The voice at Johnnywater

by B. M. Bower

It takes practice to handle dynamite to the best advantage, and Gary did not always shoot the gangue cleanly away from the ore, but mixed some of his richest values with the muck. To offset that, he used the pick as much as possible and sorted the ore carefully at the bottom of the incline shaft, before he threw it to the surface.

Any experienced miner would have made better footage in a day, but it is doubtful if any man would have put in longer shifts or worked harder. And it is a great pity that Patricia could not have watched him for a day and appreciated the full strength of his devotion to her interests.

At the end of ten days, Gary had gone five feet into his crosscut, and was hoping to make better footage now that his muscles had adjusted themselves somewhat to the labor. His hands, too, had hardened amazingly. Altogether, Gary felt that he was justified in thinking mighty well of himself. There were so many things for which he was thankful, and there were so few for which he felt regret.

He did not even worry about Patricia, now that he was accomplishing something really worth while for her. It amused him to picture Patricia’s astonishment when he returned to Los Angeles and told her that he had investigated Johnnywater ranch very carefully, and that she could not expect to make a nickel running cattle over there. He would tell her that his hunch had been a bird. He dramatized for himself her indignation and chuckled at the way she would fly at him for daring to convince her that she had made a foolish investment.

Then, when she had called him a lot of names and argued and squared her chin—then he would tell her that he had found the makings of a wedding ring at Johnnywater, and that he would expect her finger to be ready for it the minute it was cool enough to wear. After he had teased her sufficiently, he would tell her how he and the pinto cat had located “The Pat Connolly” mine; he would ask her for the job of general manager, because he would want to make sure that half of Patricia’s millions were not being stolen from her.

Now that the cañon held a potential fortune, Gary could appreciate its picturesque setting and could contemplate with pleasure the prospect of spending long summers there with Patricia. He would locate sufficient claims to protect the cañon from an influx of strangers, and they would have it for their own special little corner of the world. It is astonishing how prosperity will change a man’s point of view.

Six feet into the crosscut, Gary’s round of holes shot unexpectedly through hard rock into a close-packed mass of broken malapi. The stuff had no logical right to be there, breaking short off the formation and vein. Had the vein pinched out and the malapi come in gradually, he might have seen some geologic reason for the change. But the whole face of his crosscut opened up malapi bowlders and “nigger-heads.”

Gary filled his two buckets and carried them out into the shaft, dumping them disgustedly on the floor. It was like being shaken out of a blissful dream. He would have given a good deal just then for the presence of his old field boss, who was wise in all the vagaries of mineral formations. But there was ore still in the loosened muck, and Gary went back after it, thinking that he would make a clean job of that side before he started crosscutting the vein to the right of the shaft.

He filled one bucket. Then his shovel struck into something tough and yielding. Gary stooped, holding his candle low. He groped with his hand and pulled out a shapeless, earth-stained felt hat, with part of a skull inside it.

He dropped the gruesome thing and made for the opening, took the steep incline like a scared centipede and sat down weakly on a rock, drawing the back of his hand again and again across his clammy forehead. His knees shook. The flesh of his entire body was all aquiver with the horror of it.