Blazed Trail Stories, and Stories of the Wild Life

by Stewart Edward White

  VI

  THE PROSPECTOR

  In the old mining days out West the law of the survival of the fittestheld good, and he who survived had to be very fit indeed. There were anumber of ways of not surviving. One of them was to die. And there werea number of ways of being very fit; such as holding an accurate gun oran even temper, being blessed with industry or a vital-tearing ambition,knowing the game thoroughly or understanding the great Americanexpedient of bluff. In any case the man who survived must see his endclearly through that end's means. Whether it were gold, poker, or life,he must cling to his purpose with a bulldog tenacity that no amount ofdistraction could loosen. Otherwise, as has been said, he died, orbegged, or robbed, or became a tramp, or committed the suicide ofhorse-stealing, or just plain drifted back East broken--a shamefulthing.

  Why Peter lived on was patent enough to anyone. He was harmless,good-natured, and, in the estimation of hard-hewn men, just "queer"enough to be a little pathetic. Anyone who had once caught a fair lookat his narrow, hatchet face with the surprised blue eyes and theloose-falling, sparse light hair; or had enjoyed his sweet, rare smileas he deprecatingly answered a remark before effacing himself; or hadchanced on the fortune of asking him for some trifling favour to meethis eager and pleased rendering of it: none of these hypotheticalindividuals, and that meant about everyone who came in contact withPeter at all, could have imagined anybody, let alone themselves, harminga hair of his head. But how he continued to be a prospector remained apuzzle. The life is hard, full of privations, sown with difficulties,clamant for technical knowledge, exacting of physical strength,dependent on shrewdness and knowledge of the world. Peter had none ofthese, not even in the smallest degree. There was also, of course, theinstinct. This Peter did possess. He could follow his leads of crumblingbrown rock with that marvellous intuitive knowledge which is soimportant an element in the equipment of your true prospector. But it isonly an element. By all the rules of the game Peter should have failedlong since, should have "cashed in and quit" some five years back; andstill he grubbed away cheerfully at divers mountains and many ranges. Hehad not succeeded; still, he had not failed.

  Three times had he made his "strike." On the first of these threeoccasions he had gone in with two San Francisco men to develop theproperty. The San Francisco men had persuaded him to form a stockcompany of certain capitalisation. In two deals they had "frozen out"Peter completely, and reorganised on a basis which is paying them gooddividends. Returning overwhelmed with sophistries and "explanations"from his expostulatory interview, Peter decided he knew more aboutquartz leads than about business and the disgorging of gains, so he wentover into Idaho to try again. There he found the famous Antelope Gaplode. This time he determined to sell outright and have nothing more todo with the matter after the transfer of the property. He drew up thedeeds, received a small amount down, and took notes for the balance.When the notes came due he could not collect them. The mine had beenresold to third parties. Peter had no money to contest the affair; andprobably would not have done so if he had. He knew too little--or toomuch--of law; but the instinct was his, so he moved one State farthereast to Montana for his third trial. This resulted in the Eagle Ridge.And for the third time he was swindled by a persuasive man and a lyingone-sided contract.

  A sordid, silly enough little tale, is it not? but that is why menwondered at Peter's survival, marvelled at the recuperative force thatmade possible his fourth attempt, speculated with a certain awe overthat cheerful disposition which had earned him, even in his adversity,the sobriquet of Happy Peter.

  All of these phenomena, had they but known it, resulted from one simplecause. Peter's mental retrospect for a considerable space would haveconjured up nothing but a succession of grand sweeps of mountains,singing pines, rare western skies, and the simplicity of afrontiersman's log-cabin; and yet to his inner vision over the border ofthat space lay a very different scene. It was the scene he saw theoftenest. Oftenest? he saw it always; across the mountains, through thepines, beyond the skies. As time went on, the vision simplified itselfto Peter, as visions will. It came to have two phases, two elements,which visited him always together.

