Part 34 (1/2)

”You old son of a gun!”

Van thought the storms had raged sufficiently.

”Is work unpopular, or did the wind blow the water from the creek?”

”I like to work,” admitted Gettysburg, ”but it's fun to watch you epicures eatin'.”

Beth felt embarra.s.sed.

”Epicures?” echoed Napoleon. ”You don't know what an epicure is?

That's a vulgar remark when you don't know no meaning of a word.”

”Epicure? Me not know what an epicure is?” replied old Gettysburg aggressively. ”You bet I do. An epicure's a feller which chaws his fodder before he swallers it.”

Napoleon subsided. Then he arose and sauntered out to work, Dave and Gettysburg following. Van hastily drank his cup of coffee, which, as he had predicted, was not particularly good, and started for the others. He halted in the door.

”Make yourself comfortable, if you can here, Kent,” he said. ”You had an exhausting experience yesterday. Perhaps you had better lie down.”

Beth merely said: ”Thank you.” But her smile was more radiant than suns.h.i.+ne.

CHAPTER XXVIII

WORK AND SONG

Having presently finished her breakfast, Beth joined the group outside, curious to behold the workings of a placer mine in actual operation.

There was not much to see, but it was picturesque. In their lack of funds the partners had constructed the simplest known device for collecting the gold from the sand. They had built a line of sluices, or troughs of considerable length, propped on stilts, or supports about knee high, along the old bed of the canyon. The sluices were mere square flumes, set with a fairly rapid grade.

Across the bottom of all this flume, at every yard or less of its length, small wooden cleats had been nailed, to form the ”riffles.”

Into the hoses the water from the creek was turned, at the top. The men then shoveled the sand in the running stream and away it went, sluicing along the water-chute, its particles rattling down the wooden stairway noisily. The gold was expected to settled behind the riffles, owing to its weight.

All the flume-way dripped from leakages. The sun beat down upon the place unshaded. Water escaped into all the pits the men were digging as they worked, so that they slopped around in mud above their ankles.

Dave wore rubber boots and was apparently protected. As a matter of fact the boots promptly filled with water. Napoleon and Gettysburg made no effort to remain dry shod, but puddled all day with soused footgear.

Van rode off to the ”reservation town,” a mile below the hill, to bargain for a tent reported there for sale. Sleeping quarters here on the claim were far too crowded. Until lumber for a cabin could be purchased they must make what s.h.i.+fts they might.

It had taken but the briefest time for the miners to go at their work.

Beth stood near, watching the process with the keenest interest. It seemed to her a back-breaking, strenuous labor. These st.u.r.dy old fellows, grown gray and stooped with toil--grown also expectant of hards.h.i.+p, ill-luck, and privations--were pathetic figures, despite their ways of cheer.

That Van had attached them to himself in a largeness of heart by no means warranted by their worth was a conviction at which anyone must promptly arrive. They were lovable old scamps, faithful, honest, and loyal to the man they loved--but that was all that could be stated.

Perhaps it was enough. As partners with whom to share both life and fortune they might have seemed impossible to many discerning men.

Beth sat down on a rock, near Gettysburg. Someway she, too, liked the three old chaps of whom work had made three trademarks. Old Gettysburg began to sing. The words of his song, halted by grunts as he shoveled, were, to say the least, unexpected:

The frog he swore he'd have a ride, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo; Sword and pistols by his side, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo.

For lunch he packed a beetle bug, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo; Tucked inside his tummy snug, (Shovel) With a rinktum bolly kimo.

Kimo, karo, pito, garo, Kimo, bolly mitty kimo.