John Burt had a queer feeling of something wilting, crumbling inside of him, something hard and cold giving way around his heart. He could not have explained it, it was not his way to try, but he took an impulsive step toward her and called out:
“Wait a minute! Go on in the house till I put up my horse, I’ll hear what you have to say.”
* * *
XXVII
Uncle Bill is Ostracized
Uncle Bill Griswold sat by the window in the office of the Hinds House where he could watch the stage road, and, as usual this winter, he was sitting by himself. It was thus that Ore City punished reticence.
Uncle Bill was suspected of knowing something—of having business—of his own—and keeping it to himself. A display of friendly interest in his affairs having received no encouragement and various lines of adroit cross-examination having been successfully blocked, Ore City was forced to regard his stubborn reserve as a hostile act for which it was tacitly agreed he should be disciplined. Therefore it withdrew its own confidences and company. Uncle Bill was shunned, left alone to enjoy his secret. The heavy hand of Public Opinion was upon him. Socially he was an outcast. Conversation ceased when he approached as if he had been a spy. Games of solo, high-five, and piute went on without him and in heated arguments no one any longer asked his views.
This latter offense however was only an aggravation of the real one which dated back to the memorable occasion when Wilbur Dill had asked his opinion of the “secondary enrichment.” It was held that a man who would tell the truth at a time like that was a menace to the camp and the sooner he moved on the better.
In the early spring the old man had disappeared into the mountain with powder, drills, and a three months’ grub-stake. He had told no one of his destination, and when he had returned the most he would say was that he had “been peckin’ on a ledge all summer.” He sent samples of his rock outside but did not show the assays. He wrote letters and began to get mail in blank, non-committal envelopes and added to the general feeling of exasperation by always being at the desk before even the clerk had time to make out the postmarks. Oh, he was up to something—that was certain—something that would “knock” the camp no doubt. They wouldn’t put it past him.
If Uncle Bill felt his exile or harbored resentment at being treated like a leper he was too proud to give any sign.
There had been but little change in the Hinds House in a year. Only a close observer would have noted that it had changed at all. There was a trifle more baling-wire intertwined among the legs of the office chairs and a little higher polish on the seats. The grease spots on the unbleached muslin where Ore City rested its head were a shade darker and the monuments of “spec’mins” were higher. The Jersey organ had lost two stops and a wooden stalagmite was broken. “Old Man” Hinds in a praiseworthy attempt to clean his solitaire deck had washed off the spots or at least faded them so that no one but himself could tell what they were. The office was darker, too, because of the box-covers nailed across the windows where a few more panes had gone out. Otherwise it might have been the very day a year ago that Judge George Petty had lurched through the snow tunnel jubilantly announcing the arrival of the stage.
Only this year there was no snow tunnel and the Judge was sober—sober and despondent.
His attitude of depression reflected more or less the spirit of the camp, which for once came near admitting that “if Capital didn’t take holt in the Spring they might have to quit.”
“Anyway,” Yankee Sam was saying, lowering his voice to give the impression to Uncle Bill at the window that he, too, had affairs of a private nature, “I learnt my lesson good about givin’ options. That were our big mistake—tyin’ ourselves up hand and foot with that feller Dill. Why, if a furrin’ syndicate had walked in here and offered me half a million fer my holdin’s in that porphory dike I couldn’t a done a stroke of business. Forfeit money in the bank after this for Samuel. But if ever I lays eyes on that rat—” Yankee Sam glared about the circle—“you watch my smoke! Mind what I tell you.”
“What about the deal he give me on The Prince o’ Peace?” demanded Lannigan. “Look what he cost me! The money I spent on them stamps writin’ to know what was doin’ would a kept me eatin’ for a month. Maybe you think because I don’t roar much I ain’t angery. If I had the price I’d hire somebudy regalar to help me hate that feller!”
“I hold that he’s worse than robbed me!” Judge Petty struck his knee with a tremulous fist. “He took one whole year off’n my life, that’s what he’s done—pure murder, ain’t it? Expectin’ to sell every mail, all summer, and then bein’ disappinted has shore took it out of me. Made an ol’ man of me, as you might say, as was hale and hearty. I might have knowed, too; you had only to look in his face to see what he was! ‘Crook’ was wrote all over him. There’s a law for the likes o’ Wilbur Dill—false pretenses.”
