself.
The work at the Great Snake interested him, as it did everybody. He occupied the morning about the works, poking into odd corners, questioning the workmen, making suggestions to Billy. He sent the horse dealer to Billy, and mentioned to the whim man that he might find a purchaser there. He often was enabled in his vaster leisure to perceive the little things that lacked and to point out their necessity to Billy, which individual was of course always duly grateful and hastened at once to remedy the defect. After a more or less lengthened visit the half-breed returned to camp. If it happened still to lack some time until dinner, he called on Moroney in the editorial rooms or exchanged sententious comments with Bill Martin, or chatted with one or the other of the visitors who happened to be in town. After dinner he disappeared until supper. The time was spent with Durand. The assaying was long since finished, but the two men had grown fond of each other's companionship. It was a silent companionship for the most part. Lafond smoked interminably his short black pipe, turned upside down, watching the naturalist setting carefully the delicate wings of a butterfly or arranging in a paper cylinder the skin of a bird, or searching, spectacled, in black volumes of Government reports. Occasionally, when Durand looked up from his absorption, they exchanged a few swift remarks, elided, compressed, telegraphic; for they understood each other so well that the unabridged form of speech was no longer necessary. On fine days they beat the brushy creek bottoms for the Nitra, the rare Papilo which men supposed to be extinct. And then, after the early darkness of winter fell, they would be seized by strange obsessions of loquacity. Jacques, the raccoon, a ball of fur under the faint red stove, blinked at them shrewdly, wondering what it was all about.
In the evening, of course, Lafond had the Little Nugget to take care of. The saloon had as yet no rivals. The size of the town perhaps warranted another establishment, but Lafond was a monopolist by nature. He treated the men well, with a geniality behind which were unsounded depths of reserve. Therefore they respected him. The space about the iron stove before the bar came to be the Town Hall. Matters of public importance were discussed every evening. Billy there told things he ought not to have told. The atmosphere was expansive, encouraged one to show off. After one had recounted the obvious, one was inclined in the heat of the moment to fall back on the confidential, merely for lack of something else to say. The camp to a man knew the amount of Billy's expenditures, the number of his shafts. It heard extracts from all his letters to and from the East. It was acquainted with all his and the Company's plans. A good many of the cooler heads felt the intrinsic injudiciousness of this; but after all there could be no traitors among them, because in the end the prosperity of every man present depended on Billy's success.
But while the Great Snake was the main topic of conversation, and always remained ultimately the most important, its present interest, as spring drew near, became overshadowed by that of the new dance hall.
The Westerner loves to dance. A street organ sets him shuffling. He will drive twenty miles in a springless wagon and twenty miles back again in the grayness of dawn to stamp his feet to the sound of an accordion. Every camp has its organized dance joint, a sort of hall mark of its genuineness as a camp. Now with the approach of the date for formal opening this long musicless community woke up to its deprivation. All the details of the new establishment were enjoyed in anticipation. It had a planed floor. The boards had been brought by wagon from McGuire's mill at Hermosa. It was to be lighted by real locomotive lanterns of an impressive but meaningless number of candle power. It was to be entirely draped with flags. The musicians were to be imported from Spanish Gulch. Lafond dispensed this and similar information sparingly, in order that it might be made the most of. He promised the "opening ball" for May if possible.
"That depends, of course," he always concluded his statements, short or long.