And for her, these years? What had they meant? By the internal combustion which had so suddenly lighted up the dark corners of his being, he saw with almost clairvoyant distinctness how it must have been. He saw her growing older, as he had grown older, but in the dull apathy of monotony. She had none of this great filling Labour wherewith to drug herself into day-dreams of a future. The seasons as they passed showed her the same faces, growing ever a little more jaded, as dancers in the light of dawn. Perhaps she had ceased counting them? No, he knew better than that. But the pity of it! washing, scrubbing, mending; mending, scrubbing, washing to the time of an invalid's complaints. To-day she was doing as she had done yesterday; to-morrow she would do the same. To-morrow?
"No, by God!" cried Peter, starting to his feet. "There shall be no more to-morrow!"
He took from the shelf over the window a number of pieces of quartz, which he stuffed into the pockets of a pair of saddle-bags lying near the door. In the corral was Jenny, a sleek, fat mare. He saddled Jenny and departed with the saddle-bags, leaving the door of his cabin open to the first comer, as is the hospitable Western way.
At Beaver Dam he spread the chunks of rock out on the bar of the principal saloon and invited inspection. He did not think to find a purchaser among the inhabitants of Beaver Dam, but he knew that the tidings of his discoveries would arouse interest and attract other prospectors to the locality of his claims. In this manner his property would come prominently on the market.
The discoveries certainly were accorded attention enough. Peter was well known. Men were perfectly sure of his veracity and his mining instinct. If Peter said there existed a good lode of the stuff he exhibited to them, that settled it.
"Hum," said a man named Squint-eye Dobs, after examining a bit of the transparent crystal through which small kernels of yellow metal shone. Then he laid down the specimen, and walked quietly out the door without further comment. He had gone to get his outfit ready.
To others, not so prompt of action, Peter explained at length, always in that hesitating, diffident voice of his.
"I have my claims all staked," said he; "you boys can come up and hook onto what's left. There's plenty left. I ain't saying it's as good as mine; still, it's pretty good. I think it'll make a camp."
"Make a camp!" shouted Cheyenne Harry. "I should think it would! If there's any more like that up country you can sell a 'tater-patch if it lays anywheres near the district!"
"Well, I must be goin', boys," said Peter, sidling toward the door; "and I 'spect I'll see some of you boys up there?"