Kitabı oku: «Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp», sayfa 6
CHAPTER XI
THE LADY OF THE SYCAMORES
A weight like that of Pelion and Ossa seemed lifted from Denver’s shoulders as he hurried down from Apache Leap and, with his wallet in his hip pocket, he strode straight to Bunker’s house. The eagle had chosen for him, and chosen right, and the last of his troubles was over. There was nothing to do now but buy the claim and make it into a mine–and that was the easiest thing he did. Pulling ground was his specialty–with a good man to help he could break his six feet a day–and now that the choice had been made between the treasures he was tingling to get to work.
“Here’s your money,” he said as soon as Bunker appeared, “and I’d like to order some powder and steel. Just write me out a quit-claim for that ground.”
“Well, well,” beamed Bunker pushing up his reading glasses and counting over the roll of bills, “this will make quite a stake for Drusilla. Come in, Mr. Russell, come in!”
He held the door open and Denver entered, blinking his eyes as he came in from the glare. The room was a large one, with a grand piano at one end and music and books strewn about; and as Bunker Hill shouted for his wife and daughter Denver stared about in astonishment. From the outside the house was like any other, except that it was covered with vines; but here within it was startling in its elegance, fitted up with every luxury. There was a fireplace with bronze andirons, massive furniture, expensive rugs; and the walls were lined with stands and book-shelves that overflowed with treasures.
“Oh Drusilla!” thundered Bunker and at last she came running, bounding in through the garden door. She was attired in a filmy robe, caught up for dancing, and her feet were in Grecian sandals; and at sight of Denver she drew back a step, then stood firm and glanced at her father.
“Here’s that five hundred dollars,” said Bunker briefly and put the roll in her hand.
“Oh–did you sell it?” she demanded in dismay “did you sell that Number One claim?”
“You bet I did,” answered her father grimly, “so take your money and beat it.”
“But I told you not to!” she went on reproachfully, ignoring Denver entirely. “I told you not to sell it!”
“That’s all right,” grumbled Bunker, “you’re going to get your chance, if it takes the last cow in the barn. I know you’ve got it in you to be a great singer–and this’ll take you back to New York.”
“Well, all right,” she responded tremulously, “I did want just one more chance. But if I don’t succeed I’m going to teach school and pay every dollar of this back.”
She turned and disappeared out the garden door and Bunker Hill reached for his hat.
“Come on over to the store,” he said and Denver followed in a daze. She was not like any woman he had ever dreamed of, nor was she the woman he had thought. In the night, when she was singing, she had seemed slender and ethereal with her swan’s neck and piled up hair; but now she was different, a glorious human animal, strong and supple yet with the lines of a girl. And her eyes were still the eyes of a child, big and round and innocently blue.
“Here comes the Professor,” muttered Bunker gloomily, as he unlocked the heavy door, “he’s hep, I reckon, the way he walks.”
The Professor was waddling with his queer, duck-like steps down the middle of the deserted street and every movement of his gunboat feet was eloquent of offended dignity.
“Vell,” he began as he burst into the store and stopped in front of Denver, “I vant an answer, right avay, on dat property I showed you the udder day. I joost got a letter from a chentleman in Moroni inquiring about an option on dat claim and─”
“You can give it to him,” cut in Denver, “I’ve just closed with Mr. Hill for that Number One claim up the crick.”
“So!” exploded the Professor, “vell, I vish you vell of it!” And he flung violently out the door.
“Takes it hard,” observed Bunker, “never was a good loser. You want to watch out for him, now–he’s going over to report to Murray.”
“So that’s the combination,” nodded Denver. “I was over there yesterday and Murray knew all about me–gave me a tip not to buy this property.”
“Danged right he’s working for him,” returned Old Bunk grimly. “He runs to him with everything he hears. It’s a wonder I haven’t killed that little tub of wienies–he crabs every trade I start to make. What’s the matter with Old Bible-Back now?”
“Oh, nothing,” answered Denver, “but if it’s all the same to you I’d like to just locate that ground. Then I’ll do my discovery work and if there ever comes up a question I’ll have your quit-claim to boot.”
“Suit yourself,” growled Bunker, “but I want to tell you right now I’ve got a perfect title to that property. I’ve held it continuously for fifteen years and─”
“Give me a quit-claim then; because Murray questions your title and I don’t want to take any chances. He says you haven’t kept up your work.”
