“LITTLE VICKY”
Jim Budd had a dozen reasons to offer why there must be gold in Bald Knob. Like many others, he was letting his hopes influence his judgment.
When he had finished his argument Hugh grinned. “May be here. May not. A fifty to one bet I’d call it, us on the short end. But that’s mining. No can tell. Might as well stick up our notice here as anywhere. What say, Dan?”
Byers said, “Suits me.”
“What about this fellow Singlefoot Bill who took up the claims originally—sure he’s outa the country and won’t make a kick?”
“Handed in his checks last year at Austin. Anyhow, he never did any assessment work here. You can see that. Just filed his location notice and let it go at that,” Budd explained.
“Didn’t he patent any of his claims?”
“I reckon. But not these. He couldn’t have. There’s not been enough work done on the ground. He jest scratched around.”
“If he patented there would be a record of it, of course.”
“I ain’t so sure of that, either. The house where they used to keep the county papers burned down in the big fire a coupla years ago more or less.”
“Well, the recorder would know.”
“Oh, he died a month since. But we’re in the clear. All you got to do is to use yore eyes to see this land couldn’t a-been patented.”
Hugh used his eyes and they corroborated his friend’s opinion.
The partner surveyed roughly the claims they decided on, drove in corner stakes, and put up their announcements of ownership. Four locations were taken in partnership. Each of them filed on several individual claims. Hugh took one in his brother’s name, the rest in his own. One of these last was to be held in trust for Vicky until she became of age. It was a custom of the country to take up mining prospects for friends.
Hugh wrote the notice for the partners. It read:
We, the undersigned, claim four claims of 300 feet each in this silver and gold bearing quartz lead, or lode, extending north and south from this notice, with all its dips, spurs, angles, and variations, together with 50 feet of ground on either side for working the same.
Each of the three signed the paper.
Similar location notices were posted on the individual claims.
Hugh took charge of operations. He hired men, bought tools and supplies, selected the spot for the shaft, and himself tossed out the first shovel of dirt. When operations were under way he turned the management over to his partners and returned to Virginia City.
The business of the firm called him. Incidentally, he wanted to see his week-old nephew, Alexander Hugh McClintock.
He went directly to his brother’s house on A Street. At his knock the door was opened by a young woman. She was dark and slender, and at sight of him her eyes flashed.
“You’re Mr. Hugh McClintock,” she cried.
“Yes. You’re the nurse, I suppose. How is Mollie?”
The face of the young woman held surprises. Mischief bubbled over it for a moment. “Yes, I’m the nurse. Would you like to see—Mrs. McClintock?”
“If I may.”
The nurse led the way into the house. Presently, after disappearing for a minute into Mollie’s room, she returned for Hugh. He trod softly, as men do in the presence of sickness or some mystery of life or death that awes them.
Mollie had never looked lovelier. A faint pink of apple blossoms fluttered into her cheeks. In the crook of her arm lay Alexander Hugh McClintock, a red and wrinkled little morsel of humanity. She smiled with such a radiance of motherhood that the man’s bachelor heart registered a pang of envy.
“Oh, Hugh, I’m so happy,” she whispered as he kissed her.
“That’s fine—fine,” he said gently.
“We named him after your father and you. Scot would have it, wouldn’t he, Vicky?”
The dark young woman nodded.
Hugh felt the flush dyeing his face. “Little Vicky!” he stammered. “Why, I thought——”
“Thank you for the dolls, kind sir,” she said, and curtsied.
He felt like a fool. How long was it since he had sent her a black doll baby?
“I thought you were still a little girl,” he blurted. “Nobody told me——”
“—that little girls grow up. They do.”
“You can’t be more than fourteen—or fifteen,” he charged, trying to escape from his mistake.
“I’m going on seventeen, sir,” she said demurely.
“Your letter——”
“—was from a little girl to whom you sent a nigger doll.”
“You said in it——”
“I said thank you for the doll. Wasn’t it a proper letter for a little girl to write to a kind gentleman?”
She asked it with a manner of naïve innocence, hardly a hint of mirth in the dark, long-lashed eyes meeting his so directly.
Mollie laughed. “She wrote and asked us not to tell you she had grown up, Hugh. We wondered when you would guess she wasn’t any longer a child.”
“I’ve been several kinds of an idiot in my time, but this—this takes the cake,” Hugh said ruefully.
