"I wonder," he began after a pause, "what Lon’s up to here, anyway."
The question started Weimer on his favorite topic, the claim jumpers and the injustice of the mining laws. He could not talk fast enough in English, and so dropped into his native German.
Ross, accustomed to his tirades, cleared away the dishes, pushed the table back against the dirt chinked logs, and lay down on the blankets of his bunk for a few moments, his eyes glued on the little nickel clock.
He broke into the other’s scolding monologue. "In ten minutes we must go back to work."
Weimer scowled darkly. His lids, red and swollen, almost obscured his pale-blue eyes. "Mine eyes ist too pad to-day," he declared. "I vill not to go out in de sun again."
A few weeks before, this oft-repeated declaration had alarmed Ross. Now he made no reply. But, when the hands of the nickel clock indicated one, he arose and put on his oiled jumper and oilskin cap.
"Come, Uncle Jake," he said in a strong, decided tone. "Here are your goggles. Get busy, or the McKenzie outfit will have our claims in spite of us. Now, when there are three to watch instead of two, we must show the mettle we’re made of."
Moved by the magic statement, ever new and ever powerful, that the claims might be jumped, Uncle Jake, forgetting that in substance he had made the same objection to work twice a day for weeks and that Ross had overcome his objections in substantially the same way, "got busy." And presently Ross led him out, his eyes not only securely goggled, but covered as well with a black cloth which he pressed fearfully against the goggles.
The snow was Weimer’s evil genius. He lived in dread of the sight of it. Without assistance he would not move a dozen paces away from the cabin after the sun had risen on Meadow Creek Valley. But the fear of the light had made as great an impression on his mind as the light itself had made on his eyes, and he had fallen into the habit, before Ross came, of staying in his cabin during cloudy days, lest, if he ventured out, the sun might break through the clouds.
The old partner and the young went up the steep trail to the tunnel, Ross leading Weimer up over the side of the dump and into the mouth of the tunnel. In the shelter of its gloom the latter removed his goggles; and, stumbling along over the chunks of ore lying beside the narrow track, he reached the end of the short tunnel which had been blasted from the solid rock. Lighting a fresh candle, he set it in its socket at the end of a sharply pointed iron, a miner’s candlestick, and, jabbing the point into a crevice, leisurely surveyed the wall before him. Behind him the little empty car filled the tunnel with sound as Ross pushed it rattling and jolting over the rusty rails.