Chapter Chapter 34 · BOOK III CHAPTER VIII

It comes like a violent jar to be awakened so rudely from a trance of

love, to turn suddenly from the one you care for most in all the world,

and behold the one you have best reason to hate. Nevertheless, it is not

in human nature to descend rocket-wise from the ethereal heights of

love. I was still in an exalted state of mind when I turned and

confronted Locasto. Hate was far from my heart, and when I saw the man

himself was regarding me with no particular unfriendliness, I was

disposed to put aside for the moment all feelings of enmity. The

generosity of the victor glowed within me.

As he advanced to me his manner was almost urbane in its geniality.

"You must forgive me," he said, not without dignity, "for overhearing

you; but by chance I was passing and dropped upon you before I realised

it."

He extended his hand frankly.

"I trust my congratulations on your good luck will not be entirely

obnoxious. I know that my conduct in this affair cannot have impressed

you in a very favourable light; but I am a badly beaten man. Can't you

be generous and let by-gones be by-gones? Won't you?"

I had not yet come down to earth. I was still soaring in the rarefied

heights of love, and inclined to a general amnesty towards my enemies.

As he stood there, quiet and compelling, there was an assumption of

frankness and honesty about this man that it was hard to withstand. For

the nonce I was persuaded of his sincerity, and weakly I surrendered my

hand. His grip made me wince.

"Yes, again I congratulate you. I know and admire her. They don't make

them any better. She's pure gold. She's a little queen, and the man she

cares for ought to be proud and happy. Now, I'm a man of the world, I'm

cynical about woman as a rule. I respect my mother and my

sisters--beyond that----" He shrugged his shoulders expressively.

"But this girl's different. I always felt in her presence as I used to

feel twenty-five years ago when I was a youth, with all my ideals

untarnished, my heart pure, and woman holy in my sight."

He sighed.

"You know, young man, I've never told it to a soul before, but I'd give

all I'm worth--a clear million--to have those days back. I've never been

happy since."

He drew away quickly from the verge of sentiment.

"Well, you mustn't mind me taking an interest in your sweetheart. I'm

old enough to be her father, you know, and she touches me strangely.

Now, don't distrust me. I want to be a friend to you both. I want to

help you to be happy. Jack Locasto's not such a bad lot, as you'll find

when you know him. Is there anything I can do for you? What are you

going to do in this country?"

"I don't quite know yet," I said. "I hope to stake a good claim when the

chance comes. Meantime I'm going to get work on the creeks."

"You are?" he said thoughtfully; "do you know any one?"

"No."

"Well, I'll tell you what: I've got laymen working on my Eldorado claim;

I'll give you a note to them if you like."

I thanked him.

"Oh, that's all right," he said. "I'm sorry I played such a mean part in

the past, and I'll do anything in my power to straighten things out.

Believe me, I mean it. Your English friend gave me the worst drubbing of

my life, but three days after I went round and shook hands with him.

Fine fellow that. We opened a case of wine to celebrate the victory. Oh,

we're good friends now. I always own up when I'm beaten, and I never

bear ill-will. If I can help you in any way, and hasten your marriage to

that little girl there, well, you can just bank on Jack Locasto: that's

all."

I must say the man could be most conciliating when he chose. There was a

gravity in his manner, a suave courtesy in his tone, the heritage of his

Spanish forefathers, that convinced me almost in spite of my better

judgment. No doubt he was magnetic, dominating, a master of men. I

thought: there are two Locastos, the primordial one, the Indian, who had

assaulted me; and the dignified genial one, the Spaniard, who was

willing to own defeat and make amends. Why should I not take him as I

found him?

So, as he talked entertainingly to me, my fears were dissipated, my

suspicions lulled. And when we parted we shook hands cordially.

"Don't forget," he said; "if you want help bank on me. I mean it now, I

mean it."

* * * * *

'Twas early in the bright and cool of the morning when we started for

Eldorado, Jim and I. I had a letter from Locasto to Ribwood and Hoofman,

the laymen, and I showed it to Jim. He frowned.

"You don't mean to say you've palled up with that devil," he said.

"Oh, he's not so bad," I expostulated. "He came to me like a man and

offered me his hand in friendship. Said he was ashamed of himself. What

could I do? I've no reason to doubt his sincerity."

"Sincerity be danged. He's about as sincere as a tame rattlesnake. Put

his letter in the creek."

But no! I refused to listen to the old man.

"Well, go your own gait," he said; "but don't say that I didn't warn

you."