“He does, hey!” challenged Bunker thrusting out his jaw belligerently, “well, I’d like to see somebody jump me. I’m living on my property, and possessory title is the very best title there is. By grab, if I thought that Mormon-faced old devil was thinking of jumping my ground─” He went off into uneasy mutterings and wrote out the quit-claim absently; then they went up together and, after going over the lines, Denver relocated the mine and named it the Silver Treasure.
“Think you guessed right, do you?” inquired Bunker with a grin. “Well, I hope you make a million. And if you do you’ll never hear no kick from me–you’ve bought it and paid my price.”
“Fair enough!” exclaimed Denver and shook hands on the trade, after which he bought some second-hand tools and went to work on a trail. Not a hundred feet down-stream from where the vein cropped out, the main trail crossed to the east side of the creek, leaving the mine on the side of a steep hill. A few days’ work, while he was waiting for his powder, would clear out the worst of the cactus and catclaws and give him free access to his hole. Then he could clean out the open cut, set up a little forge and prepare for the driving of his tunnel. The sun was blazing hot, not a breath of wind was stirring and the sweat splashed the rocks as he toiled; but there was a song in Denver’s heart that made his labors light and he hummed the “Barcarolle” as he worked. She was scornful of him now and thought only of her music; but the time would come when she would know him as her equal, for a miner can be an artist, too. And at swinging a double-jack or driving uppers Denver Russell was as good as any man. He worked for the joy of it and took pride in his craft–and that marks the true artist everywhere.
Yet now that his sale had been consummated and he had the money he needed, Bunker Hill suddenly lost all interest in Denver and retired into his shell. He had invited Denver once to come down to his house and share the hospitality of his home; but, after Denver’s brusque, almost brutal refusal, Old Bunk had never been the same. He had shown Denver his claim and stated the price and told a few stories on the side, but he had shown in many ways that his pride had been hurt and that he did not fully approve. This was made the more evident by the careful way in which he avoided introducing his wife; and it became apparent beyond a doubt in that tense ecstatic minute when Drusilla had come in from the garden.
Then, if ever, was the moment when Denver should have been introduced; but Bunker had pointedly neglected the opportunity and left him still a stranger. And all as a reward for his foolish words and his refusal of well-meaning hospitality. Denver realized it now, but his pride was touched and he refrained from all further advances. If he was not good enough to know Old Bunker’s family he was not good enough to associate with him; and so for three days he lived without society, for the Professor, too, was estranged. He passed Denver now with eyes fixed straight ahead, refusing even to recognize his presence; and, cut off for the time from all human intercourse, Denver turned at last to his phonograph.
The stars had come out in the velvety black sky, the hot stillness of evening had come, and from the valley below no sound came up but the eerie, eh, eh, eh, of tree toads. They were sitting by the stream and in cracks among the rocks, puffing out their pouched throats like toy balloons and raising, a shrill, haunting chorus. Their thin voices intermingled in an insistent, unearthly refrain as if the spirits of the dead had come again to gibber by the pool. Even the scales and trills of Drusilla had ceased, so hot and close was the night.
Denver set up his phonograph with its scrollwork front and patent filing cases and looked over the records which he had bought at great expense while the other boys were buying jazz. He was proud of them all but the one he valued most he reserved for another time. It was the “Barcarolle” from “Les Contes D’ Hoffmann,” sung by Farrar and Scotti, and he put on instead a tenor solo that had cost him three dollars in Globe. Then a violin solo, “Tambourin Chinois,” by some man with a foreign name; and at last the record that he liked the best, the “Cradle Song,” by Schumann-Heink. And as he played it again he saw Drusilla come out and stand in the doorway, listening.
It was a beautiful song, very sweet, very tender, and sung with the feeling of an artist; yet something about it seemed to displease Drusilla, for she turned and went into the house. Perhaps, hearing the song, she was reminded of the singers, stepping forward in a blare of trumpets to meet the applause of vast audiences; or perhaps again she felt the difference between her efforts and theirs; but all the next day, when she should have been practicing, Drusilla was strangely silent. Denver paused in his work from time to time as he listened for the familiar roulades, then he swung his heavy sledge as if it were a feather-weight and beat out the measured song of steel on steel. He picked and shoveled, tearing down from above and building up the trail below; and as he worked he whistled the “Cradle Song,” which was running through his brain. But as he swung the sledge again he was conscious of a presence, of someone watching from the sycamores; and, glancing down quickly he surprised Drusilla, looking up from among the trees. She met his eyes frankly but he turned away, for he remembered what the seeress had told him. So he went about his work and when he looked again his lady of the sycamores had fled.