“Law!” contemptuously. “Pa” Snow spent more of his time downstairs now in a rocking chair upholstered with a soogan, where he could vent his bitterness at short range. Disappointment over the sale of “The Bay Horse” had made a socialist of him. “The law—a long way we’d get havin’ the law on him! The law’s no use to the poor man—he’s only got one weapon he can count on; and while I’ve never set out to let no man’s blood, if that skunk ever pokes his nose inside these premises he’ll find a red-hot Southerner waitin’ for him!” Mr. Snow looked so altogether ferocious that Ore City more than half believed him.
“Seems like everything this year has been agin us.” The despondent voice behind the stove sounded hopeless. “Burt’s proposition fizzlin’ out on the river is goin’ to hurt this camp wonderful. It’s surprisin’ how fast the news of a failure gits around among Capital. I knew the way he was startin’ in to work—in fact I told him—that he never could make nothin’.”
“When I first went down to work for him I advised steam but he goes ahead, and look what’s happened—broke down and you can gamble he won’t start up again.” Lannigan added confidently as though he spoke from personal knowledge—“Them stockholders is done puttin’ up money.”
“I warned him about the grade he was givin’ them sluice-boxes—I went to him first off, didn’t I?” Yankee Sam looked around for confirmation. “Do you mind I said at the time he wasn’t warshin’ that dirt fast enough?”
“Anyhow,” declared the Judge querulously, “he ought to ’a piped it off. T’were a hydraulickin’ proposition. He could handle it just twice as fast at half the cost. I sent him down word when I heard what he was doin’.”
“And wastin’ money like he did on all them new style riffles—expanded metal and cocoa matting! Gimme pole riffles with a little strap-iron on the top and if you can’t ketch it with that you can’t ketch it with nothin’.”
“Mostly,” said Ma Snow who had come up behind the critic’s chair unnoticed, “you’ve ketched nothin’.” She went on in her plaintive voice:
“It’s a shame, that’s what it is, that Bruce Burt didn’t just turn over his business to you-all this summer. With shining examples of success to advise him, like’s sittin’ here burnin’ up my wood t’hout offerin’ to split any, he couldn’t have failed. Personally, I wouldn’t think of makin’ a business move without first talkin’ it over with the financiers that have made Ore City the money centre that it is!”
“Everybody can learn something,” Yankee Sam retorted with a show of spirit.
“Not everybody,” Ma Snow’s voice had an ominous quaver, “or you’d a learned long ago that you can’t knock that young man in my hearin’. I haven’t forgot if you have, that the only real money that’s been in the camp all Summer has come up from the river.”
“We wasn’t sayin’ anything against him personal,” the brash Samuel assured her hastily; but Bruce’s champion refused to be mollified.
“What if he did shut down? What of it?” She glared defiance until her pale eyes watered with the strain. “I don’t notice anybody here that’s ever had gu
mption enough even to start up. What do you do?” She answered for them—“Jest scratch a hole in the ground, then set and wait for Capital to come and hand you out a million. I dast you to answer!”
It was plain from the silence that no one cared to remove the chip on Ma Snow’s shoulder.
“I hear he aims to stay down there all winter alone and trap.” Judge Petty made the observation for the sake of conversation merely, as the fact was as well known as that there were four feet of snow outside or that the camp was “busted.”
“And it’s to his credit,” Ma Snow snapped back. “When he’s doin’ that he ain’t runnin’ up board bills he cain’t pay.”
“It’s as good a place as any,” admitted the Judge, “providin’ he don’t go nutty.” He raised his voice and added with a significant look at Uncle Bill: “Bachin’ alone makes some fellers act like a bull-elk that’s been whipped out of the herd.”
