“Why, yes,” answered Adam, “but I want to work.”
“All right. You can help me in the office where I’m stuck. An’ I’ll give you outside work, besides. To-morrow.” And with this brusque promise the manager strode away in a hurry.
“Mac don’t get time to eat,” explained Merryvale.
Adam had to laugh at the incident. Here he had been recommended by a stranger, engaged to work for a man whose name he had not heard and who had not asked his, and no mention made of wages. Adam liked this simplicity. A man must pass in this country for what he was.
Merryvale went his way then, leaving Adam alone. It seemed to Adam, as he pondered there, that his impressions of that gold mill did not augur well for a satisfaction with his job. He had no distaste for hard labor, though to bend over a desk did not appeal to him. Then he turned his gaze to the river and valley. What a splendid scene! The green borderland offered soft and relieving contrast to the bare and grisly ridges upon which he stood. At that distance the river shone red gold, sweeping through its rugged iron gateway and winding majestically down the valley to lose itself round a bold bluff.
Adam drew a long breath. A scene like this world of mountain wilderness, of untrodden ways, was going to take hold of him. And then, singularly, there flashed into memory an image of the girl, Margarita. Just then Adam resented thought of her. It was not because she had made eyes at him—for he had to confess this was pleasing—but because he did not like the idea of a deep and vague emotion running parallel in his mind with thought of a roguish and coquettish little girl, of doubtful yet engaging possibilities.
“I think too much,” declared Adam. It was action he needed. Work, play, hunting, exploring, even gold digging—anything with change of scene and movement of muscle—these things that he had instinctively felt to be the need of his body, now seemed equally the need of his soul.
CHAPTER III
Arallanes, the foreman, did not strike Adam as being typical of the Mexicans among whom he lived. He was not a little runt of a swarthy-skinned man, but well built, of a clean olive complexion and regular features.