"—mean you were a caveman! You're my big brother!"
"—mean you were a snob!"
They drove five miles along the highway, then up a trail where the Gomez brushed the undergrowth on each side as it desperately dug into moss, rain-gutted ruts, loose rocks, all on a vicious slant which seemed to push the car down again. Beside them, the mountain woods were sacredly quiet, with fern and lily and green-lit spaces. They came out in a clearing, before dusk. Beside the clearing was a brook, with a crude cradle—sign of a not very successful gold miner. Before a log cabin, in a sway-sided rocker, creaked a tall, white, flabby woman, once nearly beautiful, now rubbed at the edges. She rose, huddling her wrapper about her bosom, as they drove into the clearing and picked their way through stumps and briars.
"Where you folks think you're going?" she whimpered.
"Why, why just——"
"I cer'nly am glad to see somebody! I been 'most scared to death. Been here alone two weeks now. Got a shotgun, but if anybody come, I guess they'd take it away from me. I was brought up nice, no rough-house or—— Say, did you folks come to see the gold-mine?"
"M-mine?" babbled Milt.
"Course not. Pinky said I was to show it, but I'm so sore on that low-life hound now, I swear I won't even take the trouble and lie about it. No more gold in that crick than there is in my eye. Or than there's flour or pork in the house!"
The woman's voice was rising. Her gestures were furious. Claire and Milt stood close, their hands slipping together.
"What d' you think of a man that'd go off and leave a lady without half enough to eat, while he gallivanted around, trying to raise money by gambling, when he was offered a good job up here? He's a gambler—told me he was a rich mine-owner, but never touched a mine in his life. Lying hound—worst talker in ten counties! Got a gambler's hand on him, too—I ought to seen it! Oh, wait till I get hold of him; just wait!"