As the Summer wore away, her suitors dropped off like early candidates for office, and left the field almost entirely to the two leading men of the camp—Sandy and the Parson.
Sandy was a man of magnificent stature, with a graceful flow of sandy beard, but, as I have said, an awkward child of nature. A born leader of men, but a man who declined to lead unless forced to come to the front by his fellows and for the time take charge of whatever matter was under consideration in the camp. Sandy was a man you believed in, trusted, and honored from the first. There was not a crafty fiber or thought in his physical or mental make-up.
The Parson was a successful miner; a massive, Gothic man, though not so tall as Sandy. He had been a sailor, I think. At all events, he had a blue band of Indian ink, with little diamonds of red set in between the bands, on his left wrist. Possibly it was his right wrist, for I can not recall positively at this distance of time, but I think it was the left.
The Parson was the first authority in history, politics, theology, anything whatever that came up. I do not think he was learned; but he was always so positive, and always so ready with his opinions, and always so ready to back them up too, that all were willing to ask his opinion in matters of doubt, and few were willing to question his replies.
After awhile it became talked about that Sandy was losing ground with the Widow—or, rather, that the Parson was having it pretty much his own way there, as in other things in the camp, and that Sandy rarely put in an appearance.
A year went by and then a pretty little cottage began to peep through the trees from a little hill back of town; and then it came out that this, with its glass windows and green window-blinds, was the property of the Parson, and destined as the home of the Widow.
I think the camp was rather pleased at this. True there was a bit of ambition and a grain of cunning too in the Parson's nature, which made the free, wild men of the mountains look upon him sometimes with less favor than they did on Sandy. Still some of them liked him, and all were glad that the Widow was to have a home at last.
But somehow the wedding did not come on as soon as was expected, and the Widow kept on rubbing, rubbing, day after day, week after week, as if nothing of the kind was ever to happen to her.
Late in the Fall, one evening, as the men stood in a semicircle in the Howling Wilderness saloon, with their backs to the blazing log fire, Sandy brought his fist down emphatically on the bar, as he took part in the conversation, and, turning to the crowd, said:
"It's an everlastin' and a burnin' shame!"