"Who did the grocery man say that to?" asked the Right Bower, finally returning to the question.
"The Old man," answered the Judge.
"Of course," ejaculated the Right Bower sarcastically.
"Of course," echoed the other partners together."That's like him.
The Old Man all over!"
It did not appear exactly what was like the Old Man, or why it was like him, but generally that he alone was responsible for the grocery man's defection.It was put more concisely by Union Mills.
"That comes of letting him go there! It's just a fair provocation to any man to have the Old Man sent to him.They can't, sorter, restrain themselves at him.He's enough to spoil the credit of the Rothschilds.""That's so," chimed in the Judge."And look at his prospecting.
Why, he was out two nights last week, all night, prospecting in the moonlight for blind leads, just out of sheer foolishness.""It was quite enough for me," broke in the Left Bower, "when the other day, you remember when, he proposed to us white men to settle down to plain ground sluicing, making 'grub' wages just like any Chinaman.It just showed his idea of the Lone Star claim.""Well, I never said it afore," added Union Mills, "but when that one of the Mattison boys came over here to examine the claim with an eye to purchasin', it was the Old Man that took the conceit out of him.He just as good as admitted that a lot of work had got to be done afore any pay ore could be realized.Never even asked him over to the shanty here to jine us in a friendly game; just kept him, so to speak, to himself.And naturally the Mattisons didn't see it."A silence followed, broken only by the rain monotonously falling on the roof, and occasionally through the broad adobe chimney, where it provoked a retaliating hiss and splutter from the dying embers of the hearth.The Right Bower, with a sudden access of energy, drew the empty barrel before him, and taking a pack of well-worn cards from his pocket, began to make a "solitaire" upon the lid.
The others gazed at him with languid interest.
"Makin' it for anythin'?" asked Mills.
The Right Bower nodded.
The Judge and Left Bower, who were partly lying in their respective bunks, sat up to get a better view of the game.Union Mills slowly disengaged himself from the wall and leaned over the "solitaire"player.The Right Bower turned the last card in a pause of almost thrilling suspense, and clapped it down on the lid with fateful emphasis.
"It went!" said the Judge in a voice of hushed respect."What did you make it for?" he almost whispered.
"To know if we'd make the break we talked about and vamose the ranch.It's the FIFTH time today," continued the Right Bower in a voice of gloomy significance."And it went agin bad cards too.""I ain't superstitious," said the Judge, with awe and fatuity beaming from every line of his credulous face, "but it's flyin' in the face of Providence to go agin such signs as that.""Make it again, to see if the Old Man must go," suggested the Left Bower.
The suggestion was received with favor, the three men gathering breathlessly around the player.Again the fateful cards were shuffled deliberately, placed in their mysterious combination, with the same ominous result.Yet everybody seemed to breathe more freely, as if relieved from some responsibility, the Judge accepting this manifest expression of Providence with resigned self-righteousness.
"Yes, gentlemen," resumed the Left Bower, serenely, as if a calm legal decision had just been recorded, "we must not let any foolishness or sentiment get mixed up with this thing, but look at it like business men.The only sensible move is to get up and get out of the camp.""And the Old Man?" queried the Judge.
"The Old Man--hush! he's coming."
The doorway was darkened by a slight lissome shadow.It was the absent partner, otherwise known as "the Old Man." Need it be added that he was a BOY of nineteen, with a slight down just clothing his upper lip!
"The creek is up over the ford, and I had to 'shin' up a willow on the bank and swing myself across," he said, with a quick, frank laugh; "but all the same, boys, it's going to clear up in about an hour, you bet.It's breaking away over Bald Mountain, and there's a sun flash on a bit of snow on Lone Peak.Look! you can see it from here.It's for all the world like Noah's dove just landed on Mount Ararat.It's a good omen."From sheer force of habit the men had momentarily brightened up at the Old Man's entrance.But the unblushing exhibition of degrading superstition shown in the last sentence recalled their just severity.They exchanged meaning glances.Union Mills uttered hopelessly to himself: "Hell's full of such omens."Too occupied with his subject to notice this ominous reception, the Old Man continued: "I reckon I struck a fresh lead in the new grocery man at the Crossing.He says he'll let the Judge have a pair of boots on credit, but he can't send them over here; and considering that the Judge has got to try them anyway, it don't seem to be asking too much for the Judge to go over there.He says he'll give us a barrel of pork and a bag of flour if we'll give him the right of using our tail-race and clean out the lower end of it.""It's the work of a Chinaman, and a four days' job," broke in the Left Bower.
"It took one white man only two hours to clean out a third of it,"retorted the Old Man triumphantly, "for I pitched in at once with a pick he let me have on credit, and did that amount of work this morning, and told him the rest of you boys would finish it this afternoon."A slight gesture from the Right Bower checked an angry exclamation from the Left.The Old Man did not notice either, but, knitting his smooth young brow in a paternally reflective fashion, went on:
