The crowd was astounded; men of Fourteenth Street’s calibre seldom had pluck enough to go to the mines, and their getting away, or their doing any thing that required manliness, was of still more unfrequent occurrence.
“I know it,” said the young man, translating the glances which met his eye. “You fellows think I don’t amount to much, anyway. Perhaps I don’t. I came out here because I fell out with a girl I thought I loved. She acted like a fool, and I made up my mind all women were fools. But that wife of Blizzer’s has shown me more about true womanliness than all the girls I ever knew, and I’m going back to try it over again.”
One morning a small crowd of early drinkers at Sim Ripson’s dropped their glasses, yet did not go briskly out to work as usual. In fact, they even hung aloof, in a most ungentlemanly manner, from Jerry Miller, who had just stood treat, and both these departures from the usual custom indicated that something unusual was the matter. Finally, Topjack remarked:
“He’s a stranger, an’ typhus is a bad thing to hev aroun’, but somethin’ ‘ort to be done for him. ’Taint the thing to ax fur volunteers, fur it’s danger without no chance of pleasin’ excitement. We might throw keerds aroun’, one to each feller in the camp, and him as gets ace of spades is to tend to the poor cuss.”
“I think Jerry ought to go himself,” argued Flipp. “He’s been exposed already, by lookin’ in to the feller’s shanty, an’s prob’bly hurt ez bad as he’s goin’ to be.”
“I might go,” said Sim Ripson, who, in his character of barkeeper, had to sustain a reputation for bravery and public spirit, “but ’twouldn’t do to shut up the store, ye know, an’ specially the bar—nobody’d stan’ it.”
“Needn’t trouble yerselves,” said Arkansas Bill, who had entered during the conversation; “she’s thar.”
“Thunder!” exclaimed Topjack, frowning, and then looking sheepish.
“Yes,” continued Bill; “she stopped me ez I wuz comin’ along, an’ sed she’d jist heerd of it, an’ was a-goin’. I tol’ her ther’ wuz men enough in camp to look out fur him, but she said she reckoned she could do it best. Wants some things from ’Frisco, though, an’ I’m a-goin’ for ’em.”
And Arkansas Bill departed, while the men at Sim Ripson’s sneaked guiltily down to the creek.