CHAPTER III
Two weeks had passed since the accident. Loring, whose life had been at first despaired of, was gaining fast in strength, and enjoying the first real comfort that he had known in months. As he lay quietly on the hard canvas cot, the rough company hospital seemed to him a dream of luxury.
His cot had been placed close to the door, where he could look out over the little camp. The early morning light brought the whiteness of the tents scattered about the plateau into clear contrast with the shadowy brownness of the surrounding mountains, while in the sunlight the yellow pine framework of the intermingled shacks sparkled brightly. The smelter pounded away steadily, great wreaths of smoke pouring from its chimneys, the blast sucking and breathing like some huge driven beast. Intermingled with the sound was the clanging rasp of shovels, as the smelter stokers piled coke into the furnace. Over on the far mountain a wood-laden burro train was picking its way slowly down the trail. In the thin morning air the tinkle of the bells on the animals’ necks and the sharp calls of the drivers carried clear across the valley. Close by the smelter, in the midst of the coal dust and cinders, stood a jaded horse, with a harness made of chains. For two days it had fascinated Loring to see the deft way in which the driver hooked this horse to the glowing slag pots, and drove him along the narrow track that led out on the slag dump. With the childishness of the sick, he harbored a deep grudge against the shack, behind which the horse, with his molten load, would always disappear. This prevented his seeing the operation of dumping the slag, which he felt must be highly interesting. At the other side of the doorway he could just see the corner of a newly finished shack. He looked a bit gloomily at the completed building, for it had been delightful to watch the carpenters at work upon it. In two days the whole house had been finished, even to the tin roofing. This tin roofing, by the way, had brought Stephen much joy, for the carpenter’s assistant had laid the plates from top down, instead of beginning at the bottom, so that the joints would overlap and be water-tight. In consequence the whole roofing had been ripped off and done over again.
The morning shift was just going to work, and the hurrying groups of men passed the door on their way up to the mine. At the watering-trough each stopped, and plunging his canteen deep into the water, held it there until the burlap and flannel casing was saturated, ensuring a cooling drink for them during their work. Loring laughed at himself when he found himself wishing that they would not all wear blue denim overalls.
Little water boys struggled past, each with a pole, like a yoke across his shoulders, from either end of which hung a bucket. The men greeted them as they passed, with calls of “Go-od boy!” “Bueno muchacho!” Several of the men, as they passed, greeted Stephen with shy exclamations of “Eh, amigo—Cóm’ estamos?” Then they went on to their work beneath the ground. Loring was touched by these inquiries for his welfare, and smiled in a friendly fashion at each.
Loring’s smile had been one of his worst enemies, for it had so often prevented people from telling him what they thought of him. It combined a sensitiveness which was unexplained by the rather heavy molding of his chin, with a humor which only one who had carefully studied his eyes would be prepared for. It was an exasperating smile to those who did not like him, for it possessed a quality of goodness and strength to which they thought he had no right as an accompaniment to his character. On the other hand, it was one of the attributes which most strongly attracted his friends. It was not an analytical smile, so it put him in touch with unanalytical people, yet it had a certain deprecating twist which could convey a hint of subtlety.
When the seven o’clock whistle blew, Loring thought of the gang at the road camp lined up for ten hours of relentless toil, and he breathed deep in contentment.
“It is great to be laid up for a respectable cause,” he thought. Memories of the times that he had spent at an old university in the East came to him. He looked about him at the rough, bare boards, at the eight canvas cots, at the lumps on three of them, where, wearing the inevitable pink or sky blue undershirt, lay sick Mexican miners. He amused himself by mentally filling with his old-time associates each of the empty cots. “I wish they were all here,” he half exclaimed. Then it occurred to him that this was not a very kindly wish. Loring heard the murmur of voices outside the door, and listened attentively. He recognized the voice of the company doctor. “It must be time for the morning clinic,” he thought to himself. Then he listened to the brisk questioning and prescribing.
“You feeling much mal’? Well, not so much whisky next time; get to work!”