Suddenly Victoria relented. She held out her hand impulsively. Her smile was warm and kind.
“You don’t mind my little joke, do you?”
“Not a bit. I brought it on myself.”
“If you want to know, I thought it was dear of you to remember the little girl away at school alone.” A faint shell pink beat into the clear satiny cheeks.
“I liked that little girl. She had a lot of git-up-an’-git.”
Vicky laughed. “She was a terror, if that’s what you mean. Always in mischief. Mollie will tell you that.”
“Yes, but she was a tender-hearted little cyclone,” smiled the older sister.
Scot came into the room. “ ’Lo, Hugh,” he said. “When’d you get back?” Without waiting for an answer he passed to the bed upon which were his wife and his firstborn. Lightly his hand caressed her soft hair. “Everything right, Mollie?”
Her eyes rested happily in his. “Everything in the world, Scot.”
“This nurse I got for you treating you proper?” With a motion of his head he indicated Victoria.
“She’s spoiling me.”
“A. H. McClintock behaving himself?”
“He’s an angel.”
He kissed her. “Must take after his father then.”
“I hope he does. He looks like you.”
Scot laughed, and with a touch of embarrassment turned to his brother. “You see what you’ll be letting yourself in for when you marry, Hugh. Got to walk a straight and narrow line to keep your wife fooled about you. And for a reward she’ll tell you that a red wrinkled little skeezicks looks like you.”
“He’s the dearest little baby I ever saw,” protested Vicky warmly.
Scot poked a forefinger at the midriff of his heir. “I kind of like the little grasshopper myself.”
“You know very well you’re crazy about him,” Vicky answered triumphantly.
Mollie only smiled. It was not necessary for her any longer to reassure herself about Scot’s love. She knew him. The days of her doubts were past.
Presently Scot left the bedside and sat down on the arm of a big chair. “How’s Piodie, Hugh?”
“One live camp,” the younger brother answered. “Plenty of room for us there. We can put an outfit in and get all the teaming we want. One objection is that the Dodsons run the camp.”
“Run it how?”
“Own the biggest store, the stamp mills, a controlling interest in the best producing mines, the stage line, half the town site, and the sheriff.”
“Anything else?” asked Scot with a dry smile.
“A bunch of thugs and the courts. Our old friend Sam Dutch is their handy man.”
“Did you see Dutch?”
“We met,” Hugh answered briefly. “I bumped into Jim Budd and Dan Byers, too. They’re runnin’ a feed corral there. We located a bunch of prospects together. I wrote you about that.”
“Yes.”
“Took up one in yore name.”
“And one in trust for Vicky, you said in the letter.”
Hugh flushed to the roots of his hair. He turned to the girl. “A part of that fool mistake of mine. I kinda thought it might turn out a good prospect and if so you’d have it when you grew up. I didn’t aim to—to overstep.”
Victoria had been listening eagerly to every word they had said. She had her own reasons for being interested in Piodie.
“Of course you didn’t. It was for that wild little Vicky you used to know. I’ll thank you for her, but of course I can’t keep a claim you took up for me on a misunderstanding.”
“I wish you would. Not likely it’ll amount to anything. But we’ve got more than we can work now. You’re welcome as the sun in May.”
“Do you think that’s really true—about his not wanting it?” Vicky asked Scot. “I’d like to take it if—if you folks can’t use it. But I’m not going to rob you and him.”
“I’d take it, Vicky,” Scot told her. “Chances are we’ll never do the assessment work on our own claims. We’re not miners—not by business. Hugh has all he can handle without yours.”
She turned to Hugh with a brisk little nod of the dark head. “Then I’ll take it—and thank you.”
“What will you do with it now you have it?” Mollie asked.
“Do the assessment work—have a shaft dug,” answered Vicky. “I have four hundred dollars left of the Virginia Dodson Fund, and, dear people, I’m going to begin earning more week after next.”
“How?” asked her sister, surprised.
“I’ve been asked to teach school at Piodie and I accepted to-day.”
Mollie protested, and knew that her protest was in vain. Her young sister was compact of energy. It expressed itself in the untamed joyous freedom of her rhythmic tread, in the vitality of the spirit emanating from the light erect figure of the bright-eyed vestal. If she had made up her mind to go to Piodie to teach, there would be no stopping her. All Mollie could do would be to see through Scot that the girl had a good boarding place where she would be properly looked after.