Nothing mean or revengeful; no, they never would say THAT.When he had taken out all the surface gold and put the mine in working order, he would send them each a draft for a thousand dollars.Of course, if they were ever ill or poor he would do more.One of the first, the very first things he should do would be to send them each a handsome gun and tell them that he only asked in return the old-fashioned rifle that once was his.Looking back at the moment in after years, he wondered that, with this exception, he made no plans for his own future, or the way he should dispose of his newly acquired wealth.This was the more singular as it had been the custom of the five partners to lie awake at night, audibly comparing with each other what they would do in case they made a strike.He remembered how, Alnaschar-like, they nearly separated once over a difference in the disposal of a hundred thousand dollars that they never had, nor expected to have.He remembered how Union Mills always began his career as a millionnaire by a "square meal" at Delmonico's; how the Right Bower's initial step was always a trip home "to see his mother"; how the Left Bower would immediately placate the parents of his beloved with priceless gifts (it may be parenthetically remarked that the parents and the beloved one were as hypothetical as the fortune); and how the Judge would make his first start as a capitalist by breaking a certain faro bank in Sacramento.He himself had been equally eloquent in extravagant fancy in those penniless days, he who now was quite cold and impassive beside the more extravagant reality.
How different it might have been! If they had only waited a day longer! if they had only broken their resolves to him kindly and parted in good will! How he would long ere this have rushed to greet them with the joyful news! How they would have danced around it, sung themselves hoarse, laughed down their enemies, and run up the flag triumphantly on the summit of the Lone Star Mountain! How they would have crowned him "the Old Man," "the hero of the camp!"How he would have told them the whole story; how some strange instinct had impelled him to ascend the summit, and how another step on that summit would have precipitated him into the canyon!
And how--but what if somebody else, Union Mills or the Judge, had been the first discoverer? Might they not have meanly kept the secret from him; have selfishly helped themselves and done--"What YOU are doing now."
The hot blood rushed to his cheek, as if a strange voice were at his ear.For a moment he could not believe that it came from his own pale lips until he found himself speaking.He rose to his feet, tingling with shame, and began hurriedly to descend the mountain.
He would go to them, tell them of his discovery, let them give him his share, and leave them forever.It was the only thing to be done, strange that he had not thought of it at once.Yet it was hard, very hard and cruel to be forced to meet them again.What had he done to suffer this mortification? For a moment he actually hated this vulgar treasure that had forever buried under its gross ponderability the light and careless past, and utterly crushed out the poetry of their old, indolent, happy existence.
He was sure to find them waiting at the Cross Roads where the coach came past.It was three miles away, yet he could get there in time if he hastened.It was a wise and practical conclusion of his evening's work, a lame and impotent conclusion to his evening's indignation.No matter.They would perhaps at first think he had come to weakly follow them, perhaps they would at first doubt his story.No matter.He bit his lips to keep down the foolish rising tears, but still went blindly forward.
He saw not the beautiful night, cradled in the dark hills, swathed in luminous mists, and hushed in the awe of its own loveliness!
Here and there the moon had laid her calm face on lake and overflow, and gone to sleep embracing them, until the whole plain seemed to be lifted into infinite quiet.Walking on as in a dream, the black, impenetrable barriers of skirting thickets opened and gave way to vague distances that it appeared impossible to reach, dim vistas that seemed unapproachable.Gradually he seemed himself to become a part of the mysterious night.He was becoming as pulseless, as calm, as passionless.
What was that? A shot in the direction of the cabin! yet so faint, so echoless, so ineffective in the vast silence, that he would have thought it his fancy but for the strange instinctive jar upon his sensitive nerves.Was it an accident, or was it an intentional signal to him? He stopped; it was not repeated, the silence reasserted itself, but this time with an ominous death-like suggestion.A sudden and terrible thought crossed his mind.He cast aside his pack and all encumbering weight, took a deep breath, lowered his head and darted like a deer in the direction of the challenge.