“It takes about four months before you begin to think that somebudy’s layin’ out in the brush watchin’ you—waitin’ to rob you even if you haven’t got anything to steal but a slab of swine-buzzum and a sack of flour. The next stage,” went on the citizen behind the stove speaking with the voice of authority, “is when you pack your rifle along every time you go for a bucket of water, and light you palouser in the middle of the night to go around the cabin lookin’ for tracks. Yes, sir,” emphatically, “and the more brains you got the quicker you go off.”
“You seemed about the same when you got back as when you left that time you wintered alone on the left fork of Swiftwater,” Ma Snow commented.
“Like as not you remember that spell I spent t’other side of Sheep-eater Ridge when I druv that fifty foot tunnel single-handed into the Silver King?”
“You’ve never give us no chance to forgit it,” responded an auditor. “We’ve heard it reg’lar every day since.”
“I hadn’t seen nobody fer clost to three months,” Lemonade Dan continued “when a feller come along, and says: ‘I’d like to stop with ye but I’m short of cash.’ I counted out a dollar-thirty and I says ‘Stranger,’ I says, ‘that’s all I got but it’s yourn if you’ll stay!’”
“And you’ll jump for a new seed catalogue or an Agricultural Bulletin like it was a novel just out,” contributed Yankee Sam from his experience. “I’ve allus been a great reader. I mind how I come clost to burnin’ myself out on account of it the fall of ’97 when I was ground-sluicin’ down there on Snake river. I had a tidy cabin papered with newspapers and one week when ‘twere stormin’ I got interested in a serial story what was runnin’. It started back of the stove and they was an installment pasted in the cupboard, they was a piece upside down clost to the floor so I had to stand on my head, as you might say, to read it, and the end was on the ceilin’. One evenin’ I was standin’ on a box with my mouth open and my neck half broke tryin’ to see how it come out when I tipped the lamp over. I’m a reg’lar book-worm, when I gits where they’s readin’.”
“I mind the winter I bached on Crooked Crick I tamed a mouse,” ventured Lannigan. “He got so sociable he et out of my fingers.”
“He shorely must have been fond of you.” Ma Snow looked fixedly at Lannigan’s hands. “Mistah Hinds,” turning sharply upon that person, who was endeavoring by close inspection to tell whether the last card was a king or queen, “the bacon’s froze and there ain’t a knife in yoah ol’ kitchen that will cut.”
“Yes ma’am,” murmured Mr. Hinds, hoping against hope that the statement was not a command with his luck just beginning to turn and a sequence in sight.
“If there ain’t an aidge on one of them butcher knives that’ll cut bread when I start in to get supper—”
But Ma Snow did not deliver her ultimatum. In the first place it was not necessary, for the cowed owner of the Hinds House knew perfectly well what it was, and in the second, Uncle Bill arose suddenly and stood on tiptoe looking through the window in something that approached excitement. Nothing ordinary could jar Uncle Bill’s composure—chairs went over in the rush to join him at the window.
The stage was coming—with passengers! It was almost in—they could hear the driver’s—“Git ep, Eagle! Git ep, Nig! Git ep—git ep—git ep!” There was luggage on behind and—Yankee Sam’s voice broke as though it were changing when he announced it—a female and two men!
Was this Uncle Bill’s secret? Had he known? They could learn nothing from his face and his mouth was shut so tight it looked as if he had the lock-jaw.
Who was she? Where was she from? Did she have any money? Was she old or young? Delicacy forbade them to go outside and look straight at a strange lady but a dozen questions rose in every mind. Then simultaneously the same thought came to each. Moved by a common impulse they turned and stared suspiciously at Uncle Bill. Could it be—was it possible that he had been advertising for a wife? Luring some trusting female from her home by representing himself as a mining man forced to reside in this mountain solitude near his valuable properties? Ore City knew of cases like it; and he was just about the age to begin writing to matrimonial bureaus.
Speculation ended abruptly. A sharp intake of breath—a startled gasp ran through the tense group as a pair of nimble, yellow legs flashed from beneath the robes and the citizens of Ore City saw the smiling face of Wilbur Dill! They turned to each other for confirmation lest their own eyes deceive them.
Mr. Dill stamped the snow from his feet, flung open the door and beamed around impartially.
“Well, boys—” he threw off his opulent, fur-lined coat—“it’s good to be back.”
