Then began the weary climb out of the gorge. This was the point at which Old Sunshine most realized that he was well on the down-hill side of life. He could still do a fair day’s work, but he could not, as formerly, do a day’s work and still have a large reserve of strength left over. He climbed awhile, and then sat down to rest. Then he climbed again. Occasionally a serpent made way for him, shaking his rattles, more as a warning than a threat. He reached his own cabin at last.
“What brings you home so early?� asked his wife.
“The Colonel made me promise to quit early. He don’t like to have me work. He says he would take care of us and I guess he would, but I don’t like to let him. Please get me a lunch and then I must go down and see the Colonel.�
“What? Walk six miles to-night?�
“Yes, I can do it; it may make a big difference to the Colonel. After he went home I struck a rich vein, and I want him to know it as soon as possible. The other miners do not know it. Do not tell them. I think the vein runs off across the old ‘Dead Open and Shut’ claim. The Colonel can buy that claim for a few thousand dollars now, but after this strike gets noised abroad he may not be able to buy it at all. If I can give the Colonel warning so he can buy the Dead Open and Shut claim cheap, and if he makes a good thing out of it, then I can accept a pension from him, not as charity, but as my just due. Don’t expect me till morning. Good night.�
Luckily for the old man his journey was almost all down hill. The whole country thereabouts was a desert for the want of water. In those small sections where irrigation had been employed the land was very productive.
Old Sunshine plodded on. The sands were hot. The air was hotter. There was little beside his path to attract attention except here and there a cactus plant. Beyond the distant mountains, across the valley, the sun was setting in glory. The memory of the past years, of fortunes he had made and lost, came to him again. It was because these memories did not make him gloomy and sour, but because his hopeful nature triumphed over them, that he had won the title of Old Sunshine, and none of earth’s monarchs had a grander title.
It began to grow dark in the desert, but the western mountain-tops were still glorious. And then there came to the old man the words which had cheered him so often:
“At evening time it shall be light.�
The day of his life had been full of storms. Would its evening be peaceful and light?