CHAPTER XII
STEEL ON STEEL
The stifling summer heat fetched up wind from the south and thundercaps crowned the high peaks; then the rain came slashing and struck up the dust before it lifted and went scurrying away. The lizards gasped for breath, Drusilla ceased to sing, all Pinal seemed to palpitate with heat; but through heat and rain one song kept on–Denver’s song of steel on steel. In the cool of his tunnel he drove up-holes and down, slugging manfully away until his round of holes was done and then shooting away the face. As the sun sank low he sat on the dump, sorting and sacking the best of his ore; and one evening as he worked Drusilla came by, walking slowly as if in deep thought.
He was down on his knees, a single-jack in his right hand a pile of quartzite at his left, and as she came to the forks he went on cracking rocks without so much as a stare. She glanced at him furtively, looked back towards the town, then turned off and came up his trail.
“Good evening,” she began and as he nodded silently she seemed at a loss for words. “–I just wanted to ask you,” she burst out hurriedly, “if you’d be willing to sell back the mine? I brought up the money with me.”
She drew out the sweaty roll of bills which he had paid to her father and as Denver looked up she held it out to him, then clutched it convulsively back.
“I don’t mean,” she explained, “that you have to take it. But I thought perhaps–oh, is it very rich? I’m sorry I let him sell it.”
“Why, no,” answered Denver with his slow, honest smile, while his heart beat like a trip-hammer in his breast, “it isn’t so awful rich. But I bought it, you know–well, I was sent here!”
“What, by Murray?” she cried aghast, “did he send you in to buy it?”
“Don’t you think it!” returned Denver. “I’m working for myself and–well, I don’t want to sell.”
“No, but listen,” she pleaded, her eyes beginning to fill, “I–I made a great mistake. This was father’s best claim, he shouldn’t have sold it; and so–won’t you sell it back?”
She smiled, and Denver reached out blindly to accept the money, but at a thought he drew back his hand.
“No!” he said, “I was sent, you know–a fortune-teller told me to dig here.”
“Oh, did he?” she exclaimed in great disappointment. “Won’t some other claim do just as well? No, I don’t mean that; but–tell me how it all came about.”
“Well,” began Denver, avoiding her eyes; and then he rose up abruptly and brushed off the top of a powder-box. “Sit down,” he said, “I’d sure like to accommodate you, but here’s how I come to buy it. There’s a woman over in Globe–Mother Trigedgo is her name–and she saved the lives of a lot of us boys by predicting a cave in a mine. Well, she told my fortune and here’s what she said:
“You will soon make a journey to the west and there, within the shadow of a place of death, you will find two treasures, one of silver and the other of gold. Choose well between them and both shall be yours, but–well, I don’t need to tell you the rest. But this is my choice, see? And so, of course─”
“Oh, do you believe in those people?” she inquired incredulously, “I thought─”
“But not this one!” spoke up Denver stoutly, “I know that the most of them are fakes. But this Mother Trigedgo, she’s a regular seeress–and it’s all come true, every word! Apache Leap up there is the place of death. I came west after that fellow that robbed me; and this mine here and that gold prospect of the Professor’s are both in the shadow of the peaks!”
“But maybe you guessed wrong,” she cried, snatching at a straw. “Maybe this isn’t the one, after all. And if it isn’t, oh, won’t you let me buy it back for father? Because I’m not going to New York, after all.”
“Well, what good would it do him?” burst out Denver vehemently. “He’s had it for fifteen years! If he thought so much of it why didn’t he work it a little and ship out a few sacks of ore?”
“He’s not a miner,” protested Drusilla weakly and Denver grunted contemptuously.
“No,” he said, “you told the truth that time–and that’s what the matter with the whole district. The ground is all held by lead-pencil work and nobody’s doing any digging. And now, when I come in and begin to find some ore, your old man wants his mining claim back.”
“He does not!” retorted Drusilla, “he doesn’t know I’m up here. But he hasn’t been the same since he sold his claim, and I want to buy it back. He sold it to get the money to send me to New York, and it was all an awful mistake. I can never become a great singer.”
“No?” inquired Denver, glad to change the subject, “I thought you were doing fine. That evening when you─”
“Well, so did I!” she broke in, “until you played all those records; and then it came over me I couldn’t sing like that if I tried a thousand years. I just haven’t got the temperament. Those continental people have something that we lack–they’re so Frenchy, so emotional, so full of fire! I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I just can’t do it–I just can’t interpret those parts!”