  One of these was a house; the other a girl. The house was low,white-painted, with green blinds and a broad stoop. Its front yard wasfragrant with lilacs, noisy with crickets, fluttering with butterfliesof sulphur yellow. About it lay a stony, barren farm, but lovely withthe glamour of home. The girl was not pretty, as we know girls; but shehad straight steady eyes, a wide brow, smooth matronly bands of hair,and a wholesome, homely New England character, sweet, yet with a tang togive it a flavour, like the apples on the tree near the old-fashioned,long-armed well. Peter could gain no competence from the stony farm, noconsent from the girl. It was to win both that he had come West.

  In those days, around the western curve of the earth, every outlookborrowed the tints of sunset. Nothing but the length of the journeystood between a man and his fortune.

  "I love you dearly, Peter," she had said, both hands on his shoulders,"and I do not care for the money. But I have seen too much of ithere--too much of the unhappiness that comes from debt, from poverty.Misery does not love the company of those it loves. Go make yourfortune, Peter, bravely, and come back to me."

  "I will," replied Peter, soberly. "I will, God help me. But it may belong. I don't know; I have not the knack; I am stupid about people,about men."

  She smiled, and leaned over to kiss his eyes. "People love you, Peter,"she said, simply. "I love you, and I will wait. If it were fifty years,you will find me here ready when you come."

  Peter knew this to be true. And so to the unpeopled rooms of the littleold Vermont farmhouse Peter's gentle thoughts ever swarmed, like homingbees. In his vision of it the lilac-bush outside the window alwayssmelled of spring; she always sat there beside the open sash,waiting--for him. What wonder that he survived when so many others wentdown? What wonder that he persevered? What wonder that his patient soul,comparing the eternity of love's happiness with the paltry years oflove's waiting, saw nothing in the condition of affairs to ruffle itspeaceful serenity? And yet to most the time would have seemed very, verylong. Men may blunder against rich pockets or leads and wealthy sayfarewell to a day which they greeted as the poorest of the poor. So maymen win fortunes on a turn of the wheat market. But the one is no moreprospecting than the other is business. True prospecting has only thenormal percentage of uncertainties, the usual alloy of luck to brightenits toil with the hope of the unexpected. A man must know his businessto succeed. A bit of rock, a twist of ledge, a dip of country, anabundance or an absence of dikes--these and many others are the symbolswith which the prospector builds the formula that spells gold. And afterthe formula is made, it must be proved. It is the proving that bends theback, tries the patience, strains to the utmost the man's inbornInstinct of the Metal. For that is the work of the steel and the fire,the water and the power of explosion. Until the proof is done to theQ.E.D., the man must draw for inspiration on his stock of faith. In themorning he sharpens his drills at a forge. In the afternoon he may, bythe grace of labour, his Master, have accomplished a little round holein the rock, which, being filled with powder and fired, will tear looseinto a larger hole with debris. The debris must be removed by pick andshovel. After the hole has been sufficiently deepened, the debris mustbe loaded into a bucket, which must then be hauled to the surface of theground and emptied. How long do you calculate the man will require todig in this manner, fifty, a hundred feet? How long to sink one or twosuch shafts on each and every claim he has staked? How long to excavatethe numerous lateral tunnels which the Proof demands?

  And besides this, from time to time the shaft must be elaboratelytimbered in order to prevent its caving in and burying work and workmantogether--a tedious job, requiring the skill alike of a woodsman, acarpenter, a sailor, and a joiner. The man must make his trips to townfor supplies. He must cook his meals. He must meet his fellowsoccasionally, or lose the power of speech. The years slip by rapidly. Henumbers
his days by what he has accomplished; and it is little. Hemeasures time by his trips to camp; and they are few. It is no smallthing to make three discoveries--and lose them. It is a greater thing tofind courage for a fourth attempt.

