Stories in Light and Shadow. Bret Harte
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partner.
“We'll leave it on the table, sociable like, in case any of the boys come in,” said Uncle Billy, taking up the cards. “Well. How do we stand?”
Uncle Jim consulted the memorandum-book. “You were owin' me sixty-two thousand dollars on the last game, and the limit's seventy-five thousand!”
“Je whillikins!” ejaculated Uncle Billy. “Let me see.”
He examined the book, feebly attempted to challenge the additions, but with no effect on the total. “We oughter hev made the limit a hundred thousand,” he said seriously; “seventy-five thousand is only triflin' in a game like ours. And you've set down my claim at Angel's?” he continued.
“I allowed you ten thousand dollars for that,” said Uncle Jim, with equal gravity, “and it's a fancy price too.”
The claim in question being an unprospected hillside ten miles distant, which Uncle Jim had never seen, and Uncle Billy had not visited for years, the statement was probably true; nevertheless, Uncle Billy retorted:—
“Ye kin never tell how these things will pan out. Why, only this mornin' I was taking a turn round Shot Up Hill, that ye know is just rotten with quartz and gold, and I couldn't help thinkin' how much it was like my ole claim at Angel's. I must take a day off to go on there and strike a pick in it, if only for luck.”
Suddenly he paused and said, “Strange, ain't it, you should speak of it to-night? Now I call that queer!”
He laid down his cards and gazed mysteriously at his companion. Uncle Jim knew perfectly that Uncle Billy had regularly once a week for many years declared his final determination to go over to Angel's and prospect his claim, yet nevertheless he half responded to his partner's suggestion of mystery, and a look of fatuous wonder crept into his eyes. But he contented himself by saying cautiously, “You spoke of it first.”
“That's the more sing'lar,” said Uncle Billy confidently. “And I've been thinking about it, and kinder seeing myself thar all day. It's mighty queer!” He got up and began to rummage among some torn and coverless books in the corner.
“Where's that 'Dream Book' gone to?”
“The Carson boys borrowed it,” replied Uncle Jim. “Anyhow, yours wasn't no dream—only a kind o' vision, and the book don't take no stock in visions.” Nevertheless, he watched his partner with some sympathy, and added, “That reminds me that I had a dream the other night of being in 'Frisco at a small hotel, with heaps o' money, and all the time being sort o' scared and bewildered over it.”
“No?” queried his partner eagerly yet reproachfully. “You never let on anything about it to ME! It's mighty queer you havin' these strange feelin's, for I've had 'em myself. And only to-night, comin' up from the spring, I saw two crows hopping in the trail, and I says, 'If I see another, it's luck, sure!' And you'll think I'm lyin', but when I went to the wood-pile just now there was the THIRD one sittin' up on a log as plain as I see you. Tell 'e what folks ken laugh—but that's just what Jim Filgee saw the night before he made the big strike!”
They were both smiling, yet with an underlying credulity and seriousness as singularly pathetic as it seemed incongruous to their years and intelligence. Small wonder, however, that in their occupation and environment—living daily in an atmosphere of hope, expectation, and chance, looking forward each morning to the blind stroke of a pick that might bring fortune—they should see signs in nature and hear mystic voices in the trackless woods that surrounded them. Still less strange that they were peculiarly susceptible to the more recognized diversions of chance, and were gamblers on the turning of a card who trusted to the revelation of a shovelful of upturned earth.
It was quite natural, therefore, that they should return from their abstract form of divination to the table and their cards. But they were scarcely seated before they heard a crackling step in the brush outside, and the free latch of their door was lifted. A younger member of the camp entered. He uttered a peevish “Halloo!” which might have passed for a greeting, or might have been a slight protest at finding the door closed, drew the stool from which Uncle Jim had just risen before the fire, shook his wet clothes like a Newfoundland dog, and sat down. Yet he was by no means churlish nor coarse-looking, and this act was rather one of easy-going, selfish, youthful familiarity than of rudeness. The cabin of Uncles Billy and Jim was considered a public right or “common” of the camp. Conferences between individual miners were appointed there. “I'll meet you at Uncle Billy's” was a common tryst. Added to this was a tacit claim upon the partners' arbitrative powers, or the equal right to request them to step outside if the interviews were of a private nature. Yet there was never any objection on the part of the partners, and to-night there was not a shadow of resentment of this intrusion in the patient, good-humored, tolerant eyes of Uncles Jim and Billy as they gazed at their guest. Perhaps there was a slight gleam of relief in Uncle Jim's when he found that the guest was unaccompanied by any one, and that it was not a tryst. It would have been unpleasant for the two partners to have stayed out in the rain while their guests were exchanging private confidences in their cabin. While there might have been no limit to their good will, there might have been some to their capacity for exposure.
Uncle Jim drew a huge log from beside the hearth and sat on the driest end of it, while their guest occupied the stool. The young man, without turning away from his discontented, peevish brooding over the fire, vaguely reached backward for the whiskey-bottle and Uncle Billy's tin cup, to which he was assisted by the latter's hospitable hand. But on setting down the cup his eye caught sight of the pill-box.
“Wot's that?” he said, with gloomy scorn. “Rat poison?”
“Quinine pills—agin ager,” said Uncle Jim. “The newest thing out. Keeps out damp like Injin-rubber! Take one to follow yer whiskey. Me and Uncle Billy wouldn't think o' settin' down, quiet like, in the evening arter work, without 'em. Take one—ye 'r' welcome! We keep 'em out here for the boys.”
Accustomed as the partners were to adopt and wear each other's opinions before folks, as they did each other's clothing, Uncle Billy was, nevertheless, astonished and delighted at Uncle Jim's enthusiasm over HIS pills. The guest took one and swallowed it.
“Mighty bitter!” he said, glancing at his hosts with the quick Californian suspicion of some practical joke. But the honest faces of the partners reassured him.
“That bitterness ye taste,” said Uncle Jim quickly, “is whar the thing's gittin' in its work. Sorter sickenin' the malaria—and kinder water-proofin' the insides all to onct and at the same lick! Don't yer see? Put another in yer vest pocket; you'll be cryin' for 'em like a child afore ye get home. Thar! Well, how's things agoin' on your claim, Dick? Boomin', eh?”
The guest raised his head and turned it sufficiently to fling his answer back over his shoulder at his hosts. “I don't know what YOU'D call' boomin','” he said gloomily; “I suppose you two men sitting here comfortably by the fire, without caring whether school keeps or not, would call two feet of backwater over one's claim 'boomin';' I reckon YOU'D consider a hundred and fifty feet of sluicing carried away, and drifting to thunder down the South Fork, something in the way of advertising to your old camp! I suppose YOU'd think it was an inducement to investors! I shouldn't wonder,” he added still more gloomily, as a sudden dash of rain down the wide-throated chimney dropped in his tin cup—“and it would be just like you two chaps, sittin' there gormandizing over your quinine—if yer said this rain that's lasted three weeks was something to be proud of!”
It was the cheerful and the satisfying custom of the rest of the camp, for no reason whatever, to hold Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy responsible for its present location, its vicissitudes, the weather, or any convulsion of nature; and it was equally the partners' habit, for no reason whatever, to accept these animadversions and apologize.
“It's a rain that's soft and mellowin',” said Uncle Billy gently, “and supplin' to the sinews and muscles. Did ye ever notice, Jim”—ostentatiously to his partner—“did ye ever notice that you get inter a kind o' sweaty lather workin' in it? Sorter openin' to the pores!”
“Fetches