She stamped her foot and winked very fast and Denver forgot he was a stranger. He had heard her sing so often that he seemed to know her well, to have known her for years and years, and he ventured a comforting word.
“Oh well, you’re young yet,” he suggested shame-facedly, “perhaps it will come to you later.”
“No, it won’t!” she flared back, “I’ve got to give it up and go to teaching school!”
She stomped her foot more impatiently than ever and Denver went to cracking rocks.
“What do you think of that?” he inquired casually, handing over a chunk of ore; but she gazed at it uncomprehendingly.
“Isn’t there anything I can do?” she began at last, “that will make you change your mind? I might give you this much money now and then pay you more later, when I go to teaching school.”
“Well, what do you want it back for?” he demanded irritably, “it’s been lying here idle for years. I’d think you’d be glad to have somebody get hold of it that would do a little work.”
“I just want to give it back–and have it over with!” she exclaimed with an embittered smile. “I’ve practiced and I’ve practiced but it doesn’t do any good, and now I’m going to quit.”
“Oh, if that’s all,” jeered Denver, “I’ll locate another claim, and let you give that back. What good would it do him if you did give it back–he’d just sit in the shade and tell stories.”
“Don’t you talk that way about my father!” she exclaimed, “he’s the nicest, kindest man that ever lived! He’s not strong enough to work in this awful hot weather but he intended to open this up in the fall.”
“Well, it’s opened up already,” announced Denver grimly. “You just show him that piece of rock.”
“Oh, have you found something?” she cried snatching up the chunk of ore. “Why, this doesn’t look like silver!”
“No, it isn’t,” he said, and at the look in his eyes she leapt up and ran down the trail.
She came back immediately with her father and mother and, after a moment of pop-eyed staring, the Professor came waddling along behind.
“Where’d you get this?” called Bunker as he strode up the trail and Denver jerked his thumb towards the tunnel.
“At the breast,” he said. “Looks pretty good, don’t it? I thought it would run into copper!”
“Vot’s dat? Vot’s dat?” clamored the Professor from the fork of the trail and Bunker gave Denver the wink.
“Aw, that ain’t copper,” he declared, “it’s just this green hornblende. We have it around here everywhere.”
“All right”, answered Denver, “you can have it your own way–but I call it copper, myself.”
“Vot–copper?” demanded the Professor making a clutch at the specimen and examining it with his myopic eyes, and then he broke into a roar. “Vot–dat copper?” he cried, “you think dat is copper? Oh, ho, ho! Oh, vell! Dis is pretty rich. It is nutting but manganese!”
“That’s all right,” returned Denver, “you can think whatever you please; but I’ve worked underground in too many copper mines─”
“Where’d you get this?” broke in Bunker, giving Denver a dig, and as they went into the tunnel he whispered in his ear: “Keep it dark, or he’ll blab to Murray!”
“Well, let him blab,” answered Denver, “it’s nothing to me. But all the same, pardner,” he added sotto voce, “if I was in your place I wouldn’t bank too much on holding them claims with a lead-pencil.”
“I’m holding ’em with a six-shooter,” corrected Bunker, “and Murray or nobody else don’t dare to jump a claim. I’m known around these parts.”
“Suit yourself,” shrugged Denver as they came to the face, “I guess this ore won’t start no stampede. That seam in the hanging wall is where it comes in–I’m looking for the veins to come together.”
“Judas priest!” exclaimed Bunker jabbing his candlestick into the copper streak, “say, this is showing up good. And your silver vein is widening out, too. Nothing to it, boy; you’ve got a mine!”
“Not yet,” said Denver, “but wait till she dips. This is nothing but a blanket vein, so far; but if she dips and goes down then look out, old-timer, she’s liable to turn out a bonanza.”
“Well, who’d a thought it,” murmured Old Bunk turning somberly away, “and I’ve been holding her for fifteen years!”
He led the way out, stooping down to avoid the roof; and outside the stoop still remained.
“Where’s the Professor?” he asked, suddenly looking about, “has he gone to tell Murray, already? Well, by grab then, he knew it was.”
“Oh, was it copper?” quavered Drusilla catching hold of his hand and looking up into his tired eyes, “and you sold it for five hundred dollars! But that’s all right,” she smiled, drawing his head down for a kiss. “I’ll just have to succeed now–and I’m going to!”
