XXI
LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND
Michail Lafond made much less of a stir in the life of the camp thanhad his ward. He fitted in quietly.
Behind the Little Nugget was a room and a shed. Lafond took possessionof the room, and relegated Frosty to the shed. His position asproprietor of the saloon sufficiently explained his idleness, ifanybody's idleness ever needed explanation in a mining camp. He seemedto do nothing, merely because he was to be seen almost any hour of theday either smoking contemplative pipes near his place or Bill Martin's,or wandering with every appearance of leisure from claim to claim inthe Hills, or disappearing in the direction of Durand's cabin in thelower gulch. That was a mistake. He really did a great deal.
For instance, he made himself agreeable in a cool, drawling fashion toanybody who cared to talk to him. He kept his eyes wide open, nomatter where he went. He puffed as many speculations into his brain ashe did smoke-clouds into the air. That was not much perhaps; yet, bythe time the Chicago men came to Copper Creek, the half-breed knew justabout everybody's business in that camp. The student of characternever needs to ask blunt questions.
He soon discovered that his first surmise as to Billy's peculiaritieswas correct. The man was above all things spectacular. He liked tofill the stage. If Lafond could strip him of his property--the GreatSnake--his prestige as promoter of the camp would be gone. Black Mikecould imagine nothing more galling to one of Knapp's temperament.
He soon discovered that it would be no easy matter to do this, however.He had felt sure that he would have no difficulty in taking advantageof the proverbial carelessness of Westerners in general, and BillyKnapp in particular, as to some of the finer points of mining law.There are many technicalities to be observed before a claim belongsindubitably and for all time to the man who occupies it. A "discovery"of certain specification must be made; the measurements and stakes mustconform to definite regulations; the development work must be carriedon and reported according to the letter of the law; and so in a dozenother trivialities which the miner is like to honor only in the mostgeneral fashion. But Billy's requirements were all fulfilled. Theclaims were undoubtedly his in the fullest sense of the word. Atpresent he could not be deprived of them legally; and as it was no partof Lafond's scheme to allow Billy even the smallest comfort ofself-pity when his humiliation came, he did not care even to considerthe possibilities of chicanery.
The only glimmer of light he could discern lay in the chance thatsomething might offer at the time of the transference of the propertyfrom Billy to the Eastern capitalists. This was the inspiration thathad occurred to him in Durand's cabin. He had come to know Billy'ssanguine temperament, his enthusiastic predilection for seeing thingsrose-hued, and he thought it very possible that the Westerner'srepresentations to the capitalists might not bear too searchinganalysis. Overpraise of property might easily be construed as falserepresentation. Too graphic a description of natural advantages mighteasily be twisted into an attempt to obtain money under falsepretences. A skilful man might be able to discredit Billy so far thatthe transaction would fall through; and with the failure of this sale,on which the hopes of Billy's companions were built, the promoter'sprestige would collapse entirely.
With this sketch of a plan in mind, Lafond applied himself diligentlyto acquiring a thorough knowledge of the property. That, at least, wasnot difficult. All he had to do was to go to Billy, and say, "Lookhere, Knapp, they tell me you've got quite an outfit here. Show mearound, won't you?" The Westerner was only too glad of the opportunityto expatiate. He took Lafond down every prospect shaft, over everysurface indication. He explained them all minutely. When he hadfinished, he gave Lafond carefully selected samples from all of thevein fillings. The half-breed told him he wanted them for the purposesof exhibition.
"I got a first class shelf down in the Nugget," he said; "an' I thinkif we'd jest put a line of samples along it from all the claims, andlabel 'em, it would be a pretty good 'ad,' don't you?"
Billy did. So the two "sampled" as carefully as for an assay test inthe School of Mines at Rapid. About half of the result Lafondexhibited as he had suggested, but the rest he preserved carefully forassay tests of his own.
To be sure, Billy had quite freely shown him his own official testsmade at the School of Mines, but Lafond wanted his information moredirect. He could not doubt the accuracy of the reports. But there wasalways a possibility that the sampling had not been fairly done. Hewas sure of these other "averages," for he had helped take them. Heliked to have things under his own eye, and it was for this reason hehad first suggested to Durand that he would like to take lessons in theart of assaying.
At first he had intended to use the old entomologist merely as aconvenience, but later, as he became more intimate with the man throughhis work, he actually began to entertain for him a friendship--hisfirst in over fifteen years. With all men he had been friendly; withnone had he been friends. Here he proved a really generous emotion,opening his heart to the soft influences of affection and memory,allowing himself in this one instance an intimacy absolutely withoutulterior motive. It all dated from the first day, when a chancequestion of Durand's touched the springs of the half-breed's youth.
They had adjourned that afternoon to the workshop, where Durand built acharcoal fire in a little furnace and gathered about him a choiceassortment of curious implements. After the furnace was well heated,he roasted the ore Lafond had brought with him, heating it through andthrough, until finally the fumes of sulphur, antimony and arsenicceased to arise from the chalk-lined iron basin. While the process wasgoing forward Durand explained pleasantly the various steps of thechemical change, interspersing much extraneous information--as, forinstance, how Winkler, Tcheffkin and Merrick claim that there is here aloss of gold, which Crookes denies--to all of which Michail Lafond lentbut an inattentive ear. He was little interested in theory; butobserving the old man's delight in the scientific aspect of theexperiment, he feigned corresponding pleasure on his own part.
Then they spread a flux of granulated lead over a crucible, inappropriate juxtaposition with the roasted ore. For nearly two hoursit was fused; and as there was nothing to do until the slag ofimpurities had formed about the bright metal in the centre, the mentalked much to each other while waiting.