  After the Eagle Ridge fiasco, Peter, as cheerful as ever, journeyed overinto Wyoming to try his luck once more. He moved up into the hills,spent a month in looking about him, narrowed his localities to onegulch, and built himself a log cabin in which to live. Then he made hisgeneral survey. He went on foot up every gulch, even every littletransverse wrinkle that lay tributary to his valley, to the shallow topof it filled with loose stones; he followed the sky-line of every ridgewhich bordered and limited these gulches; he seized frequentopportunities of making long diagonals down the slopes. Nothing escapedhim. In time he knew the general appearance of every bit of drift oroutcrop in his district. Then he sat down in his cabin and carefullyconsidered the probabilities. If they had not happened to please him, hewould have repeated the whole wearisome process in another valley; butas in this case they did, he proceeded to take the next step. In otherwords, he went over the same ground again with a sampling-pick and abundle of canvas bags. Where his theories or experience advised, hebroke off quantities of rock from the ledges, which he crushed and mixedin the half of an old blanket; dividing, and recrushing again and again,until an "average" was obtained in small compass. The "average" he tookhome, where he dumped it into a heavy iron mortar, over which he hadsuspended a pestle from a springy sapling. By alternately pulling downand letting up on the sapling he crushed the quartz fragments with thepestle into fine red and white sand. The sand he "panned out" forindications of free gold.

  The ledges whose averages thus showed the colour, he marked on his mapwith a cross. Some leads which did not so exhibit gold, but whose otherindications he considered promising, he exploited still further,penetrating to a layer below the surface by means of a charge or so ofpowder. Or perhaps he even spent several weeks in making an irregularhole like a well, from which he carried the broken rock in bags,climbing up a notched tree. Then he selected more samples. This is hardwork.

  Thus Peter came to know his country, and when he knew it thoroughly,when he had made all his numerous speculations as to horses, blowouts,and slips--then, and not until then, did he stake out his claims; then,and not until then, did he consider himself ready to _begin_ work.

  He might be quite wrong in his calculations. In that case, it was all todo over again somewhere else. He had had this happen. Every prospectorhas. The claims which Peter selected were four in number. He started inwithout delay on the proof. Foot by foot the shafts descended throughthe red, the white, vein matter. One by one the spider arms of thetunnels felt out into the innermost crevices of the lode. Little bylittle Peter's table of statistics filled; here a pocket, there astreak, yon a clear ten feet of low-grade ore. The days, the months,even the years slipped by. Summers came and went with a flurry ofthunder-showers that gathered about Harney, spread abroad in long bandsof blackness, broke in a deluge of rain and hail and passed out todissipate in the hot air of the prairies. Autumns, clear-eyed andsweet-breathed, faded wanly in the smoke of their forest fires. Winterssidled by with constant threat of arctic weather which somehow nevercame; powdering the hills with their snow; making bitter cold theshadows, and warm the silver-like sun. Another spring was at hand. Likeall the rest, it coquetted with the season as a young girl with herlover; smiling with the brightness of a western sun; frowning with thefierceness of a sudden snow-squall, strangely out of place in contrastto the greenery of the mountain "parks"; creeping slowly up the gulliesfrom the prairie in staccato notes of bursting buds; at last lifting itsmany voices in the old swelling song of delight over the birth of newloves and new desires among its creatures.

  Like all the rest, did I say? No, not quite. To Peter this particularspring was a rare thing of beauty. Its gilding was a little brighter,its colours a little fresher, its skies a little deeper, its songs ranga little truer than ever the gilding or colours or skies or songs of anyspring he had ever known. For he was satisfied. Steadily the value ofthe property had proved itself. One clear, cold day he collected all hisdrills and picks and sledges and brought them back to camp, where hestacked them behind the door. It was his way of signing Q.E.D. to theproof.

  The doubtful spot on the _Jim Crow_ was not a blow-out, but a "horse."He had penetrated below it. The mines were rich beyond his dreams. Yethe sat there at his noon meal as cheerful, as unexcited, as content asever. When one has waited so long, impatience sleeps soundly, arouseswith the sluggishness of unbelief itself. Outside he saw the sun, forthe first time in weeks, and heard the pines singing their endless song.Inside, his fire sparkled and crackled; his kettle purred like afireside cat. Peter was tired; tired, but content. The dream was verynear to him.

