XXIV
BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND
Billy was gone almost a month.
During that interim Lafond had absolutely nothing to do but wait, forhis affairs, both domestic and foreign, were doing well.
"A fool for luck, a fool for luck," he got into the habit of saying tohimself, but with somewhat of a congratulatory ring to it, as though hewere a little inclined to attribute fortune's favors to that lady'sappreciation of his shrewdness. If luck had not favored him, he wouldhave had to accomplish the same results himself. It was a labor-savingdevice. Nevertheless, as time went on, the strong underlying mysticismin his nature came to make of this luck of his a fetish of no smallpower. Lafond went about in a continual state of elation. Things werecoming his way. Nothing could stop them. They were fore-ordained.All he had to do was to stay awake so as to take advantage of thecircumstances which chance so nicely arranged for him. He had suchconfidence in the fortuitous moment that he almost ceased to planahead, sure that the crisis would bring its own solution.
Fifty thousand dollars stood between Billy's credit and Billy'sdownfall. Lafond had those fifty thousand dollars to get rid of. Thesum was not great, but neither was it small; and to induce another tospend fifty thousand, in a few months, without any encouraging return,might have seemed, to an ordinary man, a project worthy of carefulforesight. Not so Lafond. "A fool for luck," he repeated and awaitedBilly's reappearance.
There was Molly's affair with Cheyenne Harry, for instance. What couldbe better? Lafond had known Mortimer by reputation for a great manyyears. He was acquainted with the details of the transaction ofMulberry Gulch, and how he and a man named Dutch Pete had swindled allCuster City; he knew too of Harry's various wild escapades in the earlyIndian skirmishes--on both sides some men said; of his wonderfulfortitude in enduring hardship, and his equally wonderful periods ofrelaxation when back again in the towns; and he knew, best of all fromhis point of view, Harry's reputation as a man among women. Since thisflirtation had lasted so long, to Lafond's mind it must already havepassed the limits. The natural sequence would be followed out. Intime Cheyenne Harry would have a mistress the more.
In other words, without the slightest trouble or encouragement on hispart, the girl would be debauched. Then, through artfully coloredvague hints, he would let slip the real facts of her breeding. He wasstudent enough of character to know that she would gnaw her heart outwith a passionate remorse, the more intense because of that very innatepurity of instinct which now made Harry's task a difficult one. Lafondhad absolutely nothing to do but congratulate himself, smoke his pipe,and spend long hours with his friend the entomologist.
After the first flutter over the Easterners' visit had subsided, thecamp settled back with wonderful celerity into its accustomed habits.At first it expected Billy's reappearance within a few days. Thereturn was postponed to the end of the week. The end of the week gaveCopper Creek to understand that it would have to wait a short timelonger. Then came another postponement. And so on, until the littlecommunity had taken up its usual prospecting, work o' day, play o'night existence, and the return of Billy was looked upon as aninevitable event, but hazily in the future, not imminent enoughimmoderately to disturb the current of men's thoughts.
Then all at once Billy was among them, splendid, powerful, energetic,in a hurry, whirling the stagnant waters this way and that, until thespirit of enterprise awoke within them, and a nervous atmosphere ofprogress replaced the old monotony.
Billy had credited to him fifty thousand dollars; Billy sported a newhat and new clothes; Billy had vast enterprises to accomplish beforethe ground froze up; Billy drew a salary; Billy possessed an engravedcertificate of shares, which he displayed; Billy had a new watch; Billywas looking for men; Billy was deep in complicated plans which requiredabove all things haste, haste, haste; until the narrow little canyonrang with the name of Billy, which was esteemed great in the land.
The new superintendent entered at once into the discharge of hisduties. His first care was to sink the shafts mentioned at the firstinformal meeting in his own shack. There were ten claims, on whicheleven shafts were planned. The very evening of his return, eleven ofthe handiest prospectors in the camp were summoned to Billy's cabin,where they found awaiting their signatures eleven contracts to sink onthe various claims a specific number of feet at a specified price.Next morning they looked the ground over. Next noon they signed. Nextafternoon they hired two helpers each, bought powder and fuse, andsharpened drills. The day after, thirty-five men were busily at workon the new company's group of claims. It looked like business.
The same noon, Billy's effects began to come in from the East. He hadreceived a liberal advance on the account of his salary, and theresults were various. Among them were new saddles, a new buckboard, anew rifle, silver-mounted harness, and a quantity of clothes of ratherloud pattern. But most marvellous was a clean-limbed, deep-chested,slender running horse, accompanied by a sawed-off English groom. Billyspent a good share of the next week with this individual, constructinga corral of small timber in which the new horse might roll about. Eachmorning the groom led the animal, astonishingly hooded, blanketed, andleather-banded, up and down the hundred yards or so of level road whichwas all that strip of rugged country offered fit for such delicatehoofs and fine limbs. The beast always progressed teetering a littlesideways, nearly dragging the groom from his feet. The camp speculatedthat Billy had designs on the next great prairie "fair" in the spring,but the truth is the Westerner had little idea of what his designswere. He had been pleased with the horse, and had bought it, withoutbestowing a thought on expediency. After the novelty of possessing sothoroughbred a creature had somewhat worn away, he confessed to himselfa slight bewilderment as to what to do with it.
Other interests claimed his attention now. The work on the minesthemselves no longer needed his care. After the hundred feet of shafthad been quite finished and timbered, he would inspect them in hisofficial capacity. If the job came up to specifications, he would signits acceptance; if it did not, the contractor would have to remedy thedefect. In the meantime he had on hand the building of the campitself, for which he had already planned largely.