For the space of a second Ore City stood uncertainly. Then Pa Snow disentangled his feet from the quilt and stepped forth briskly.
“Welcome home!” said the fire-eater cordially.
Dill’s return could have but one meaning. He had returned with a “Live One” to take up the options. Hope smouldering to the point of extinction sprang to life and burned like a fire in a cane-brake. Imaginations were loosed on the instant. Once more Ore City began to think in six figures.
Yankee Sam, who had called upon his friends and High Heaven to “watch his smoke,” was the next to wring Dill’s hand, and Lannigan followed, while the Judge forgot the priceless year of which he had been robbed and elbowed Porcupine Jim aside to greet him. Only Uncle Bill stood aloof turning his jack-knife over and over nonchalantly in the pocket of his Levi Strauss’s.
Ore City scowled. Couldn’t he be diplomatic for once—the stubborn old burro’—and act glad even if he wasn’t? Why didn’t he at least step up like a man and say howdy to the woman he had lured from a good home? Where was he raised, anyhow?—drug up in the brush, most like, in Missoury.
Dill looked about inquiringly.
“Ah-h! Mr. Griswold.” He strode across the floor. “How are you?”
Ore City’s hand flew to its heart, figuratively speaking, and clutched it. No man ever called another “Mister” in that tone unless he had something he wanted. And no man ever answered “tolable” with Uncle Bill’s serenity unless he knew he had something the other fellow wanted.
Had he really got hold of something on his prospecting trip this summer? Had he sold? Was he selling? Did this account for Dill’s presence and not the options? The chill at their hearts shot to their feet.
Mr. Dill tapped his pocket and lowered his voice—a futile precaution, for at the moment Ore City could have heard a “thousand legger” walk across the floor. “I’ve got the papers here,” he said, “all ready to be signed up if every thing’s as represented.”
Ore City went limp but not too limp to strain their ears for Uncle Bill’s reply.
“Yes,” he drawled, “you want to take particular care that I ain’t saltin’ you. Give plenty of time to your examination. They’s no great sweat; I wouldn’t sign my name to an application for a fish license that you brought me until I’d had a good lawyer look it over first. As I promised you when you wrote me to open up that ledge, I’ll give you the first shot at it, bu
t don’t try any funny business. I know now what I got, and I don’t need you to help me handle it. I’ve never made it no secret, Wilbur, that I wouldn’t trust you with a red-hot stove.”
“I don’t see why you should talk to me like this,” Dill declared in an injured tone. “You can’t point to a single thing I’ve done.”
“I ain’t got fingers enough,” Uncle Bill said dryly, “and my toes is under cover. It’s prob’ly slipped your mind that I was down in south’rn Oregon when you left between two suns; but tain’t that”—his old eyes gleamed—“it’s what you done last winter—goin’ down there deliberate to jump Bruce Burt’s claim.”
“Ss-sh!” Mr. Dill hissed, not in resentment but in alarm as he glanced over his shoulder. “That’s Burt’s father.” From the corner of his mouth—“I think he’s got money.”
Money! The word acted like a strychnia tablet upon Ore City’s retarded circulation. Money! Warmth returned to its extremities. It looked at the object of these hopeful suspicions as though its many heads swung on a single neck. He was sitting by the stove in a suit of clothes that must have cost as much as fifteen dollars and he appeared as oblivious to their concentrated gaze as though he were alone in the middle of his ranch.
The strange female was still unaccounted for. Ore City had the tense, over-strained feeling of a spectator trying to watch all the acts in a triple-ringed circus. When she removed her outer wraps it was seen that she was not only young but, in Ore City’s eyes, overpoweringly good-looking. Was she married? Every question paled beside this one. Surely—they looked at Uncle Bill contemptuously—even if he had struck something she would not marry that old codger.
When she walked to the stove to warm her hands if they had followed their impulses they would have jumped and run. The bravest among them dared not raise his eyes two inches above the bottom part of the stove-door though in each mind there was a wild groping for some light and airy nothing to show how much he felt at ease. Something which should be appropriate and respectful, yet witty.
The Man from the Bitter Roots Page 25