The Westerners

by Stewart Edward White

  XVII

  BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION

  In the course of this same morning, Lafond had discovered an oldacquaintance.

  He arose early, and spent some time after breakfast investigating andcriticising the premises. Frosty's administration had, it must beconfessed, been rather slack, and there were many loose ends. TheseBlack Mike gathered into a cat o' nine tails with which to lash hissubordinate. After he had done more for Frosty's character in sixtyminutes than that young man, unaided, could have accomplished in asmany months, he left the scene of his reorganizations behind, andstrolled about in the one narrow street of the village.

  He soon saw all there was to be seen there. With a vague idea offinding his way to the famous Great Snake Mine, he rambled out from thedouble row of log cabins, around the bend, and into the lower gulch.He had defined to himself two things very clearly--that Billy Knapp wasnow easily the most important figure in the community, and that acontinuance of this importance depended entirely on his effecting acombination of his group of claims with Eastern capital. In the BlackHills nearly all of the promising leads are of quartz, requiring intheir development more expensive machinery than any ordinary man isable to afford. Until the good angel arrives, they are so muchcrumbling red rock or white crystal; but with the erection of a stampmill, within wagon distance, they become valuable. Mike had sethimself to the task of depriving Billy Knapp at once of his propertyand of his prestige; but since he could not hold him up at the point ofa pistol, as might have been done had it been the question of a watchor a scarf-pin, he did not at present see just how it was to beaccomplished. Ruminating these matters, he found himself all at oncein a canyon much grown with underbrush, full of birds, and possessing ageneral air of the gentler aspects of nature.

  Immediately before him stood a double cabin, its two parts connected bya passage way. The foundations of its timbers were encircled by broadbands of red geraniums. Behind the buildings, chained to posts, heperceived three wild animals. One was a short, comical, and shaggybear; the second, an equally furry but more eager-looking raccoon; thethird, a bobcat with tasselled ears.

  Mike paused and surveyed them with amusement. As he stood there thedoor of the cabin opened and the owner stepped out into the sunshine.The half-breed never forgot a face which a vital incident had impressedon his memory; and though this old, white-haired, mild-eyed man hadpassed in and out of his life in the space of one evening fifteen yearsago, Lafond recognized without difficulty the stranger whose words hadgiven him so powerful an impetus toward his new way of life. It wasDurand, the butterfly hunter.

  He was little changed. And again the coarser man felt, as fifteenyears before, the air of gentle and quaint courtesy, which a keenerobserver would have associated with an old-fashioned society now quitepassed away. It should have gone with ruffles and silken hose, withpowdered hair and silver shoe buckles.

  The naturalist caught sight of the newcomer and approached.

  "They are quite gentle," he assured, explaining the beasts. He rubbedthe heavy fur of the raccoon the wrong way. "Ah, Jacques," he said tothe little animal, relapsing quaintly into a sort of old-time speech,"thy hair doth resemble in stiffness of texture the bristles of thineown curry brush."

  The raccoon uttered his high, purring over-note, and seized the man'sfingers with his little black hands, almost human. The bear waved hispaws appealingly. The bobcat danced back and forth at the end of itsleash. "Peace, my children," chided the old man, bestowing on each apat. "It is not yet the hour of noon." He stooped to unsnap theraccoon's chain; and then, as though recalling the half-breed'spresence, he turned with an air of apology.

  "You are a stranger here?" he asked. "Yes? And you walk this morningfor your pleasure? Yes? That happens not often in these parts." Hewent on, conversing shyly but easily, with the obvious desire ofpleasing the half-breed rather than himself. Lafond had opportunity toobserve the great solidity of the logs composing the cabin walls, andto recognize that the structure must belong to the earlier period ofthe primitive architecture of the Hills--for there are such periods.

  "You have lived here long," he suggested, following out this inference.

  "Yes," laughed the old man softly, "very long. The camp there came tome. I was an old timer when the first house was built."

  After a little, they entered the cabin together, and Lafond foundhimself in a sheet-ceiled room, strewn with all sorts of literary andscientific junk. The imagination could discover much food forspeculation in the curiosities literally heaped about the apartment,but most wonderful of all, seizing the eye, holding it from all else,were the scores of shallow glass-fronted boxes hanging everywhere onthe wall. They were lined with white paper pasted over a layer ofcork. In them, row after row, were impaled butterflies of many colors.Thousands of the pretty insects were there outspread, varying in sizefrom the tiny blue _Lycaena_ to the great _Troilus_ or the gorgeousyellow and black _Turnus_. They were exquisitely prepared, with justthe right lift on the wings, just the proper balance of the longantennae, until it seemed that they must be on the point of flight, andone almost expected that in another moment the air would be filled witha fluttering, many-hued splendor.

  The men seated themselves in two home-made chairs. The raccoon,evidently from old winter-time habit, waddled in a dignified fashion tothe fireless stove, where he curled up like a door-mat with keen,bright eyes. Mike's gaze roamed about the apartment.

  "You are a great scientist," he observed, intending the remark for acompliment.

  "In a way, in a way," replied the old man humbly. "One must occupy themind when one is alone, and what task more fitting to our highestfaculties than that of investigating, with all due reverence, theworkings of God's mechanism?"

  He said it with a simple piety which could not provoke a smile.Michail Lafond caught himself wondering what he did there. Surelythere was nothing to interest him in stuffed insects and a garrulousold man, especially as the conversation insisted on retaining itsformal footing.

  "You are not a miner?" the entomologist inquired, after a moment'spause.

  "No," replied Mike.