  When he had finished his meal he got up and examined himself in hislittle square mirror. Then he did so again. Then he walked heavily backto his table and sat down and buried his face in his hands. When he hadlooked the first time he had seen a gray hair. When he had looked thesecond time he had discovered that there were many. With a sudden pangPeter realised that he was getting to be an old man. He took a picturefrom a pocket-case and looked at that. Was she getting to be an oldwoman?

  It was fearful what a difference that little thought suddenly made. Amoment ago he had had the eternities before him. Now there was not aninstant to be wasted. Every minute, every second even, that he sat theregazing at the faded old picture in his hand was so much lost to him andto its original. Not God himself could bring it and its possibilitiesback to him. Until now he had looked about him upon Youth; he musthenceforth look back to it--back to the things which might have been,but could never be--and each pulse-beat carried him inevitably fartherfrom even the retrospective simulacrum of their joys. He and she couldnever begin young now. They must take up life cold in the moulds, readyfashioned. The delight of influencing each other's development wasdenied such as they; instead, they must find each other out, must throwa thousand strands of loving-kindness to span the gap which the patientyears had sundered between them, a gap which should never have widenedat all. Again that remorseless hurry of the moments! Each one of themmade the cast across longer, increased the need for loving-kindness,demanded anew, for the mere pitiful commonplace task of understandingeach other--which any mother and her child find so trivially easy--thepower of affection which each would have liked to shower on the otherundictated except by the desires of their hearts. Peter called up theimage of himself as he had been when he had left the East, and set itremorselessly by the side of that present image in the mirror. Then helooked at the portrait. Could the years have changed her as much? If so,he would hardly know her!

  Those miserable years of waiting! He had not minded them before, but nowthey were horrible. In the retrospect the ceaseless drudgery of rock andpick and drill loomed larger than the truth of it; his patience, at thetime so spontaneous a result of his disposition, seemed that of a manclinging desperately to a rope, able to hang on only by theconcentration of every ounce of his will. Peter felt himself clutchingthe rope so hard that he could think of nothing, absolutely nothing,else. He proved a great necessity of letting go.

  And for her, these years? What had they meant? By the internalcombustion which had so suddenly lighted up the dark corners of hisbeing, he saw with almost clairvoyant distinctness how it must havebeen. He saw her growing older, as he had grown older, but in the dullapathy of monotony. She had none of this great filling Labour wherewithto drug herself into day-dreams of a future. The seasons as they passedshowed her the same faces, growing ever a little more jaded, as dancersin the light of dawn. Perhaps she had ceased counting them? No, he knewbetter than that. But the pity of it! washing, scrubbing, mending;mending, scrubbing, washing to the time of an invalid's complaints.To-day she was doing as she had done yesterday; to-morrow she would dothe same. To-morrow?

  "No, by God!" cried Peter, starting to his feet. "There shall be no moreto-morrow
!"

  He took from the shelf over the window a number of pieces of quartz,which he stuffed into the pockets of a pair of saddle-bags lying nearthe door. In the corral was Jenny, a sleek, fat mare. He saddled Jennyand departed with the saddle-bags, leaving the door of his cabin open tothe first comer, as is the hospitable Western way.

  At Beaver Dam he spread the chunks of rock out on the bar of theprincipal saloon and invited inspection. He did not think to find apurchaser among the inhabitants of Beaver Dam, but he knew that thetidings of his discoveries would arouse interest and attract otherprospectors to the locality of his claims. In this manner his propertywould come prominently on the market.

  The discoveries certainly were accorded attention enough. Peter was wellknown. Men were perfectly sure of his veracity and his mining instinct.If Peter said there existed a good lode of the stuff he exhibited tothem, that settled it.

  "Hum," said a man named Squint-eye Dobs, after examining a bit of thetransparent crystal through which small kernels of yellow metal shone.Then he laid down the specimen, and walked quietly out the door withoutfurther comment. He had gone to get his outfit ready.

