Bill rigged a sweep arrangement which miners call a whim. It was the duty of the burros to walk round and round in a circle, and hoist the muck, when the two men settled down to their mining. They didn't like it, but they did like their pint of rolled barley at the end of the shift, so that even the burros became resigned to their labor; so resigned that they would walk of their own accord into their places, ready to be harnessed to the whim.
One evening, when Tommy failed to show up after supper, Bill unhooked the saxophone case from its nail in the ridgepole and took out the instrument, fitting it together tentatively as if he were not at all sure that he would want to play it or do more than look it over. That first winter on the Coast, before his dreams had died of starvation, Bill had yielded to temptation and arranged for lessons on the saxophone. A Sunday advertisement had given him the idea, and Bill had worked hard, practising for two hours a day at a studio under the tutelage of a stern but thorough teacher. That was before he awoke to the fact that saxophones were not for the elect, and that Doris declined to agree with him that it would be nice if they could play things together.
The valves were stiff, to begin with. Bill oiled them carefully and tried out his fingering. Swinging a single-jack, he discovered, did not tend to increase the flexibility of the fingers, but not all his patient work in the studio was lost. He wiped the mouthpiece absently, adjusted the reed to his liking and began to play, while Luella screamed at him hysterically.
"Fer Gawd sake, Bill!" she implored, just as Tommy came panting into the yard, having run all the way from his saloon.
"Don't you start in," Bill warned, looking up under his eyebrows at Tommy while he went down to low C and lingered there heartrendingly, finishing "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep" to his own satisfaction, at least.
"Fer Gaw-wd sake!" Tommy breathed in an awed half-whisper. "There'll be no pinochle this night, Bill Dale. Yuh'll be playin' music—an' it hits the spot—it does that!" He did not mention what spot, and Bill did not ask.
To Bill, the saxophone marked a milestone in his troubles. He could play it and enjoy himself without thinking too bitterly of Doris. But he never explained to himself why it was that he stuck to the things he had learned in San Francisco; why it was that he never played "Love's Old Sweet Song."