CHAPTER XVI
UNEXPECTED COMPANY
The next morning everybody at the Headquarters of the Never-Give-Up California Mining Company was up an hour before the sun flashed its golden light over the tops of the eastern mountains and down on the log cabins and tents of Hangtown. All the workers in the mining-camps went to bed early, tired out with their hard day's work with pick and shovel, slept soundly, and arose early the next morning to begin another day of toil. Only the drones—the gamblers, the saloon-keepers, and their foolish patrons—burned the midnight oil, or, rather in this case, the midnight candle, for there was little oil to burn in these camps. Hence it was that when Thure and Bud hurried out of the house to wash their hands and faces in a near-by spring, they saw that they were far from being the only early risers, that the smoke was rising from the chimneys of nearly every log cabin in sight and that in front of nearly every tent glowed a camp-fire, around which the cooks already could be seen preparing breakfast.
"Well, this is great!" declared Bud, as he dashed the cool, refreshing water over his face. "I feel like a new man already. There must be something in this mountain air that gets into the blood and puts new life into a fellow. Say, but isn't this a beautiful sight, like—like a picture painted by a great artist!" and his eyes swept over the surrounding scene, now just becoming visible through the light of the early dawn.
"You are right, it is a beautiful scene," and Thure stood up and allowed his eyes to drink in, with all the enthusiasm of youth, the beauties of the scene; "but, I reckon, there is no artist that can paint a picture the equal of that," and he pointed to the distant tops of the eastern mountains. "It takes the brush of God to paint that kind of pictures!"
And Thure was right. No artist's skill could transfer to canvas the full glories of such a scene as now delighted the eyes of Thure and Bud.
The first rays of the morning's sun flamed upon the snow-covered tops of the mountains towering high above their heads to the eastward, while the mountainsides and valleys were still dark with the shadows of night; and everywhere the flaming light of morning struck the crystal-white of the snow on mountain top and pinnacle, that peak was crowned with a glorious halo that glowed, first with grayish violet lights, swiftly changing to crimson and rose, and from rose to gold, until, suddenly, the whole peak blazed forth in the glorious light of the full-risen sun. A vision for an artist to rhapsodize over; but for a God to paint!
"Bre'kfust! First an' last call tew bre'kfust!" yelled Ham from the open door of the house, just as the sun burst over the tops of the mountains.
"I feel as if I had just been to church," Thure said reverently, as the two boys started back to the house.
"So do I," agreed Bud. "Only no church or priest ever seem to bring God as close to a fellow as such a scene as that does. I don't see how anybody can live in the mountains and not believe in God."