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"I didn't have any to lose or I wouldn't have acted the way I did. "I fled from the place. I wandered, ever wandered, God knows whar. I struck minin' camps, worked like a slave, an' spent my wages to satisfy the devil within me. But once I let up. A young chap, the parson of Big Glen, reached out a hand an' gave me a lift. He stuck to me through thick an' thin.
He was a sweet lamb, that's wot he was. I understan' he's a minin' ingineer out in British Columbia, an' doin' fine from the last account I heerd." "That was some time ago, Mrs. Stickles, was it not?" "I believe it was last summer." "Well, it seems that Philip's in trouble." "Lan' sake, ye don't tell me!" and Mrs. Stickles dropped her knitting and held up her hands in horror.
A new disdain for personal risks had caught fire from that flaming quality in the woman. "Hev ye ever seed Coal City?" inquired Mallows, and when the other shook his head, he continued in a lowered voice. "Wa'al hit's a right rough sort of place. Hit's a coal minin' town with only one tavern an' things goes forward thar right sensibly similar ter hell on a hot night.
Ever kick over a ant-hole? Dawson's just like that. Main Street was crawlin' an' hummin' when I pulled my freight. You won't see Tra-Lee to-morrow for folks. An' if they ain't some a-sneakin' acrost right now I don't know minin' nature, that's all." Smoke grinned, stepped to the fake windlass, and gave it a couple of creaking turns.
'T was here at the old cabin he met his pard, an' they made plans fer a great minin' company. Of all the fellers they was settin' up machinery in the mines a dozen years ago, this feller was the best o' the lot. Why, oncet he rigged up a " "O, Mr. Wright, were there lots of different men installing mine machinery here in the early days?" inquired Willis. A note of anxiety had crept into his voice.
That comes from his hangin' round that saw-mill in the woods, and listenin' to Bradley's high-falutin' talk about rocks and strata and sich." "But Bradley don't go a cent on minin', Pop," said Minty. "He sez the woods is good enough for him; and there's millions to be made when the railroad comes along, and timber's wanted."
"First rate," answered Wild, as he shook hands with the miner, but failed to recognize him. "How are you?" "Me? Oh, I'm fine! I've struck it rich here in ther wilds of Nevady, my boy! I'm ther prospector what started ther camp. I named her Big Bonanza, an' it sartinly has been a big bonanza fur me. Beats minin' up in Weston, all right." "Weston, eh?"
Dan Anderson blew a faint wreath of blue smoke up toward the blue sky and remained silent for a time. "The next particular Basswood Junction happened to be a Democratic minin' town, instead of a Republican agricultural community. It didn't have any overall factories at all.
"You was always for jokin', Jefferson," said the old lady, smiling faintly; "but that is not the way our losses came." "How then?" "You see I indorsed notes for Sam Sherman over at Canton, and he failed, and I had to pay, then I bought some wild cat minin' stock on Sam's recommendation, and that went down to nothin'. So between the two I lost about three thousand dollars.
The Cap 'd go over to England an' go into th' South African minin' business, an' become what Hogan calls "A Casey's bellows."
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