  To others, not so prompt of action, Peter explained at length, always inthat hesitating, diffident voice of his.

  "I have my claims all staked," said he; "you boys can come up and hookonto what's left. There's plenty left. I ain't saying it's as good asmine; still, it's pretty good. I think it'll make a camp."

  "Make a camp!" shouted Cheyenne Harry. "I should think it would! Ifthere's any more like that up country you can sell a 'tater-patch if itlays anywheres near the district!"

  "Well, I must be goin', boys," said Peter, sidling toward the door; "andI 'spect I'll see some of you boys up there?"

  The boys did not care to commit themselves as to that before each other,but they were all mentally locating the ingredients of their prospectingoutfits.

  "Have a drink, Happy, on me," hospitably suggested the proprietor.

  Peter slowly returned to the bar.

  "Here's luck to the new claim, Happy," said the proprietor; "and here'shoping the sharps doesn't make all there is on her."

  The men laughed, but not ill-naturedly. They all knew Peter, as has beensaid.

  Peter turned again to the door.

  "You'll have a reg'lar cyclone up thar by to-morrow!" called a jokerafter him; "look out fer us! There'll be an unholy mob on hand, andthey'll try to do you, sure!"

  Peter stopped short, looked at the speaker, and went out hurriedly.

  The next morning the men came into his gulch. He heard them even beforehe had left his bunk--the _clink_, creak, creak! of their wagons. By thetime he had finished breakfast the side-hills were covered with them.From his window he could catch glimpses of them through the straightpines as patches of red, or flashes of light reflected from polishedmetal. In the canon was the gleam of fires; in the air the smell ofwood-smoke and of bacon broiling; among the still bare bushes andsaplings the shine of white lean-tops; horses fed eagerly on the younggrasses and the browse of trees, raising their heads as the creak ofwheels farther down the draw told of yet new-comers. The boom was underway.

  Peter knew that the tidings of the discovery would spread. To-morrow anew town would deserve a place on the map. Men would come to the town,men with money, men anxious to invest. With them Peter would treat.There was to be no chance of a careless bargain this time. He would takeno chances. And yet he had thought that before.

  Peter began to forestall difficulties in his mind. The former experiencesuggested many, but he drew from the same source their remedies. It wasthe great unknown that terrified him. In spite of his years, in spiteof his gray hairs, in spite of his memories of those former failures, hehad to confess to himself that he knew nothing, absolutely nothing ofsharpers and their methods. They could not fleece him again in preciselythe way they had done so before; but how could he guess at the tricksthey had in reserve? Eight years out of a man's life ought surely toteach him caution as thoroughly as twelve. Yet he walked into the EagleRidge trap as confidently as he had into the Antelope Gap. He had madeit twelve years. What was to prevent his making it sixteen? There is nofear like that of the absolutely unknown. You cannot forestall that; youmust depend upon your own self-confidence. Self-confidence was just whatPeter did not possess.

  Then in a flash he saw what he should have done. It was all soridiculously simple--a mere question of division of labour. He, Peter,knew prospecting, but did not understand business. Back in his oldVermont home were a dozen honest men who knew business, but understoodnothing of prospecting. Nothing would have been easier than to havecombined these qualities and lacks. If Peter had returned quietly to hispeople, concealing his discoveries from the men of Beaver Dam, he couldhave returned in three weeks' time equipped for his negotiations. Now itwas too late. The minute his back was turned they would jump his claims.Peter's mind worked slowly. If he had felt himself less driven by thesight of those gray hairs, he might have come in time to anotheridea--that of wiring or writing East for a partner, pending whosearrival he could merely hold possession of the claims. As it was, theterror and misgiving, having obtained entry, rapidly usurped thedominion of his thoughts. He could see nothing before him but theinevitable and dread bargaining with unknown powers of dishonesty,nothing behind him but the mistake of starting the "boom."

