Dismukes heaved a long sigh. He wagged the huge, shaggy head that was now gray. But he showed no more indication of emotion. How stolid he seemed—how locked in his aloofness!
“Yes, I’ll tell you,” he said. “Maybe it’ll save you somethin’ of what I went through.”
Then he became lost in thought, perhaps calling upon memory, raking up the dead leaves of the past. Adam recalled that his own memory of Dismukes and the past brought note of the fact how the old prospector had loved to break his habit of silence, to talk about the desert, and to smoke his black pipe while he discoursed. But now speech did not easily flow and he did not smoke.
“Lookin’ back, I seem to see myself as crazy,” began Dismukes. “You’ll remember how crazy. You’ll remember before we parted up there on the Mohave at that borax camp where the young man was—who couldn’t drive the mules.... Wansfell, from the minute I turned my back on you till now I’ve never thought of that. Did you drive the ornery mules?”
“Did I?” Adam’s query was a grim assertion. “Every day for three months! You remember Old Butch, that gray devil of a mule. Well, Dismukes, the time came when he knew me. If I even picked up the long bull whip Old Butch would scream and run to lay his head on me.”
“An’ you saw the young driver through his trouble?”
“That I did. And it was more trouble than he told us then. The boss Carricks had was low-down and cunning. He’d got smitten with the lad’s wife—a pretty girl, but frail in health. He kept Carricks on jobs away from home. We didn’t meet the lad any too soon.”
“Humph! That’s got a familiar sound to me,” declared Dismukes. “Wansfell, what’d you do to thet low-down boss?”
“Go on with your story,” replied Adam.
“Aha! That’s so. I want to make Two Palms Well before dark.... Wansfell, like a horned-toad on the desert, I changed my outside at Frisco. Alas! I imagined all within—blood—mind—soul had changed!... Went to Denver, St. Louis, an’ looked at the sights, not much disappointed, because my time seemed far ahead. Then I went to my old home. There I had my first jar. Folks all dead! Not a relation livin’. Could not even find my mother’s grave. No one remembered me an’ I couldn’t find any one I ever knew. The village had grown to a town. My old home was gone. The picture of it—the little gray cottage—the vines an’ orchard—lived in my mind. I found the place. All gone! Three new houses there. Forty years is a long time! I didn’t build the church or set out a park for the village of my boyhood.... Then I went on to Chicago, Philadelphia, New York. Stayed long in New York. At first it fascinated me. I felt I wanted to see it out of curiosity. I was lookin’ for some place, somethin’ I expected. But I never saw it. The hotels, theaters, saloons, gamblin’ hells, an’ worse—the operas an’ parks an’ churches—an’ the wonderful stores—I saw them all. Men an’ women like ants rushin’ to an’ fro. No rest, no sleep, no quiet, no peace! I met people, a few good, but most bad. An’ in some hotels an’ places I got to be well known. I got to have a name for throwin’ gold around. Men of business sought my acquaintance, took me to dinners, made much of me—all to get me to invest in their schemes. Women! Aw! the women were my second disappointment! Wansfell, women are like desert mirages. Beautiful women, in silks an’ satins, diamonds blazin’ on bare necks an’ arms, made eyes at me, talked soft an’ sweet, an’ flattered me an’ praised me an’ threw themselves at me—all because they thought I had stacks an’ rolls an’ bags of gold. Never a woman did I meet who liked me, who had any thought to hear my story, to learn my hope! Never a kind whisper! Never any keen eye that saw through my outside!