“Well,” said Mr. Haydon, with a slight smile, “I appear to be rather unfortunate in all my surmises over the people of this new country, especially this new camp. I do not know whether it is because I am in a stupid mood, or because I have come among people too peculiar to be judged by ordinary standards. But the thing I am interested in above and beyond our host and his protégée is the gold mine he wrote you to find a buyer for. I think I could appreciate that, at least, at its full value, if I was allowed a sight of the output.”
The doctor had hurried to the cabin even before Overton and Miss Slocum, so the two gentlemen were left by themselves, to follow at their leisure. Mr. Haydon seemed a trifle resentful at this indifferent reception.
“One would think this man had been making big deals in gold ore all his life, and was perfectly indifferent as to whether our capital is to be used to develop this find of his,” he remarked, as they approached the cabin. “Did you not tell me he was a poor man?”
“Oh, yes. Poor in gold or silver of the United States mint,” agreed Lyster, with a strong endeavor to keep down his impatience of this magnate of the speculative world, this wizard of the world of stocks and bonds, whom his partners deferred to, whose nod and beck meant much in a circle of capitalists. “I myself, when back East,” thought Lyster to himself, “considered Haydon a wonderful man, but he seems suddenly to have grown dwarfed and petty in my eyes, and I wonder that I ever paid such reverence to his judgment.”
He smiled dubiously to himself at the consciousness that the wide spirit of the West must have already changed his own views of things somewhat, since once he had thought this marketer of mines superior. 190
“But no one out here would think of calling Dan Overton poor,” he continued, “simply because he is not among the class that weighs a man’s worth by the dollars he owns. He is considered one of the solid men of the district—one of the best men to know. But no one thinks of gauging his right to independence by the amount of his bank account.”
Mr. Haydon shrugged his shoulders, and tapped his foot with the gold-headed umbrella he carried.
“Oh, yes. I suppose it seems very fine in young minds and a young country, to cultivate an indifference to wealth; but to older minds and civilization it grows to be a necessity. Is that object over there also one of the solid men of the community?”
It was Akkomi he had reference to, and the serene manner with which the old fellow glanced over them, and nonchalantly smoked his pipe in the doorway, did give him the appearance of a fixture about the camp, and puzzled Lyster somewhat, for he had never before met the ancient chief.
He nodded his head, however, saying “How?” in friendly greeting, and the Indian returned the civility in the same way, but gave slight attention to the speaker. All the attention of his little black eyes was given to the stranger, who did not address him, and whose gaze was somewhat critical and altogether contemptuous.