Part 28 (1/2)

The mining boom was off, and Springtown was feeling the reaction as severely as so sanguine and sunny a little place was capable of doing.

To one who had witnessed, a year or more previous, the rising of the tide of speculation, whose tossing crest had flung its glittering drops upon the loftiest and firmest rocks of the business community, the streets of the little Rocky Mountain town had something the aspect of the sh.o.r.e at low tide. Such a witness was Harry Wakefield, if, indeed, a man may be said to have ”witnessed” a commotion which has swept him off his feet and whirled him about like a piece of driftwood. It was, to be sure, quite in the character of a piece of driftwood that Wakefield had let himself be drawn into the whirlpool, and he could not escape the feeling that, tossed as he was, high and dry upon the sh.o.r.e, he was getting quite as good as he deserved.

”Yes, I'm busted!” he remarked to his friend Chittenden, the stock-broker, as the two men paused before the office-door of the latter. ”It was the Race-Horse that finished me up. No, thanks, I won't come in. A burnt child dreads the fire!”

”We're all cool enough now-a-days,” Chittenden replied, shrugging his shoulders. ”Couldn't get up a blaze to heat a flat-iron!” and he pa.s.sed in to the office, with the air of a man whose occupation is gone.

As Wakefield turned down the street, his eye fell upon a stock-board across the way, a board upon which had once been jotted down from day to day, a record of his varying fortunes. He remembered how, a few months ago, that same board showed white with Lame Gulch quotations. He reflected that, while the price set against each stock had made but a modest showing, running from ten cents up into the second dollar, a man of sense,--supposing such a phenomenon to have weathered the ”boom,”--would have been impressed with the fact that the valuation thus placed upon the infant camp aggregated something like twenty millions of dollars. The absurdity of the whole thing struck Wakefield with added force, as he read the solitary announcement which now graced the board,--namely:

”To exchange: 1000 Race-Horse for a bull-terrier pup.”

”Kind o' funny; ain't it?” said a voice close beside him.

It was d.i.c.ky Simmons, a youth of seedy aspect, but a cheerful countenance, who had come up with him, and was engaged in the perusal of the same announcement.

”Hullo, Simmons! Where do you hail from?”

”From Barnaby's ranch. I'm trying my hand at agriculture until this thing's blown over!”

”Think it's going to?”

”Oh, yes! When the tide's dead low it's sure to turn!” and the old hopeful look glistened in the boy's face.

”That's the case in Nature,” Wakefield objected. ”Nature hadn't anything to do with the boom. It was contrary to all the laws.”

”Oh, I guess Nature has a hand in most things,” d.i.c.ky replied with cheerful a.s.surance. ”Anyhow she's made a big deal up at Lame Gulch, and those of us who've got the sand to hold on will find that she's in the management.”

”Think so?”

”Sure of it!”

”Hope you're right. Anyhow, though, I'd try the old girl on agriculture for a while, if I were you. How's Barnaby doing, by the way?”

”Holding on by the skin of his teeth.”

”What's wrong there?”

”Can't collect;” was the laconic reply.

The two companions in adversity were walking toward the post-office, moved, perhaps, by the subtle attraction which that inst.i.tution exercises over the man who is ”down on his luck.” There was no mail due, yet they turned, with one accord, in at the door, and repaired to their respective boxes. As Wakefield looked up from the inspection of his empty one, he saw Simmons, with an open letter or circular in his hand.

Catching Wakefield's eye he laughed.

”Well?” Wakefield queried.

”You know, Wake,” said d.i.c.ky, in a confidential tone. ”The thing's too funny to be serious. Here's the Trailing Arbutus (you're not in that, I believe), capitalization a million and a half shares, calls a meeting of stockholders to consider how to raise money to get the mine out of the hands of a receiver. Now, guess how much money they want!”

”How much?”

”_Five hundred dollars!_ Five hundred dollars on a million and a half shares! I say, Wake, they couldn't be funnier if they tried!”

Agreeable as d.i.c.ky's company usually was, Wakefield was glad when the boy hailed the Barnaby milk-cart, and betook himself and his insistent brightness under its canvas shelter. The white covered wagon went rattling out of town, and Wakefield, somewhat to his surprise, found himself striding after it.