I did not reply but kept on climbing steadily as fast as I could go up Spring Street, puffing for wind in the high altitude.
“Oh, leave her alone, Slim—she’s a nice girl. Come on, I want to get down to the post office.”
“Hell, all right. Well, good-bye, Baby—you better tell your husband to watch out or big bad men will be after you.”
I was really furious now. I could see he didn’t believe I was a married woman. He took me for just a common girl of the streets. Turning around, I stamped my foot and started to yell at him when the other one said:
“No offense, ma’am. Slim, here, hasn’t seen a girl like you in so long he’s forgotten his manners.”
They wheeled their horse and started off down toward Main Street, leaving me still gasping on the walk. I had been insulted. I wanted to cry, to cry for the shame of it! But as their trim backs receded in the swift-wheeling gig, I told myself this was what I had come for—adventure. And here it was. I ended by trudging on up hill with a smile flickering at the corners of my mouth.
But the smile was not to remain long. When Harvey returned that night he was dirty and tired and discouraged. He had taken a lot of samples from the sump of the shaft to the assay office. But a man he had gone to for advice in Nevadaville hadn’t thought the samples worth bothering to pay for assaying.
“You might keep on sinking your shaft and strike a better vein. But these quartz lodes you got down there now are too low grade to work,” had been his verdict.
What to do now? My heart flew into my throat. We had had only the money that Harvey’s father had left us to get started on. In a few more weeks with running a crew at the mine, our capital would be used up and if the ore were no good, we would have nothing to live on. But if we did try to keep on we might strike high-grade ten feet beyond—just like so many bonanza kings. That’s what I wanted to do and suggested we borrow money at the bank.
“I’ll help you, Harvey, I’m strong.”