She sighed. "No, never mind. I'll ring her up after you've gone."
She clung to me tightly, so that I wondered what had got into the girl. Then gently I kissed her, disengaged her hands, and bade her good-night.
As I was rattling off through the darkness, a boy handed me a note. I put it in my pocket, thinking I would read it when I reached Ogilvie Bridge. Then I whipped up the horse.
The night was crisp and exhilarating. I had one of the best trotters in the country, and the sleighing was superb. As I sped along, with a jingle of bells, my spirits rose. Things were looking splendid. The mine was turning out far better than we had expected. Surely we could sell out soon, and I would have all the money I wanted. Even then the Prodigal was putting through a deal in New York that would realise our fortunes. My life-struggle was nearly over.
Then again, I had reconciled Garry to Berna. When I told him of a certain secret I was hugging to my breast he would capitulate entirely. How happy we would all be! I would buy a small estate near home, and we would settle down. But first we would spend a few years in travel. We would see the whole world. What good times we would have, Berna and I! Bless her! It had all worked out beautifully.
Why was she so frightened, so loath to let me go? I wondered vaguely and flicked up the horse so that it plunged sharply forward. The vast blue-black sky was like an inverted gold-pan and the stars were flake colours adhering to it. The cold snapped at me till my cheeks tingled, and my eyes felt as if they could spark. Oh, life was sweet!
Bother! In my elation I had forgotten to get off at the Old Inn and read my note. Never mind, I would keep it till I reached the Forks.
As I spun along, I thought of how changed it all was from the Bonanza I first knew. How I remembered tramping along that hillside slope, packing a sack of flour over a muddy trail, a poor miner in muddy overalls! Now I was driving a smart horse on a fine road. I was an operator of a first-class mine. I was a man of business, of experience. Higher and higher my spirits rose.
How fast the horse flew! I would be at the Forks in no time. I flashed past cabin windows. I saw the solitary oil-lamp and the miner reading his book or filling his pipe. Never was there a finer, more intelligent man; but his day was passing. The whole country was falling into the hands of companies. Soon, thought I, one or two big combines would control the whole wealth of that land. Already they had their eyes on it. The gold-ships would float and roar where the old-time miner toiled with pick and pan. Change! Change!
I almost fancied I could see the monster dredges ploughing up the valley, where now men panted at the windlass. I could see vast heaps of tailings filling the creek-bed; I could hear the crash of the steel grizzlies; I could see the buckets scooping up the pay-dirt. I felt strangely prophetic. My imagination ran riot in all kinds of wonders, great power plants, quartz discoveries. Change! Change!