CHAPTER XIII
SWEDE LUCK
As the sun set that evening in a trailing blaze of glory Denver Russell came out and sat with bared arms, looking lazily down at the town. The news of his strike had roused them at last, these easy-going, do-nothing old-timers; and now, from an outcast, a crack-brained hobo miner, he was suddenly accepted as an equal. They spoke to him, they recognized him, they rushed up to his mine and stared at the ore he had dug; and even the Professor had purloined a specimen to take over and show to Murray. And all because, while the rest of them loafed, he had drifted in on his vein until he cut the stringer of copper. It was Swede luck again–the luck of that great people who invented the wheel-barrow, and taught the Irish to stand erect and run it.
Denver could smile a little, grimly, as he recalled Old Bunker’s stories and his fleering statement that a mule could work; but, now that he had struck copper at the breast of his tunnel, the mule was suddenly a gentleman. He was good enough to speak to, and for Bunker’s daughter to speak to, and for his wife to invite to supper; and all on account of a vein of copper that was scarcely two inches thick. It was rich and it widened out, instead of pinching off as a typical gash-vein would; and while it would take a fortune to develop it, it was copper, and copper was king. Silver and gold mines were nothing now, for silver was down and gold was losing its purchasing power; but the mining journals were full of articles about copper, and it had risen to thirty cents a pound.
Thirty cents, when a few years ago it had dropped as low as eleven! And it was still going up, for the munition factories were clamoring for it and the speculators were bidding up futures. Even Bible-Back Murray, who had a reputation as a pincher, had suddenly become prodigal with his money and was working day and night, trying to tap a hidden copper deposit. He had caught the contagion, the lure of tremendous profits, and he was risking his all on the venture. What would he have to say now if his diamond drill tapped nothing and a hobo struck it rich over at Queen Creek? Well, he could say what he pleased, for Denver was determined not to sell for a million dollars. He had come there with a purpose, in answer to a prophecy, and there yet remained to win the golden treasure and the beautiful woman who was an artist.
Every little thing was coming as the seeress had predicted–good Old Mother Trigedgo with her cards and astrology–and all that was necessary was to follow her advice and the beautiful Drusilla would be his. He must treat her at first like any young country girl, as if she had no beauty or charm; and then in some way, unrevealed as yet, he would win her love in return. He had schooled himself rigidly to resist her fascination, but when she had looked up at him with her beseeching blue eyes and asked him to sell back the mine, only a miracle of intercession had saved him from yielding and accepting back the five hundred dollars. He was like clay in her hands–her voice thrilled him, her eyes dazzled him, her smile made him forget everything else–yet just at the moment when he had reached out for the money the memory of the prophecy had come back to him. And so he had refused, turning a deaf ear to her entreaties, and scoffing at her easy-going father; and she had gone off down the trail without once looking back, promising Bunker she would become a great singer.
Denver smiled again dreamily as he dwelt upon her beauty, her hair like fine-spun gold, her eyes that mirrored every thought; and with it all, a something he could not name that made his heart leap and choke him. He could not speak when she first addressed him, his brain had gone into a whirl; and so he had sat there, like a great oaf of a miner, and refused to give her anything. It was rough, yet the Cornish seeress had required it; and doubtless, being a woman herself, she understood the feminine heart. At the end of his long reverie Denver sighed again, for the ways of astrologers were beyond him.
In the morning he rose early, to muck out the rock and clear the tunnel for a new round of holes; and each time as he came out with a wheel-barrow full of waste he cocked his eye to the west. Bible-Back Murray would be coming over soon, if he was still at his camp around the hill. Yet the second day passed before he arrived, thundering in from the valley in his big, yellow car; and even then he made some purchases at the store before he came up to the mine.
“Good morning!” he hailed cheerily, “they tell me you’ve struck ore. Well, well; how does the vein show up?”
“’Bout the same,” mumbled Denver and glanced at him curiously. He had expected a little fireworks.
“About the same, eh?” repeated Murray, flicking his rebellious glass eye, which had a tendency to stare off to one side, “is this a sample of your ore? Well, I will say, it looks promising–would you mind if I go into the tunnel?”
“Nope,” returned Denver; and then, after a moment’s pause: “How’s that gun-man of yours getting along?”
“Oh, Dave? He’s all right. I’ll ask you over sometime and let you get better acquainted.”
