He went out of her life and back to the business routine of his own. In work he would try to forget his wounds. Later there were investments that turned out badly, and he lost heavily—lost all.
Then he came West. Here, in the Nevada mountains, he had found companionship in Sidney Williston who, like himself, was a seeker for gold. A general similarity of tastes brought about by their former ways of living (for Williston, too, was an eastern man) had been the one reason for each choosing the companionship of the other. So, here in the paintless pine cabin in Porcupine Gulch, each working his separate claim, they had been living under the same roof for nearly two years; but Fate, that sees fit to play us strange tricks sometimes, had laid a fortune in Williston’s hands, while Keith’s were yet empty.
Sidney Williston’s silence, when asked what he would do with his wealth, was answer enough. It would be for Gloria Howard. There he sat now, thinking of her—planning for her.
Millers, red-winged moths and flying ants fluttered around the candle, blindly batting at the burning wick and falling with singed wings on the table. The wind was rising again, and the blaze at times was nearly snuffed out, moth-beaten and blown by the strong breeze.
All the morning the sun had laid its hot hand heavily on the earth between the places where dense white clouds hung without a motion in the breathless sky. The clouds had spread great dark shadows on the cliffs below, where they clung to the rocks like time-blackened and century-old lichens. But in the shadowless spots the sun’s rays were intensely hot, as they so often are before a coming storm; while the fierce heat for the time prostrated plant-life, and sent the many tiny animals of the hills to those places where the darkest shadows lay. Flowers were wilting where they grew. White primroses growing in the sandy soil near the cabin had but the night before lifted their pale, sweet faces to the moon’s soft light—lovely evening primroses growing straight and strong. Noonday saw them drooping weakly on their stalks, blushing a rosy, shamed pink; kissed into color by the amorous caresses of that rough lover, the Sun. Night would find them faded and unlovely, their purity and sweetness ruthlessly wrested from them forever.
As the sun climbed to the zenith, there was not the slightest wind stirring; the terrible heat lay, fold on fold, upon the palpitating earth. But noon came and brought a breeze from out of the south. Stronger and stronger it swept toward the blue mountains lying away to the northward. It gathered up sand particles and dust, and shook them out into the air till the sunlight was dulled, and the great valley below showed through a mist of gold. All the afternoon the atmosphere was oppressively hot, while the wind hurried over valley and upland and mountain. All the afternoon the dust storm in billowy clouds hurried on, blowing—blowing—blowing. A whistling wind it was, keeping up its mournful song in the cracks of the unpainted cabin, and whipping the burlap awning over the door into ragged shreds at the edges. The dark green window shades flapped and rattled their length, carried out level from their fastenings by the force of the hot in-blowing wind.
Then with the down-going of the sun the wind died down also. When twilight came, the heavens were overcast with rain-clouds that told of a hastening storm which would leave the world fresh and cool when it had passed. The horizon line was brightened now and again by zigzags of lightning. Inside the cabin the close air was full of dust particles.
Sidney Williston tossed a photograph across the table, as he gathered his papers together preparatory to putting them away.
“There’s my wife’s picture, Keith,” he said; “I don’t think I ever showed it to you, did I?”
Keith got up—six feet, and more, of magnificent manhood; tall, he was, and straight as a pine, and holding his head in kingly wise. Leisurely he walked across the bare floor, which echoed loudly to his tread; leisurely he picked it up.