"The Old Man oughter been here to see this," said the Left Bower;"it's just one o' them climaxes of poetic justice he's always huntin' up.It's easy to see what's happened.One o' them high-toned shrimps over in the Excelsior claim has put a blast in too near the creek.He's tumbled the bank into the creek and sent the back water down here just to wash out our race.That's what I call poetical retribution.""And who was it advised us to dam the creek below the race and make it do the thing?" asked the Right Bower, moodily.
"That was one of the Old Man's ideas, I reckon," said the Left Bower, dubiously.
"And you remember," broke in the Judge with animation, "I allus said, 'Go slow, go slow.You just hold on and suthin' will happen.' And," he added, triumphantly, "you see suthin' has happened.I don't want to take credit to myself, but I reckoned on them Excelsior boys bein' fools, and took the chances.""And what if I happen to know that the Excelsior boys ain't blastin' to-day?" said the Right Bower, sarcastically.
As the Judge had evidently based his hypothesis on the alleged fact of a blast, he deftly evaded the point."I ain't saying the Old Man's head ain't level on some things; he wants a little more sabe of the world.He's improved a good deal in euchre lately, and in poker--well! he's got that sorter dreamy, listenin'-to-the-angels kind o' way that you can't exactly tell whether he's bluffin' or has got a full hand.Hasn't he?" he asked, appealing to Union Mills.
But that gentleman, who had been watching the dark face of the Right Bower, preferred to take what he believed to be his cue from him."That ain't the question," he said virtuously; "we ain't takin' this step to make a card sharp out of him.We're not doin'
Chinamen's work in this race to-day for that.No, sir! We're teachin' him to paddle his own canoe." Not finding the sympathetic response he looked for in the Right Bower's face, he turned to the Left.
"I reckon we were teachin' him our canoe was too full," was the Left Bower's unexpected reply."That's about the size of it."The Right Bower shot a rapid glance under his brows at his brother.
The latter, with his hands in his pockets, stared unconsciously at the rushing waters, and then quietly turned away.The Right Bower followed him."Are you goin' back on us?" he asked.
"Are you?" responded the other.
"No!"
"NO, then it is," returned the Left Bower quietly.The elder brother hesitated in half-angry embarrassment.
"Then what did you mean by saying we reckoned our canoe was too full?""Wasn't that our idea?" returned the Left Bower, indifferently.
Confounded by this practical expression of his own unformulated good intentions, the Right Bower was staggered.
"Speakin' of the Old Man," broke in the Judge, with characteristic infelicity, "I reckon he'll sort o' miss us, times like these.We were allers runnin' him and bedevilin' him, after work, just to get him excited and amusin', and he'll kinder miss that sort o'
stimulatin'.I reckon we'll miss it too, somewhat.Don't you remember, boys, the night we put up that little sell on him and made him believe we'd struck it rich in the bank of the creek, and got him so conceited, he wanted to go off and settle all our debts at once?""And how I came bustin' into the cabin with a pan full of iron pyrites and black sand," chuckled Union Mills, continuing the reminiscences, "and how them big gray eyes of his nearly bulged out of his head.Well, it's some satisfaction to know we did our duty by the young fellow even in those little things." He turned for confirmation of their general disinterestedness to the Right Bower, but he was already striding away, uneasily conscious of the lazy following of the Left Bower, like a laggard conscience at his back.
This movement again threw Union Mills and the Judge into feeble complicity in the rear, as the procession slowly straggled homeward from the creek.
Night had fallen.Their way lay through the shadow of Lone Star Mountain, deepened here and there by the slight, bosky ridges that, starting from its base, crept across the plain like vast roots of its swelling trunk.The shadows were growing blacker as the moon began to assert itself over the rest of the valley, when the Right Bower halted suddenly on one of these ridges.The Left Bower lounged up to him, and stopped also, while the two others came up and completed the group.
"There's no light in the shanty," said the Right Bower in a low voice, half to himself and, half in answer to their inquiring attitude.The men followed the direction of his finger.In the distance the black outline of the Lone Star cabin stood out distinctly in the illumined space.There was the blank, sightless, external glitter of moonlight on its two windows that seemed to reflect its dim vacancy, empty alike of light, and warmth, and motion.
"That's sing'lar," said the Judge in an awed whisper.
The Left Bower, by simply altering the position of his hands in his trousers' pockets, managed to suggest that he knew perfectly the meaning of it, had always known it; but that being now, so to speak, in the hands of Fate, he was callous to it.This much, at least, the elder brother read in his attitude.But anxiety at that moment was the controlling impulse of the Right Bower, as a certain superstitious remorse was the instinct of the two others, and without heeding the cynic, the three started at a rapid pace for the cabin.
