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Nor was it until nearly supper-time that Bill suddenly stood up and declared he had had enough. He was a loser to the extent of nearly a hundred dollars. So the party broke up. And at Minky's suggestion the men departed to put their horses in the barn, while they partook of supper under his roof. It was the moment they had gone that the storekeeper turned on his friend.
But wherein Minky's store was slightly out of the usual was the fact that he was not a Jew, and adopted no Jewish methods of trading. He was scrupulously honest with his customers, and fairly moderate in his charges, relying on this uncommon integrity and temperateness of disposition to make personal liking the basis of his commercial success.
Although, when Minky's spirit has circulated its poison through their veins, they are sometimes apt to assume a burlesque of it. Now the camp is wide awake. But it is only the wakefulness of the mother who is roused by the hungry crying of her infant. It will slumber again when appetites have been duly appeased. The milk of human kindness is soured by the intense summer heat.
And he listened to the news which greeted him on every hand with a calmly non-committal air. Nor, when he found it necessary to comment, did he hesitate to do so in his usual sharp, decided fashion. "Minky's good grit," he declared on one occasion to a puzzled miner. "I don't guess ther's many folks around as 'ud take his chances. I allow Sufferin' Creek needs to be proud of sech a feller."
He breathed hard, as though summoning up all his decision. Then he spoke. "Say, kiddies," he said firmly. "I'll be right back at supper." And he moved out without another look in their direction, and walked off in the direction of Minky's store. Scipio found an almost deserted camp after floundering his way over the intricate paths amongst the refuse-heaps.
Another slouches along a vague, unmade trail. Yet another scrambles his way through a low, dense-growing scrub which lines the sides of a vast ravine, the favored locality of the gold-seeker. So they come, one by one, from every direction radiating about the building, which is Minky's store. Their faces are hard. Their skin is tanned to a leathery hue, and is of a texture akin to hide.
The hill-top passed, the horses swung down into a deep, long valley. It was in this valley, some six or seven miles farther on, he had encountered Scipio in Minky's buckboard. He thought of that meeting now, and remembered many things; and as recollection stirred his teeth shut tight till his jaw muscles stood out like walnuts through his lean cheeks. He had promised Scipio that day.
The general opinion expressed out of Minky's hearing, of course, but to the accompaniment of deep libations of his most execrable whisky was that, personally, that astute trader was, for some unaccountable reason, rapidly qualifying for the "bug-house," and that the only thing due from them was to display their loyalty to him by humoring him to the extent of discounting all the "dust" they could lay hands on, and wishing him well out of the trouble he seemed bent on laying up for himself.
They learned that he had borrowed Minky's buckboard, and had driven away. And immediately in the public mind crept an unexpressed question. Had Zip abandoned the place in the face of his ill-luck, and, if so, what about this gigantic oil find? However, there was nothing to be done at present but wait. The flow of oil could not be checked, and the tremendous waste must go on.
"God in heaven," he cried, appealing to the blue vault above him in which the stars were beginning to appear. "I can't refuse her. I just can't. She wants her so my poor, poor Jessie." It was late in the evening when Scipio returned from the camp driving Minky's buckskin mule and ancient buckboard. His mind was made up. He would start out directly after breakfast on the morrow.
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