Part 42 (2/2)
”Mostly,” said Ma Snow who had come up behind the critic's chair unnoticed, ”you've ketched nothin'.” She went on in her plaintive voice:
”It's a shame, that's what it is, that Bruce Burt didn't just turn over his business to you-all this summer. With s.h.i.+ning examples of success to advise him, like's sittin' here burnin' up my wood t'hout offerin' to split any, he _couldn't_ have failed. Personally, I wouldn't think of makin' a business move without first talkin' it over with the financiers that have made Ore City the money centre that it is!”
”Everybody can learn something,” Yankee Sam retorted with a show of spirit.
”Not everybody,” Ma Snow's voice had an ominous quaver, ”or you'd a learned long ago that you can't knock that young man in my hearin'. _I_ haven't forgot if _you_ have, that the only real money that's been in the camp all Summer has come up from the river.”
”We wasn't sayin' anything against him personal,” the brash Samuel a.s.sured her hastily; but Bruce's champion refused to be mollified.
”What if he _did_ shut down? What of it?” She glared defiance until her pale eyes watered with the strain. ”I don't notice anybody here that's ever had gumption enough even to start up. What do you do?” She answered for them--”Jest scratch a hole in the ground, then set and wait for Capital to come and hand you out a million. I dast you to answer!”
It was plain from the silence that no one cared to remove the chip on Ma Snow's shoulder.
”I hear he aims to stay down there all winter alone and trap.” Judge Petty made the observation for the sake of conversation merely, as the fact was as well known as that there were four feet of snow outside or that the camp was ”busted.”
”And it's to his credit,” Ma Snow snapped back. ”When he's doin' that he ain't runnin' up board bills he cain't pay.”
”It's as good a place as any,” admitted the Judge, ”providin' he don't go nutty.” He raised his voice and added with a significant look at Uncle Bill: ”Bachin' alone makes some fellers act like a bull-elk that's been whipped out of the herd.”
”It takes about four months before you begin to think that somebudy's layin' out in the brush watchin' you--waitin' to rob you even if you haven't got anything to steal but a slab of swine-buzzum and a sack of flour. The next stage,” went on the citizen behind the stove speaking with the voice of authority, ”is when you pack your rifle along every time you go for a bucket of water, and light you palouser in the middle of the night to go around the cabin lookin' for tracks. Yes, sir,”
emphatically, ”and the more brains you got the quicker you go off.”
”You seemed about the same when you got back as when you left that time you wintered alone on the left fork of Swift.w.a.ter,” Ma Snow commented.
”Like as not you remember that spell I spent t'other side of Sheep-eater Ridge when I druv that fifty foot tunnel single-handed into the Silver King?”
”You've never give us no chance to forgit it,” responded an auditor.
”We've heard it reg'lar every day since.”
”I hadn't seen n.o.body fer clost to three months,” Lemonade Dan continued ”when a feller come along, and says: 'I'd like to stop with ye but I'm short of cash.' I counted out a dollar-thirty and I says 'Stranger,' I says, 'that's all I got but it's yourn if you'll stay!'”
”And you'll jump for a new seed catalogue or an Agricultural Bulletin like it was a novel just out,” contributed Yankee Sam from his experience. ”I've allus been a great reader. I mind how I come clost to burnin' myself out on account of it the fall of '97 when I was ground-sluicin' down there on Snake river. I had a tidy cabin papered with newspapers and one week when 'twere stormin' I got interested in a serial story what was runnin'. It started back of the stove and they was an installment pasted in the cupboard, they was a piece upside down clost to the floor so I had to stand on my head, as you might say, to read it, and the end was on the ceilin'. One evenin' I was standin' on a box with my mouth open and my neck half broke tryin' to see how it come out when I tipped the lamp over. I'm a reg'lar book-worm, when I gits where they's readin'.”
”I mind the winter I bached on Crooked Crick I tamed a mouse,” ventured Lannigan. ”He got so sociable he et out of my fingers.”
”He sh.o.r.ely must have been fond of you.” Ma Snow looked fixedly at Lannigan's hands. ”Mistah Hinds,” turning sharply upon that person, who was endeavoring by close inspection to tell whether the last card was a king or queen, ”the bacon's froze and there ain't a knife in yoah ol'
kitchen that will cut.”
”Yes ma'am,” murmured Mr. Hinds, hoping against hope that the statement was not a command with his luck just beginning to turn and a sequence in sight.
”If there ain't an aidge on one of them butcher knives that'll cut bread when I start in to get supper--”
But Ma Snow did not deliver her ultimatum. In the first place it was not necessary, for the cowed owner of the Hinds House knew perfectly well what it was, and in the second, Uncle Bill arose suddenly and stood on tiptoe looking through the window in something that approached excitement. Nothing ordinary could jar Uncle Bill's composure--chairs went over in the rush to join him at the window.
The stage was coming--with pa.s.sengers! It was almost in--they could hear the driver's--”Git ep, Eagle! Git ep, Nig! Git ep--git ep--git ep!”
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