  As the morning wore away he went out into the hills to look about him.The men were all busily enough engaged in chipping out the shallowtroughs of their "discoveries," piling supporting rocks about theircorner and side stakes, or tacking up laboriously composed mining"notices." They paid scant attention to the man who passed them ahundred yards away. Peter visited his own four claims. On one he found asmall group anxiously examining the indications of the lead. He did notjoin it. The parting words flung after him at the saloon came to hismind. "Look out for us! There'll be an unholy mob on hand, and they'lltry to do you, sure."

  Peter cooked himself a noon meal, but he did not eat much of it.Instead, he sat quite still and stared with wide, blind eyes at thewavering mists of steam that arose from the various hot dishes. Fromtime to time he got up with apparent purpose, which, however, left himbefore he had taken two steps, so that his movement speedily becameaimless, and he sat down again. Late in the afternoon he went the roundsof his claims again, but saw nothing unusual. He did not take thetrouble to cook supper. During the evening some men looked in for amoment or so, but went away, because the cabin was empty. Peter was atthe moment of their visit walking back and forth, back and forth, awayup high there on the top of the ridge, in a little cleared flat spacenext the stars. When he came to the end, he whirled sharp on his heels.It was six paces one way and five the other. He counted the stepsconsciously, until the mental process became mechanical. Then the countwent on steadily behind his other thoughts--five, six; five, six; five,six; over and over again, like that. About ten o'clock he ceased openingand shutting his hands and began to scream, at first under his breath,then louder in the over tone, then with the full strength of his lungs.A mountain lion on another slope answered him. He stretched his arms upover his head, every muscle tense, and screamed. And then, withoutappreciable transition, he sank to the rock and hid his face. For themoment the nerve tension had relaxed.

  The clear western stars, like fine silver powder, seemed to glimmer insome light stronger than their own, as dust-motes in the sun. A breezefrom the prairie rested its light, invisible hands on the man's benthead. Certain homely night-sounds, such as the tree-toads and cricketsand the cries of the poor wills, stole here and there through thepine-aisles like living creatures on the wing. A faint, sweet odour ofthe woods came with them. Peter arose, and drew a deep breath, and wentto his cabin. The peace of nature had for the moment become his own.

  But then, in the darkness of his low bunk, the old doubts, the oldterrors returned. They perched there above him and compelled him to lookat them until his eyes were hot and red. "_Do, do, do!_" said they,until Peter arose, and there, in th
e chill of dawn, he walked the threemiles necessary for the inspection of his claims. Everything was as itshould be. The men in the gulch were not yet awake. From the _Jim Crow_a drowsy porcupine trundled away bristling.

  This could not go on. It would be weeks before he could hope even toopen his negotiations. Peter cooked himself an elaborate breakfast--anddrank half a cup of coffee. Then he sat, as he had the day before,staring straight in front of him, seeing nothing. After a time he placedthe girl's picture and the square mirror side by side on the table andlooked at them intently.

  He rose, kicking his chair over backward, and went out to his claimsonce more.

  The men in the gulch had awakened. Most of them had finished the moreimperative demands of location the day before, so now they were more atleisure to satisfy their curiosity and their love of comment byinspecting the original discovery to which all this stampede was due. Asa consequence Peter found a great gathering on the _Jim Crow_. Some ofthe men were examining chunks of ore, others were preparing to descendthe shafts, still others were engaged idly in reading thelocation-notice tacked against a stub pine. One of the latter, the sameindividual who had joked Peter in the saloon, caught sight of theprospector as he approached.

  "Hullo, Happy!" he called, pointing at the weather-beaten notice. "Whatdo you call this?" He winked at the rest. The history of Peter's losseswas well known.

  "What?" asked Peter, strangely.

  "You ain't got this readin' right. She says 'fifteen hundred feet'; thelaw says she ought t' read 'fifteen hundred _linear_ feet.' Your claimis n.g. I'm goin' t' jump her on you."

  The statement was ridiculous; everybody knew it, and prepared to laugh,loud-mouthed.

  Peter, without a word, shot the speaker through the heart. Men said athis trial that it was the most brutal and unprovoked murder they hadever known.