It was decided that night that Mrs. Mavor should go the next week. A miner and his wife were going east, and I too would join the party.
The camp went into mourning at the news; but it was understood that any display of grief before Mrs. Mavor was bad form. She was not to be annoyed.
But when I suggested that she should leave quietly, and avoid the pain of saying good-bye, she flatly refused—
‘I must say good-bye to every man. They love me and I love them.’
It was decided, too, at first, that there should be nothing in the way of a testimonial, but when Craig found out that the men were coming to her with all sorts of extraordinary gifts, he agreed that it would be better that they should unite in one gift. So it was agreed that I should buy a ring for her. And were it not that the contributions were strictly limited to one dollar, the purse that Slavin handed her when Shaw read the address at the farewell supper would have been many times filled with the gold that was pressed upon the committee. There were no speeches at the supper, except one by myself in reply on Mrs. Mavor’s behalf. She had given me the words to say, and I was thoroughly prepared, else I should not have got through. I began in the usual way: ‘Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Mavor is—’ but I got no further, for at the mention of her name the men stood on the chairs and yelled until they could yell no more. There were over two hundred and fifty of them, and the effect was overpowering. But I got through my speech. I remember it well. It began—
‘Mrs. Mavor is greatly touched by this mark of your love, and she will wear your ring always with pride.’ And it ended with—
‘She has one request to make, that you will be true to the League, and that you stand close about the man who did most to make it. She wishes me to say that however far away she may have to go, she is leaving her heart in Black Rock, and she can think of no greater joy than to come back to you again.’
Then they had ‘The Sweet By and By,’ but the men would not join in the refrain, unwilling to lose a note of the glorious voice they loved to hear. Before the last verse she beckoned to me. I went to her standing by Craig’s side as he played for her. ‘Ask them to sing,’ she entreated; ‘I cannot bear it.’
‘Mrs. Mavor wishes you to sing in the refrain,’ I said, and at once the men sat up and cleared their throats. The singing was not good, but at the first sound of the hoarse notes of the men Craig’s head went down over the organ, for he was thinking I suppose of the days before them when they would long in vain for that thrilling voice that soared high over their own hoarse tones. And after the voices died away he kept on playing till, half turning toward him, she sang alone once more the refrain in a voice low and sweet and tender, as if for him alone. And so he took it, for he smiled up at her his old smile full of courage and full of love.
Then for one whole hour she stood saying good-bye to those rough, gentle-hearted men whose inspiration to goodness she had been for five years. It was very wonderful and very quiet. It was understood that there was to be no nonsense, and Abe had been heard to declare that he would ‘throw out any cotton-backed fool who couldn’t hold himself down,’ and further, he had enjoined them to remember that ‘her arm wasn’t a pump-handle.’