Part 100 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bob found it two hours' journey down]
Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence. Long after the brawl of the river had become deafening, the road continued to dip and descend. It is a peculiar phenomenon incidental to the descent of the sheer canons of the Sierra Nevada that the last few hundred feet down seem longer than the thousands already pa.s.sed. This is probably because, having gained close to the level of the tree-tops, the mind, strung taut to the long descent, allows itself prematurely to relax its attention.
Bob turned in his saddle to look back at the grade. He could not fail to reflect on how lucky it was that the inhabitants of this village could haul their materials and supplies _down_ the road. It would have been prohibitively difficult to drag anything up.
After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the flat, and so across the meadow to the bridge. Feed was belly deep to the horses. The bridge proved to be a suspension affair of wire cables, that swung alarmingly until the horses had to straddle in order to stand at all.
Below it boiled the river, swirling, das.h.i.+ng, turning lazily and mysteriously over its gla.s.s-green depths, the s.h.i.+mmers and folds of eddies rising and swaying like air currents made visible.
They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to the left and back, following a contour to the slight elevation on which the houses stood.
Saleratus Bill, however, turned up a brief short-cut, which landed them immediately on the main street.
Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel, shaded by wooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite them, were substantial bunk houses and dwelling houses, painted red, each with its elevated, roofed verandah. Large trees, on either side, threw a shade fairly across the thoroughfare. An iron pump and water trough in front of the hotel saved the wayfarer from the necessity of riding his animals down to the river.
The vista at the end of the street showed a mill building on a distant mountain side, with the rabbit-burrow dumps of many shafts and prospect holes all about it.
They rode up the street past two or three of the houses, the hotel and the office. Bob, peering in through the windows, saw tables and chairs, old chromos and newer lithographs on the walls. Under the tree at the side of the hotel hung a water _olla_ with a porcelain cup atop. Near the back porch stood a screen meat safe.
But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted, the houses empty, the office unoccupied. As they proceeded Bob expected from one moment to the next to see a door open, a figure saunter around a corner. Save for the jays and squirrels, the place was absolutely empty.
For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow in coming.
The village exhibited none of the symptoms of abandonment. The window gla.s.s was whole; the furniture of such houses as Bob had glanced into while pa.s.sing stood in its accustomed places. A few strokes of the broom might have made any one of them immediately fit for habitation. The place looked less deserted than asleep; like one of the enchanted palaces so dear to tales of magic. It would not have seemed greatly wonderful to Bob to have seen the town spring suddenly to life in obedience to some spell. If the mill stamps in the distant crusher had creaked and begun to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around corners and from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged, yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices and houses had issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life awakening, it would all have seemed natural and to be expected. Under the influence of this strange effect a deathly stillness seemed to fall, in spite of the bawling and roaring of the river, and the trickle of many streamlets hurrying down from the surrounding hills.
So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation that Bob again essayed his surly companion.
”What place do you call this?” he inquired.
Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long, lean arms over his head. Evidently he considered this the end of the long and painful journey, and as evidently he was, in his relief, inclined to be better natured.
”Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove,” said he; ”they took about ten million dollars out of here before she bust.”
”How long ago was that?” asked Bob.
”Ten year or so.”
The young man gazed about him in amazement. The place looked as though it might have been abandoned the month before. In his subsequent sojourn he began more accurately to gauge the reasons for this. Here were no small boys to hurl the casual pebble through the delightfully s.h.i.+mmering gla.s.s; here was no dust to be swirled into crevices and angles, no wind to carry it; to this remote cove penetrated no vandals to rob, mutilate or wantonly disfigure; and the elevation of the valley's floor was low enough even to avoid the crus.h.i.+ng weights of snow that every winter brought to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and the tiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces of destruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation absolutely precluded moving any of the small property whose absence so strongly impresses the desertion of a building. When Bright's Cove moved, it had merely to shut the front door. In some cases it did not shut the front door.
Saleratus Bill a.s.sisted Bob from the saddle. This had become necessary, for the long ride in bonds had so cramped and stiffened the young man that he was unable to help himself. Indeed, he found he could not stand.
Saleratus Bill, after looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.
”I guess you're safe enough for now,” said he.
Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could hardly use them. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the saddles off the wearied animals.
”Look here,” said he gruffly; ”if you pa.s.s yore word you won't try to get away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose.”
”I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway,” returned Bob quickly.
Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner of the verandah.