Lafond climbed the gulch and the knoll, after activity had been wellunder way for about a week. He found Billy paying the freight-bills onseveral loads of heavy red-painted machinery, while the teamsters spatand swore just outside the little shack, which he now used as anoffice. Billy was signing slips from his new check book. Until heshould have finished, Lafond strolled about examining the grounds.
Around the mouths of the shafts themselves the debris had accumulatedastoundingly, showing that the contractors too had been industrious,but Lafond paid little attention to them. He was more interested inthe clearing, levelling, trimming and digging which seemed to indicatethe undertaking of rather extensive works above ground. Perhaps adozen men were at work. Some were engaged in "trueing" the four greatfoundation beams of what was evidently to be a large building. Otherssquared smaller timbers near at hand. The remainder were measuring andindicating with a shovel the outlines of other and less pretentiousstructures. In a moment Billy came out ready to dissertate at length.
"That thar is the boardin' house," he explained, "I thought at firstI'd only make her big enough for thirty, 'cause that's as big a gang asI starts with; but then I figgers it out, an' it won't be long before Itakes on more, so I thinks it jest as well to start where I ends. Soshe's goin' to accommodate sixty, two-story, you know. Then yere's thecookee's shack. I aims to have th' kitchen separate yere--don't likethat Prairie Dog game nohow." (The "Prairie Dog" was the hotel; andthe "game" was the inclusion of the kitchen and the dining-room in thesame apartment.) "Then yere's to be the office. I uses my old shackfor an office now. I aims to have three sleepin'-rooms, an' adinin'-room and kitchen."
"What for?" asked Lafond, a little puzzled.
"For me."
"For----?"
; "I don't aim to eat with the men. And over yander 'll be th' stables;and thar th' blacksmith's shop; and then the powder house is on th'other side of the gulch. The chicken house is beyond th' blacksmith'sshop."
"The what?" asked Mike.
"The chicken house."
"Oh," said Mike.
"I ain't got the ground all broke yet," pursued Billy; "but the plansis all ready, and it ain't takin' long when once we git started. Thestuff fer th' mill is comin' along slow," he observed, pointing to thered-painted machinery; "but I ain't aimin' to put her up till nex'spring. Can't do much with her till I gets th' shafts sunk."
"No," agreed Lafond.
"But I got th' plans fer that too. Come on in an' I shows them to you."
He led the way into the little shack, and began to rummage in a valisefull of papers. Lafond found the place in a litter of confusion.Scattered about in the wildest disorder were clothes, weapons, saddles,harness, knick-knacks and mining tools. Among the latter thehalf-breed noticed the sections of a pump--an expensive machine usedonly after a shaft has penetrated below the water level, but whichBilly had already purchased. Lying half open among the dusty quartzspecimens, empty ink bottles, rusty pens and old pipes, which cumberedthe table, Mike perceived a large wooden box.
"What's this?" he asked.
Billy looked up red-faced from his search.
"That?" he replied. "Oh, that's a stamper," and dived back into thevalise.
Lafond drew the box toward him. He found it to contain a vast quantityof rubber types of all sizes and styles, figures, ornaments andornamental rulings. The box itself was perhaps some thirty inchessquare. It was a most elaborate outfit, whose use is confined almostentirely to large department stores where there is much marking ofprices.
Billy now stood upright, having found his roll of plans.
"What did you say this is?" asked Lafond again.
"A stamper."
"What do you do with it?"
"You sticks the types in this rule this way." Billy took out the ruleand some of the types, fumbled unskilfully with them for a moment, andthrew them impatiently down. "Anyway, they goes in; and then thatkeeps them in a straight line."
"Yes," persisted Lafond, "but what's it for?"
"Why, to stamp things with, of course."
"What things?"
Billy hadn't thought of that.
But his discomfiture was only momentary. He spread the plans out onthe rapidly cleared table, and discoursed concerning them. Lafond lentan attentive ear, but said little. Billy's ideas were comprehensive.They included every adjunct of use or expediency which the prospectorremembered to have seen in any of the numerous successful camps whichhad fallen under his observation. In fact, when finished, the externalGreat Snake would be a composite of the desirable features of manyother camps, including the great "Homestake" itself. It was evidentthat before Billy's mind's eye, the Great Snake was already asprosperous and as well entitled to its graces of mining luxury as anyof the older enterprises. After a little appeared a man who had somehorses to sell, so Lafond took his leave and retraced his steps totown. Near the foot of the knoll he happened across still furtherevidence of Billy's wandering activity in the shape of an ivory-handledclasp knife of five-inch blade. Mike remembered that Billy had shownit about in the Little Nugget the evening before as another example ofthe Easterners' generosity; and he remembered further the Westerner'sdelighted laugh over the inscription, "William Knapp."
"Don't know myself that way," he had cried. "I clean forgets that'Billy' does stand for 'William.'"
Lafond's first impulse was to reclimb the knoll for the purpose ofreturning his find to its owner, but on second thoughts it hardlyseemed worth the trouble. He slipped it into the side pocket of hiscanvas coat, where, of course, he speedily forgot all about it.
When he reached the Little Nugget, empty at this time of day, he satdown in his chair and laughed aloud, peal on peal, wagging his head andrubbing his eyes. Frosty, happening in, withdrew with celerity, firmlyconvinced that his master had gone crazy.
"A fool for luck, a fool for luck!" cried Lafond, "Why, the idiot isplaying right into my hands!"
The Westerners Page 24