Here at the close of the day, standing before the door of their rudely-constructed hut, the two hopeful miners, already fast friends, silently watched the setting of the sun. Neither had told of the friends left at home; Andy had kept sacred within his heart the need, the incentive, which drove him forward facing the desperate chances of death by starvation or sickness, to discover the hidden treasures of this almost impenetrable region, and his companion was equally reticent as to his own counsels of the past. Willing to lead in the trail where almost certain death seemed ahead, he had proved himself many times in their short acquaintance a man of reckless daring. The look each encountered in the other’s eyes upon this eve, as they watched the sun go down behind the opposite hills, plainly said: “My secret is a sacred one; ask me nothing.”
On the morrow they were to begin their task of digging for the yellow nuggets, in the search for which thousands of others had gone into the same ranges, many to join the bandit gangs of roving miners, never again to return to their loved ones, others to sicken and die with the malignant fevers of camp life, and a few—a very few—to realize their dreams, and return again to their homes, bearing with them the shining golden nuggets, at the sight of which a new army of inspired prospectors would soon be started upon its way to repeat the same acts in the great drama entitled “The Hunt for Gold.”
And here we leave for the present, Andy and his youthful partner to dig for the elusive golden specks which had drawn them onward with a terrible fascination for thousands of miles. They are now securely hidden away in the mountain fastnesses where never a human voice nor the tread of man had yet fallen.
CHAPTER V.
At the Four Corners.
In the Arcadian neighborhood of our story, as is true of all rural sections, there are at the four corners of the road the indispensable blacksmith’s shop, the general store, the wheelwright’s place and the creamery or the cheese factory. As places of business they always flourish, not because of the enterprise or business tact of the proprietors, but because, for the most part, of the natural demand created by the wear and tear of implements used in pursuit of the absolute necessities for the maintenance of life by the populace of the district.