For an instant the man appeared abashed, and 33 then grumbled acridly: “Well, I can’t help it. I’ve got orders and–––”
“Oh, come on, Bill,” interrupted the owner, stepping to the nearest burro’s head. “We’ll go on over to Presby, and get rid of this man of his. It won’t hurt the burros to go a little farther.”
He turned to the watchman, who was scowling and obdurate.
“Where can Presby and the Rattler be found?” he asked crisply.
“Around the turn down at the mouth of the cañon,” the watchman mumbled. “It’s not more than half or three-quarters of a mile from here, but you’d better go back up the hill.”
As if this last suggestion was the breaking straw, the big prospector jumped forward, and caught the man’s wrist with dexterous, sinewy fingers. He gave the arm a jerk that almost took the man from his feet. His eyes were hard and sharp now, and his jaw seemed to have shut tightly.
“We’ll go back up no hill, you bet on that!” he asserted belligerently. “We go by the road. We’re done foolin’ with you, my bucko! You go ahead and show the way and be quick about it! 34 If you don’t, you’ll have trouble with me. Now git!”
He released the wrist with a shove that sent the watchman ten feet away, and cowed him to subjection. He recovered his balance, and hesitated for a minute, muttering something about “being even for that,” and then, as the big, infuriated miner took a step toward him, said: “All right! Come on,” and started toward a roadway that, half ruined, led off and was lost at a turn. Cursing softly and telling the burros that it was a shame they had to go farther on account of a fool, the prospector followed, and the little procession resumed its straggling march.
They passed the huge bunk-house, a mess-house, an assay office, what seemed to be the superintendent’s quarters, and a dozen smaller structures, all of logs, and began an abrupt descent. The top of the cañon was so high that they looked down on the roof of the big, silent stamp mill with its quarter of a mile of covered tramway stretching like a huge, weather-beaten snake to the dumps of the grizzly and breakers behind it.
The road was blasted from the side of the cañon on which they were, and far below, between them and the hoisting house and the mill, 35 ran a clear little mountain stream, undefiled for years by the silt of industry. The peak of the cross, lifting a needle point high above them, as if keeping watch over the Blue Mountains, the far-distant Idaho hills, the near-by forests of Oregon, and the puny, man-made structures at its feet, appeared to have a lofty disdain of them and the burrowings into its mammoth sides, as if all ravagers were mere parasites, mad to uncover its secrets of gold, and futile, if successful, to wreak the slightest damage on its aged heart.