[Illustration: He'd come around with his plans
and specifications twice a day]
"So at it they went again, as cheerful as could be, and the next news they got, down comes the face, and they were being piped through four hundred foot of black-dark tunnel, trying to guess what was up, bumping and banging against the walls, and the whole of Castle Creek on top of them. My, Chinamen weren't a circumstance. Aggy said they boiled out of the lower end of the tunnel where he was standing so fast he couldn't recognise them, and, as a matter of fact, three or four of 'em were washed a mile down creek before they could make land. Aggy gathered that it was time to move again, so he pulled back for Idaho. There wasn't anybody really drowned, except old Tom Olley, a cousin-Jack whose only amusement in life was to wear out his pants laying low for cinches in the stud-poker game, and you couldn't rightly say he was any loss to the community. So Aggy used to regret sometimes that he hadn't stayed to face the music. They might have played horse with him for a while, but 'twould soon have blown over—miners not being revengeful by nature—and he was to have had an eighth interest, besides his salary, if the thing was a success.
"But there was no good of crying over spilt milk, and us two went prospecting.
"We located for a permanent stand down on Frenchman's Creek, near where three of Cap' Ally's greaser sheep herders had their camp. They did our hunting for us, and as there was nobody but them around, and they were the peacefullest people in the world, we didn't feel the need of any gun except Ag's old six-shooter. That was the cussedest machine that ever got invented by man. When you pulled her off she'd spit fire in all directions, filling the crotch of your hand with powder burns, and sometimes two or three of the loads would go off at once, when she'd kick like a Texas steer. There was much talk of bear around, and we were always going to buy a real gun, some day, but we never got at it.
"Well, we prospered pretty well, considering how little we worked. A large part of the time was taken up with playing monte with the herders, and still more in arguing questions about religion and things like that; but we had a decent cabin built—with the kind assistance of the herders—and as we struck a rich little streak that run out ten dollars per man a day with no trouble at all, we were in clover.
"At last our stock of grub ran low, and Jones slid up to Salmon City to load up again. It was quite a trip, and as I didn't think it was square to work while Aggy was away, I took up with the herders. They were the decentest folks I ever struck. Play a little music on the guitar, sing songs that always wound up just where a white man's songs would begin, and tell stories and smoke cigarettes—that was the layout for them. Old Cap' Allys was a Christian, and he wouldn't let a man herd sheep all by himself—surest way to get crazy that ever was invented—so he sent the boys out three in a bunch.
"Those fellers had the darndest lot of fairy tales I ever did hear. And superstitious! Great Jupiter! Any little blame thing that happened meant something: this thing was good luck; that meant bad, and if you tried to josh them out of it, they'd shake their heads and look at you as if they thought you weren't truly religious. One of their yarns was about El Diablo de Fuego, 'The Devil of Fire,' which Miguel said ran in his family. Seems that when anything wrong was about to happen, this blazing, ripping monster showed up as a warning. I told Mee that I thought the monster was misfortune enough, without anything else, but he was scandalised.
"'Psst!' says he. 'Do not spik sooch t'eeng as dthat! Ay, di mi! Je-Maria-mi Cristo! Jésu, muy dolce y poquito! Dhat mek heem arrrrrrive dthat eenstant, eef djoo spik weez dees-rrreespeck!'
"'All right, Mee,' says I. 'We'll let her go at that—todo el mismo por mi, sabe? But how's the bear crop?'