“Never mind,” answered Denver, “I know him all I want to. And if I catch him on my ground I’ll sure make him jump–I don’t like the way he talked to me.”
“Well, he’s rough, but he’s good hearted,” observed Murray pacifically. “I’m sorry he spoke to you that way–shall we go in now and look at the vein?”
Denver grunted non-committally and led Murray into the tunnel, which had turned now to follow the ore. Whatever his game was it was too deep for Denver, so he looked on in watchful silence. Murray seemed well acquainted with mining–he looked at the foot-wall and hanging-wall and traced out the course of both veins; and then, without offering to take any samples, he turned and went out to the dump.
“Yes, very good,” he said, but without any enthusiasm, “it certainly looks very promising. Well, good day, Mr. Russell; much obliged.”
He started down the trail, leaving Denver staring, and then he turned hurriedly back.
“Oh, by the way,” he said, “I buy and sell ore. When you get enough sacked you might send it down by McGraw and I’ll give you a credit at the store.”
“Yes, all right,” assented Denver and stood looking after him till he cranked up and went roaring away. Not a word about the title, nothing said about his warning; and no mention made of his well-known ability to break any man in the county. The facts, apparently, were all that interested him then–but he might make an offer later. When the vein was opened up and he had made his first shipment, when it began to look like a mine! Denver went back to work and as he drove in day by day he was careful to save all the ore.
He hadn’t had it assayed, because assaying is expensive and his supplies had cost more than he expected, but from the size of the button when he made his rough fire-tests, he knew that it ran high in silver. Probably eight hundred ounces, besides the lead; and he had sorted out nearly a ton. About the time he was down to his bottom dollar he would ship and get another grub-stake. Then, when that was gone, if his vein opened up, he would ship to the smelter direct; but the first small shipment could be easier handled by a man who made it a business. Of course Murray would gouge him, and overcharge him on everything, but the main idea was to get Denver to start an account and take that much trade away from Hill. Denver figured it all out and then let it pass, for there were other things on his mind.
On the evening of his strike the house below had been silent; but early the next morning she had begun again, only this time she was not singing scales. It was grand opera now, in French and Italian; with brilliant runs and trills and high, sustained crescendos that seemed almost to demand applause; and high-pitched, agitato recitatives. She was running through the scores of the standard operas–“La Traviata,” “Il Trovatore,” “Martha”–but as the week wore along she stopped singing again and Denver saw her down among the sycamores. She paid no attention to him, wandering up and down the creek bed or sitting in gloomy silence by the pools; but at last as he stood at the mouth of his tunnel breaking ore with the great hammer he loved, she came out on the trail and gazed across at him wistfully, though he feigned not to notice her presence. He was young and vigorous, and the sledge hammer was his toy; and as Drusilla, when she was practicing, gloried in the range of her voice and her effortless bravuras and trills, so Denver, swinging his sledge, felt like Thor of old when he broke the rocks with his blows. Drusilla gazed at him and sighed and walked pensively past him, then returned and came back up his trail.
“Good evening,” she said and Denver greeted her with a smile for he saw that her mood was friendly. She had resented, at first, his brusque refusal and his rough, straight-out way of speaking; but she was lonely now, and he knew in his heart that all was not well with her singing.
“You like to work, don’t you?” she went on at last as he stood sweating and dumb in her presence, “don’t you ever get tired, or anything?”
“Not doing this,” he said, “I’m a driller, you know, and I like to keep my hand in. I compete in these rock-drilling contests.”
“Oh, yes, father was telling me,” she answered quickly. “That’s where you won all that money–the money to buy the mine.”
“Yes, and I’ve won other money before,” he boasted. “I won first place last year in the single-handed contest–but that’s too hard on your arm. You change about, you know, in the double-handed work–one strikes while the other turns–but in single jacking it’s just hammer, hammer, hammer, until your arm gets dead to the shoulder.”
“It must be nice,” she suggested with a half-concealed sigh, “to be able to make money so easily. Have you always been a miner?”
“No, I was raised on a ranch, up in Colorado–but there’s lots more money in mining. I don’t work by the day, I take contracts by the foot where there’s difficult or dangerous work. Sometimes I make forty dollars a day. There’s a knack about mining, like everything else–you’ve got to know just how to drive your holes in order to break the most ground–but give me a jack-hammer and enough men to muck out after me and I can sink from sixteen to twenty feet a day, depending on the rock. But here, of course, I’m working lone-handed and only make about three feet a day.”