  "I am glad to hear it. I like not this eager scrambling for what doesso little good. I too once---- But now I am content; yes, content.There is always good if one will but find it. I myself might withjustice be accused of being a miner. I find my leads, I develop them,I assay my ores; but always in miniature--on a small scale."

  Then, in a flash, Michail Lafond saw at least the outlines of his plan,and he knew why he had come in here to talk to the garrulous old man.

  "You know the assay, then?" he inquired conversationally.

  "In a modest way--a few simple tests."

  "But that is much. Do you not know that it is at Rapid, in the Schoolof Mines, that the nearest assayer is? You have a profession here atyour lands."

  A sudden scream broke through the apartment, a rush of wings, a growl.The old man ran nimbly to the stove, and rescued the little raccoonfrom the savage attacks of a magpie. The magpie sailed back to hisperch on one of the butterfly cases, where he ruffled his feathersindignantly. The raccoon curled up in the old man's lap.

  "You are French?" inquired the latter, with more interest than he hadhitherto shown.

  "I have some French blood," replied Lafond cautiously.

  "I knew it," said Durand, immensely pleased. "I am rarely mistaken.It was a twist of your words that suggested it, an idiom. _Etmaintenant nous pouvons causer_," he added in the purest Parisianaccent.

  "_Oui, oui, oui,_" cried the half-breed, suddenly swept up by anuncontrollable excitement he could not himself understand. "_La bellelangue!_"

  He felt an unwonted expansion of the heart at thus hearing once morethe language of his youth. The formality of the interview was gone.They conversed freely, swiftly, animatedly. Durand had been educatedin Paris, and had a thousand reminiscences to impart. He told of manyquaint customs, and Lafond, with
growing emotion, recalled similar oranalogous customs among his own expatriated branch of the race in thepine forests of Canada. His sullen, taciturn manner broke. He becamethe Gaul. He gesticulated, he overflowed, his eye lighted up, he saida thousand things.

  After a time Durand opened a chest at the foot of the bed, from whichhe abstracted a bottle and two long-stemmed glasses. These he placedon the table with a quaint little air of ceremony.

  "Sir," said he, "we must know each other better. We speak each thelanguage we love. We talk of old days. Sir," he concluded, bowingwith stately grace as he poured the red wine into the glasses, "I askyou to drink wine with me to our acquaintance. My name is Durand."

  He inclined, his hand to his heart, and somehow there seemed to benothing ridiculous in the act.

  "I am Michail Lafond," replied the half-breed simply.

  A silence fell. The realities came back to Lafond's mind.

  "I would ask you a favor," he said abruptly.

  "Name it; it is yours."

  "I want you to teach me how to make an assay."

  "It would be a pleasure. I will do it gladly."

  "Is it difficult?"

  "Not very."

  "When shall we begin?"

  "When you say."

  Lafond reflected. "Well, I will bring some ore in a day or two."Then, after a pause, as though in deference to the attitude he knew theold man held in regard to such things, he added, "It must be veryinteresting, this making of gold from the rock."

  "And more interesting still," supplemented Durand gently, "is thethrill of a shared thought."

  The raccoon stood on his hind legs in his master's lap, and begandeliberately to investigate the contents of his pockets, deftlyinserting his little black hands, almost human, and watching the man'sface with alert eyes. Durand took the animal's small head between bothhis palms, and smiled at him affectionately.

  "Ah, Jacques, _polisson_! Thou art a rogue, and dost learn early whatthy master's race doth teach. See, Lafond, how the little villainwould even now rob the very one who doth give to him his daily breadand all that which he hath." He softly rubbed the small, black nosewith the flat of his palm, much to its owner's disgust. Jacques backedoff deliberately to the floor, where he sneezed violently, while Durandgazed at him with a kindly smile.

  After leaving the cabin, Black Mike no longer slouched along unseeing.He burned with the inspiration of an idea. Just where the idea wouldlead him, or how it would work out in its final processes, he did notknow; but he had long since grown accustomed to relying blindly on suchexaltations of confidence as the present, sure that details woulddevelop when needed. He believed in letting the pot boil.

  Through the town he walked with brisk, business-like steps, out intothe higher gulch. There he soon came upon signs of industry. Up ahill he could hear the ring of axes and the occasional rush of afalling tree, sounding like grouse drumming in the spring. He followedthe sound. Half way up the knoll, he discovered a cabin and threeshafts. A rude sign announced that this represented the surfaceproperty of the Great Snake Mining and Milling Company. Lafond haltedabruptly when he saw the sign. For perhaps half an hour he lookedover, with the eye of a connoisseur, the three piles of ore at themouths of the three shafts, approving silently of the evidence of slatewalls, crumbling between his strong fingers the oxygenated quartz,putting his tongue to the harder specimens to bring out their color bymoisture, gazing with some curiosity at the darker hornblende. Finallyhe selected a number of the smaller specimens, with which he filled theample pockets of his shooting-coat. After this he returned to town andthe Little Nugget saloon, where he emptied his pockets on the bar.

  "Get some of that packin' stuff out behind," he commanded Frosty, "andwith it construct a shelf there by the mirror."

  He stood over Frosty while the latter, frightened into clumsiness,hammered his fingers, the wall, the rude shelf, anything but the nail.Finally, Lafond thrust him aside with a curse, and finished the jobhimself. On the completed shelf he ranged about half of the specimenswhich he had picked up from the ore dumps. Beneath these he tacked alabel, indicating that they were from the Great Snake Mine.

  Then he joined Jack Graham outside, and settled down to watch the groupof men engaged in laying the foundation timbers of a new log shack.