The Trail of '98. Robert W. Service
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him for his ease of manner, a thing I could never compass. Presently he returned to me.
"Say, partner, got any money?"
There was something frank and compelling in his manner, so that I produced the few dollars I had left, and spread them before him.
"That's all my wealth," I said smilingly.
He divided it into two equal portions and returned one to me. He took a note of the other, saying:
"All right, I'll settle up with you later on."
He went off with my money. He seemed to take it for granted I would not object, and on my part I cared little, being only too eager to show I trusted him. A few minutes later behold him seated at a card-table with three rough-necked, hard-bitten-looking men. They were playing poker, and, thinks I: "Here's good-bye to my money." It minded me of wolves and a lamb. I felt sorry for my new friend, and I was only glad he had so little to lose.
We were drawing in to Los Angeles when he rejoined me. To my surprise he emptied his pockets of wrinkled notes and winking silver to the tune of twenty dollars, and dividing it equally, handed half to me.
"Here," says he, "plant that in your dip."
"No," I said, "just give me back what you borrowed; that's all I want."
"Oh, forget it! You staked me, and it's well won. These guinneys took me for a jay. Thought I was easy, but I've forgotten more than they ever knew, and I haven't forgotten so much either."
"No, you keep it, please. I don't want it."
"Oh, come! put your Scotch scruples in your pocket. Take the money."
"No," I said obstinately.
"Look here, this partnership of ours is based on financial equality. If you don't like my gate, you don't need to swing on it."
"All right," said I tartly, "I don't want to."
Then I turned on my heel.
CHAPTER V
On either side of us were swift hills mottled with green and gold, ahead a curdle of snow-capped mountains, above a sky of robin's-egg blue. The morning was lyric and set our hearts piping as we climbed the canyon. We breathed deeply of the heady air, exclaimed at sight of a big bee ranch, shouted as a mule team with jingling bells came swinging down the trail. With cries of delight we forded the little crystal stream wherever the trail plunged knee-deep through it. Higher and higher we climbed, mile after mile, our packs on our shoulders, our hearts very merry. I was as happy as a holiday schoolboy, willing this should go on for ever, dreading to think of the grim-visaged toil that awaited us.
About midday we reached the end. Gangs of men were everywhere, ripping and tearing at the mountain side. There was a roar of blasting, and rocks hurtled down on us. Bunkhouses of raw lumber sweated in the sun. Everywhere was the feverish activity of a construction camp.
We were assigned to a particular bunkhouse, and there was a great rush for places. It was floorless, doorless and in part roofless. Above the medley of voices I heard that of the Prodigal:
"Say, fellows, let's find the softest side of this board! Strikes me the Company's mighty considerate. All kinds of ventilation. Good chance to study astronomy. Wonder if I couldn't borrow a mattress somewhere? Ha! Good eye! Watch me, fellows!"
We saw him make for a tent nearby where horses were stabled. He reconnoitred carefully, then darted inside to come out in a twinkling, staggering under a bale of hay.
"How's that for rustling? I guess I'm slow—hey, what? Guess this is poor!"
He was wadding his bunk with the hay, while the others looked on rather enviously. Then, as a bell rang, he left off.
"Hash is ready, boys; last call to the dining-car. Come on and see the pigs get their heads in the trough."
We hurried to the cookhouse, where a tin plate, a tin cup, a tin spoon and a cast-iron knife was laid for each of us at a table of unplaned boards. A great mess of hash was ready, and excepting myself every one ate voraciously. I found something more to my taste, a can of honey and some soda crackers, on which I supped gratefully.
When I returned to the bunkhouse I found my bunk had been stuffed with nice soft hay, and my blankets spread on top. I looked over to the Prodigal. He was reading, a limp cigarette between his yellow-stained fingers. I went up to him.
"It's very good of you to do this," I said.
"Oh no! Not at all. Don't mention it," he answered with much politeness, never raising his eyes from the book.
"Well," I said, "I've just got to thank you. And look here, let's make it up. Don't let the business of that wretched money come between us. Can't we be friends anyway?"
He sprang up and gripped my hand.
"Sure! nothing I want more. I'm sorry. Another time I'll make allowance for that shorter-catechism conscience of yours. Now let's go over to that big fire they've made and chew the rag."
So we sat by the crackling blaze of mesquite, sagebrush and live-oak limbs, while over us twinkled the friendly stars, and he told me many a strange story of his roving life.
"You know, the old man's all broke up at me playing the fool like this. He's got a glue factory back in Massachusetts. Guess he stacks up about a million or so. Wanted me to go into the glue factory, begin at the bottom, stay with it. 'Stick to glue, my boy,' he says; 'become the Glue King,' and so on. But not with little Willie. Life's too interesting a proposition to be turned down like that. I'm not repentant. I know the fatted calf's waiting for me, getting fatter every day. One of these days I'll go back and sample it."
It was he I first heard talk of the Great White Land, and it stirred me strangely.
"Every one's crazy about it. They're rushing now in thousands, to get there before the winter begins. Next spring there will be the biggest stampede the world has ever seen. Say, Scotty, I've the greatest notion to try it. Let's go, you and I. I had a partner once, who'd been up there. It's a big, dark, grim land, but there's the gold, shining, shining, and it's calling us to go. Somehow it haunts me, that soft, gleamy, virgin gold there in the solitary rivers with not a soul to pick it up. I don't care one rip for the value of it. I can make all I want out of glue. But the adventure, the excitement, it's that that makes me fit for the foolish house."
He was silent a long time while my imagination conjured up terrible, fascinating pictures of the vast, unawakened land, and a longing came over me to dare its shadows.
As we said good-night, his last words were:
"Remember, Scotty, we're both going to join the Big Stampede, you and I."
CHAPTER VI
I slept but fitfully, for the night air was nipping, and the bunkhouse nigh as open as a cage. A bonny morning it was, and the sun warmed me nicely, so that over breakfast I was in a cheerful humour. Afterwards I watched the gang labouring, and showed such an injudicious interest that that afternoon I too was put to work.
It was very simple. Running into the mountain there was a tunnel, which they were lining with concrete, and it was the task of I and another to push cars of the stuff from the outlet to the scene of operations. My partner was a Swede who had toiled from boyhood, while I had never done a day's work in my life. It was as much as I could do to lift the loaded boxes into the car. Then we left the sunshine behind us, and for a quarter of a mile of darkness we strained in an uphill effort.
From the roof, which we stooped to avoid, sheets of water descended. Every now and then the heavy cars