The quietness outside seemed unusual. Davy looked out of his shop door, scanned the cinder heap, glanced at the puncheon seat, then at the wagon parts: nothing was moving, nothing was doing, all was darkness. The club had gone. He closed the door, put the bar across the staple, inserted the padlock, turned the key, then climbed the hillside to the back door of his house; his day’s labors were done.
CHAPTER VII.
In the Mining Camp.
Time has sped all too swiftly at the little mining camp in the Cariboo Valley. There is now only a month left of the two years set by Andy Cameron for his return to his family, and all indications thus far point to a tragic ending for the ambitions and loves of the unfortunate Glengarry farmer.
All this while the two persistent miners had worked with an unlessened zeal at their unproductive diggings. Each night, by turn, one took from the sluices the ore while the other climbed the hill overlooking the scene of their daily toils and cooked before the cabin door the simple evening meal. Many times since their coming into this mountain-locked valley had the prospectors shifted the site of their gold diggings, but to the little cabin, which stood at the foot of the steep rock looking down into the gulch, they clung, held fast by many endearing associations. Edmond LeClare,—for that was the name of Cameron’s associate—had made a few excursions up the valley to another camp of prospectors, who had come into the hills farther to the north, soon after he and Cameron had settled upon their claim, now safely marked from intruders by the evidence of their active operations. With these new friends LeClare arranged that for an exchange in gold dust he was to obtain from them the needed supplies of bacon and flour to replenish from time to time the cuisine department of their household.
Each night before the door of their cabin the miners discussed the possibilities of their undertaking. Perhaps it was that they builded their hopes upon the returns from a certain new lead they had struck in the mountain’s side. The deposits of gold taken from the sluices that day, if they should continue to be found, would surely bring to them the wealth each sought so diligently. But alas, upon exploiting to the finish each newly discovered vein of ore, the hopes of the unlucky miners tumbled as did the castles builded by them with the toy blocks of their childhood.
Not a word of complaint was uttered by Andy in the presence of his companion. His disappointment over the failure to obtain the coveted wealth with which he had hoped to redeem his home and the happiness of his wife and family was hidden within the recesses of his own breast, though to the watchful eyes of the sympathetic Edmond the wretched straits into which his friend had been thrust by the yet unprofitable workings of their gold diggings were as easy to read as though they had been in print upon the pages of an open book. While Andy toiled to live and preserve his happiness, LeClare worked and courted hardships and discouragements to deaden the misery of his soul. He had hidden his secret well, but with Andy, as the end of the time of their compact approached, the heart-breaking lack of success, the fading hope of his cherished dream of wealth, the thought of having only a bitter tale of failure to bear back to his faithful wife, Barbara,—each one of these emotions had stamped their relentless impress upon his honest, bronzed face, and while not a word had passed between the two prospectors on the subject ever uppermost in the thoughts of each, yet for Edmond LeClare, the unhappy plight of his companion was now the daily inspiration which drove him on in renewed efforts.
A few days more, thought Cameron, and he should tell his friend all. Then they must divide the paltry store of gold dust between them, and sadly at their parting and with a broken heart he would retrace his steps as best he could to his home at The Front, and there tell of his disappointment.