Part 24 (1/2)
The boy staggered under the force of this. ”Holy smoke! Did you do that?”
”Sure I did. It was the only way to save that dear old mother of yours.
I told your sister also that I was going to stop your white-marble exercise, and I'm going to do it if I have to break your back.”
There was no mistaking the sincerity and determination of Kelley's tone, and the young man, so far from resenting these qualities, replied, meekly: ”I want to get out of it, Ed. I've been saying all day that I must quit it. But what can I do?”
”I'll tell you my plan,” said Kelley, with decision. ”You've got to buy my interest in the mine.”
Morse laughed. ”But I haven't any money. I haven't three hundred dollars in the world.”
”I'll take your note, provided your sister will indorse it, and she will.”
The young fellow looked up at his tall friend in amazement which turned at last into amus.e.m.e.nt. He began to chuckle. ”Good Lord! I knew you'd made a mash on Flo, but I didn't know it was mutual. I heard her say, 'be sure and write.'” He slapped Kelley on the back. ”There'll be something doing when she comes back in the spring, eh?”
Kelley remained unmoved. ”There will be if she finds you rolling that white marble.”
”She won't. I'll take your offer. But what will you be doing?”
”Climbing some Alaska trail,” replied Kelley, with a remote glance.
THE PROSPECTOR
_--still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of glacial pa.s.ses seeking the unexplored, and therefore more alluring, mountain range._
VI
THE PROSPECTOR
Old Pogosa was seated in the shade of a farm-wagon, not far from the trader's store at Washakie, eating a cracker and mumbling to herself, when a white man in miner's dress spoke to her in a kindly voice and offered her an orange. She studied him with a dim, s.h.i.+ning, suspicious gaze, but took the orange. Eugene, the grandson of her niece, stood beside the stranger, and he, too, had an orange.
”Tell her,” said the white man, ”that I want to talk with her about old days; that I am a friend of her people, and that I knew Sitting Bull and Bear Robe. They were great chiefs.”
As these words were interpreted to the old witch, her mouth softened a little and, raising her eyes, she studied her visitor intently. At last she said: ”Ay, he was a great chief, Sitting Bull. My cousin. I came to visit Shoshoni many moons ago. Never returned to my own people.”
To this the miner replied, ”They say your husband, Iapi, was one of the sheep-eaters exiled to the mountains?”
Her eyes widened. Her gaze deepened. She clipped her forefinger in sign of agreement. ”It was very cold up there in winter. We were often hungry, for the game had all been driven to the plain and we could not follow. Many of our children died. All died but one.”
The stranger, whose name was Wetherell, responded with a sigh: ”My heart is heavy when I hear of it. Because you are old and have not much food I give you this money.” And he handed her a silver dollar and walked away.
The next day, led by Eugene, Wetherell and Kelley, his partner, again approached the old Sioux, this time with a generous gift of beef.
”My brother, here, is paper-chief,” he explained. ”As a friend of the red people he wants to put in a book all the wrongs that the sheep-eaters suffered.”
In this way the gold-seekers proceeded to work upon Pogosa's withered heart. Her mind was clouded with age, but a spark of her old-time cunning still dwelt there, and as she came to understand that the white men were eager to hear the story of the lost mine she grew forgetful.
Her tongue halted on details of the trail. Why should not her tale produce other sides of bacon, more oranges, and many yards of cloth? Her memory wabbled like her finger--now pointing west, now north. At one time the exiles found the gold in the cabin in a bag--like s.h.i.+ning sand; at another it lay in the sand like s.h.i.+ning soldiers' b.u.t.tons, but always it was very beautiful to look upon, and always, she repeated, the white men fled. No one slew them. They went hurriedly, leaving all their tools.