When the ore was completely fused, Durand seized the result in a pairof forceps. With a small hammer he broke away the great masses ofclotted slag. A small bright metal button remained.
"This is the lead, the silver and the gold," explained Durand, "and itis here that we exercise care. All else is as child's play."
He flattened the button on an anvil, and cut it into several pieces.These he placed in the little porous vessels made of compressed boneash, called cupels, which had been slowly heating in the furnace. Thesurface of the lead filmed over. In a moment it turned bright. Thenfumes began to arise.
Durand's attention became fixed. His hand was constantly at thefurnace valve, admitting or excluding more air according as he desiredthe temperature to rise or fall.
"It is this which is difficult," he explained from the corner of hismouth. "If the heat is too great, some precious metal escapes with thelead. If the heat is too little, the lead is not all driven away."
Lafond was attentive enough to this. He desired above all thepractical knowledge.
"Observe the fumes," said Durand; "that is the true test. When theywhirl above the molten metal, then is everything well. When the fumesdo creep slowly like the mist on a stream, then the heat is notsufficient. If, on the other hand, they do rise straight upward, thenit is necessary to reduce the heat at once."
After a time the remaining impurities, under Durand's skilfulmanipulation, were absorbed by the cupels. The little vessels weredrawn from the furnace and placed to one side to cool. A small yellowbutton was finally detached with pincers.
"That then is the gold!" cried Lafond.
"And silver," corrected Durand gently. He
weighed the button withgreat care. Then with nitric acid he ate out the silver. The resultwas weighed. The assay was finished. By comparing the weights of theoriginal ore, the cupelled button and the final product, statisticswere obtained.
The men drew a long sigh of relief now that the task was quite finished.
"It is hard work," observed Durand.
"It is very good of you to take so much trouble for me," repliedLafond, for the sake of politeness.
"I like you," explained the old man simply, "because you speak Frenchand because there is something in your face that shows that you toohave been wronged, and that perhaps, like myself, in your youth youhave been light-hearted and were loved by maid and man with the lovethat is given the reckless--and foolish," he concluded with a littlebitterness.
Inexplicably this appealed to Lafond, so that he almost wept with thesheer joy of it.
"It is true, and you are my brother to have seen it thus," he cried,lapsing unconsciously into the idiom of the Sioux.
They washed their hands and went into the other cabin, where they satin the chairs made of barrels, and Lafond talked, talked, talked, untilthe dusk of twilight descended upon them and stole away even the whitebutterfly cases.
He spoke swiftly and animatedly and with much gesticulation. Men willtell you to-day that his speech was deliberate, scant, reserved.
It was all of his youth. He described with abandon and fire the tallpines, the still darkling river running beneath the cedars and birches;the cabins, antler crowned, and the little gardens of their dooryard.He related tenderly the life of those old days--the dance in winter tothe music of a single fiddle, and the snow shoe journey homeward underthe white stars, with mayhap a kiss upon a rosy cheek and a slap from amittened hand at the end of it; the wild exhilarating dangers of logrunning in the spring; the canoe journey, the camping, the fishing,through all that watered north country of the fir-girdled lakes andtrout-haunted streams in summer; the calling of the moose under theround harvest moon, the stalking of the white-tailed deer, the cornfrolics whereat were more of the full-blossomed low-voiced chatterersnot unwilling to be wooed under that same great moon, through whoseshower of silver light the bull moose called to his mate, also notunwilling. These things the half-breed told in that marvellous musicalvoice which, with his expressive eyes, was now his greatest charm. Hetold also more personally of his own youth. There had been a time whenMichail Lafond had been straight and clear-eyed and handsome. At thedances and the corn frolics the fairest of the maidens was not so verycoy to him. In the log running Michail Lafond was the man alwayscalled upon to skim over the bobbing logs under the very imminence ofthe jam; his was the peavy that moved the bit of timber which lockedthe whole; his the merry laugh as he had lightly escaped the plungingfoaming death. On and still on the voice rolled, until suddenly theroom was silent and dark, and the man in the corner had arisen abruptlyand gone out, and the white-haired naturalist was left alone, one handon each arm of his chair, looking straight before him, beyond the cabinwalls, beyond the years.
Next day Lafond came again, and the next and the next. The assays wereall finished and tabulated. Still he continued to come, as usual, eachafternoon, for an hour or so at least. Durand did not smoke himself,but he kept a pipe and a package of tobacco always on the table for hisvisitor. They clasped each other's hands with fervor when they met andparted. They called each other "mon vieux." And, what is more, theycould sit quite silent for hours without embarrassing each other in theleast.
The men in the camp noticed this intimacy and commented on it.
"Clar case of millennium," said Bill Martin, "Lion an' th' lamb. Ain'tno other way to explain it, fer what good Mike ever gets out of thatnutty old Bugchaser is beyond me!"
Not that anyone cared. Everybody was at this moment speculatingearnestly on all possible results, good, bad, or indifferent, of thepending visit of the Chicago tenderfeet. Although, strictly speaking,their decision had only to do with the Great Snake, it was wellunderstood that it fixed also the value of every other piece ofproperty within a circumference of fifty miles. Little did those threetenderfeet realize, as they dutifully changed cars at Grand Island,Edgemont and other way stations, how much their holiday jaunt, as itwas to them, meant to a whole community of reasonably hard-working men.
Lafond was the most interested of all, because, to his disgust, theassays had been good, so good that the "false pretence" scheme wouldhave to be given up. He found himself, as usual, facing a situationwith not much more than luck to depend on. But he always had good luck.
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