Born with a strong will and a character endowed with force, determination and a grimly passive endurance, it was his pleasure to test and develop both. The process was satisfactory to himself but sometimes trying to his friends.
Until this morning he had not permitted his mind to revert to the subject. But although the hill—Limestone Hill it was called in the commonplace nomenclature of the country—was far away and out of the range of his vision, he could conjure it up in its minutest external detail, and he permitted himself this luxury for a few moments after his wife had left him to a welcome solitude. On this hill were centred all his silent hopes.
If he had been greedy for riches alone he would have promoted a company at once, if a cut opened up a chamber that assayed well, and reaped the harvest with little or no trouble to himself. But nothing was farther from his mind. He wanted the supreme adventure. He wanted to find the ores with his own pick. After the adventure, then the practical use of wealth. There was much he could do for his state. He knew also that in one group of brain-cells, as yet unexplored, was the ambition to enter the lists of “doing” men, and pit his wits against the best of them. But he was young, he would have his adventure, live his dream first. Not yet, however.
The swift passing of his marital illusions had convinced him that the real passion of his life was for Montana and the golden blood in her veins. Placer mining never had interested him. He wanted to find his treasure deep in the jealous earth. He assured himself as he stood there in the blue dawn that it was well to be rid of love so early in the game, free to devote himself, with no let from wandering mind and mere human pulses, to preparation for the greatest of all romances, the romance of mining. That he might ever crave the companionship of one woman was as remote from his mind as the possibility of failure. To learn all that man and experience could teach him of the science that has been so great a factor in the world’s progress; to magnetise a vast share of Earth’s riches, first for the hot work of the battle, then for the power it would give him; to conquer life; these were a few of the flitting dreams that possessed him as he watched the red flame lick the white crests of the mountains, and the blue clouds turn to crimson; his long sensitive lips folded closely, his narrow eyes penetrating the mists of the future, neither seeing nor considering its obstacles, its barriers, its disenchantments. Thrice happy are the dreamers of the world, when their imaginations are creative, not a mere maggot wandering through the brain hatching formless eggs of desire and discontent. They are the true inheritors of the centuries, whether they succeed or fail in the eyes of men; for they live in vivid silent intense drama as even they have no power to live and enjoy in mortal conditions.
IV
THE Comptons were quickly settled in the little cottage in East Granite Street, for as Mrs. Hook’s furniture was solid Ida had not sold it. There was little to do, therefore, but repaper the walls, build a bathroom, furnish a dining-room, send the parlour furniture to the upholsterers—Ida had had enough of horsehair—and chattel the kitchen.
Ida had several virtues in which she took a vocal pride, and not the least of these was housekeeping in all its variety. The luxurious side of her nature might revel in front parlours, trashy magazines, rocking-chairs and chewing-gum, but she never indulged in these orgies unless her house were in order. After her arrival in Butte it was quite a month before she gave a thought to leisure. They spent most of this time at a hotel, but Ida was out before the stores opened, and divided her day between the workmen at the cottage, the upholsterer, and the bargain counter. She was “on the job” every minute until the cottage was “on wheels.” Her taste was neither original nor artistic, but she had a rude sense of effect, and a passion for what she called colour schemes. She boasted to Gregory at night, when she had him at her mercy at the hotel dinner-table, that although everything had to be cheap except the kitchen furnishings, colours did not cost any more than black or drab. When the cottage was in order, and they moved in, he saw its transfigured interior for the first time. The bedroom was done in a pink that set his teeth on edge, and the little parlour was papered, upholstered, carpeted, cushioned in every known shade of red.
“All you want is a chromo or two of Indian battlegrounds—just after,” he remarked.
Ida interrupted tartly:
“Well, I should think you’d be grateful for the contrast to them everlasting white or brown mountains. We don’t get away from them even in town, now the smoke’s gone.”