The perfect harmony of it all must have oppressed him until he felt himself the one discordant note, for he closed his eyes with a sigh that was almost a groan.
“I’ll see it all again—often, I suppose,” he muttered; “but never quite as it is now—never, for it’s got to end. The little bits of gold I found are a warning of the changes to come here—that is the way it seems to me. Queer how a man will change his idea of life in a year or so! There have been times when I would have rejoiced over the prospect of wealth there is here; yet all I am actually conscious of is regret that everything must change—the place—the people—all where gold is king. Pshaw! what a fool I would seem to any one else if he knew. Yet—well, I have dreamed all my days of a sort of life where absolute happiness could be lived. 164 Other men do the same, I suppose—yes, of course. I wonder if others also come in reach of it too late. I suppose so. Well, reasoning won’t change it. I marked out my own path—marked it out with as little thought as many another fool; but I’ve got to walk in it just the same, and cursing back don’t help luck. But I had to have a little pow-wow all alone and be sorry for myself, before turning my back on the man I’d like to be—and—the rest of my dreams that have come in sight for a little while but can never come nearer—There she comes again! I’m glad of it, for she will at least keep me from drifting into dreams alone.”
But she appeared to be dreaming a little herself. At any rate, the scene she had passed through in the tent left memories too dark with feeling to be quickly dispelled, and he noticed at once the change in her face, and the traces of tears left about her eyes.
“What has hurt you?” he asked.
She shook her head and said:
“Nothing.”
“Oh! So you leave here jolly enough, and run around to camp, and cry about nothing—do you?” he asked, with evident unbelief. “Were you crying for joy over those little grains of gold—or over your loneliness in being so far from the Ferry folks?”
She laughed at the mere idea of either—and laughter dispels tear traces so quickly from faces that are young. “Lonely!” she exclaimed: “lonely here? why, I feel a heap more satisfied here than down at the Ferry, where the whole place smelled like saw-mills and new lumber. I always had a grudge against saw-mills, for they spoil all the lovely woods. That is why I like all this,” and she made a sweep of her arm, embracing all the 165 territory in sight; “for in here not a tree has been touched with an ax. Lonely here! Why, Dan, I’ve been so perfectly happy that I’m afraid—yes, I am. Didn’t you ever feel like that—just as if you were too happy to last, and you were afraid some trouble would come and end it all?”
But Overton stooped to lift the pick he had been using, and so turned his face away from her.
“Well, I’m glad you are not getting blue over lack of company,” he remarked; “for we have only commenced prospecting, you know, and it will be at least a week before we can hope to send for any one else to join us.”