We had crossed over the Klondike to its left limit, and were on a

hillside trail beaten down by the feet of miners and packers. Cabins

clustered on the flat, and from them plumes of violet smoke mounted into

the golden air. Already the camp was astir. Men were chopping their

wood, carrying their water. The long, long day was beginning.

Following the trail, we struck up Bonanza, a small muddy stream in a

narrow valley. Down in the creek-bed we could see ever-increasing signs

of an intense mining activity. On every claim were dozens of cabins, and

many high cones of greyish muck. We saw men standing on raised platforms

turning windlasses. We saw buckets come up filled with the same dark

grey dirt, to be dumped over the edge of the platform. Sometimes, where

the dump had gradually arisen around man and windlass, the platform in

the centre of that dark-greyish cone was twenty feet high.

Every mile the dumps grew more numerous, till some claims seemed covered

with them. Looking down from the trail, they were like innumerable

anthills blocking up the narrow channel, and around them swarmed the

little ant-men in never-resting activity. The golden valley opened out

to us in a vista of green curves, and the cleft of it was packed with

tents, cabins, dumps and tailing piles, all bedded in a blue haze of

wood fires.

"Look at that great centipede striding across the valley," I said.

"Yes," said Jim, "it's a long line of sluice-boxes. See the water

a-shinin' in the sun. Looks like some big golden-backed caterpillar."

The little ants were shovelling into it from one of their heaps, and

from that point it swirled on into the stream, a current of mud and

stone.

"Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold," I said. "I know

it's all caught in the riffles, but I think if that dump was mine I

would want sluice-boxes a mile long and about sixteen hundred riffles.

But I guess they know what they are doing."

About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks. It was

a little town, a Dawson in miniature, with all its sordid aspects

infinitely accentuated. It had dance-halls, gambling dens and many

saloons: every convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke.

There in the din and daze and dirt we tarried awhile; then, after eating

heartily, we struck up Eldorado.

Here was the same feverish activity of gold-getting. Every claim was

valued at millions, and men who had rarely owned enough to buy a decent

coat were crying in the saloons because life was not long enough to

allow them to spend their sudden wealth. Nevertheless, they were making

a good stab at it. At the Forks I enquired regarding Ribwood and

Hoofman: "Goin' to work for them, are you? Well, they've got a blamed

hard name. If you get a job elsewhere, don't turn it down."

Jim left me; he would work on no claim of Locasto's, he said. He had a

friend, a layman, who was a good man, belonged to the Army. He would try

him. So we parted.

Ribwood was a tall, gaunt Cornishman, with a narrow, jutting face and a

gloomy air; Hoofman, a burly, beet-coloured Australian with a bulging

stomach.

"Yes, we'll put you to work," said Hoofman, reading the letter. "Get

your coat off and shovel in."

So, right away, I found myself in the dump-pile, jamming a shovel into

the pay-dirt and swinging it into a sluice-box five feet higher than my

head. Keeping at this hour after hour was no fun, and if ever a man

desisted for a moment the hard eyes of Hoofman were upon him, and the

gloomy Ribwood had snatched up a shovel and was throwing in the muck

furiously.

"Come on, boys," he would shout; "make the dirt fly. 'Taint every part

of the world you fellers can make your ten bucks a day."

And it can be said that never labourer proved himself more worthy of his

hire than the pick-and-shovel man of those early days. Few could stand

it long without resting. They were lean as wolves those men of the dump

and drift, and their faces were gouged and grooved with relentless toil.

Well, for three days I made the dirt fly; but towards quitting time, I

must say, its flight was a very uncertain one. Again I suffered all the

tortures of becoming toil-broken, the old aches and pains of the tunnel

and the gravel-pit. Towards evening every shovelful of dirt seemed to

weigh as much as if it was solid gold; indeed, the stuff seemed to get

richer and richer as the day advanced, and during the last half-hour I

judged it must be nearly all nuggets. The constant hoisting into the

overhead sluice-box somehow worked muscles that had never gone into

action before, and I ached elaborately.

In the morning the pains were fiercest. How I groaned until the muscles

became limber. I found myself using very rough language, groaning,

gritting my teeth viciously. But I stayed with the work and held up my

end, while the laymen watched us sedulously, and seemed to grudge us

even a moment to wipe the sweat out of our blinded eyes.

I was glad, indeed, when, on the evening of the third day, Ribwood came

to me and said:

"I guess you'd better work up at the shaft to-morrow. We want a man to

wheel muck."

They had a shaft sunk on the hillside. They were down some forty feet

and were drifting in, wheeling the pay-dirt down a series of planks

placed on trestles to the dump. I gripped the handles of a wheelbarrow

loaded to overspilling, and steered it down that long, unsteady gangway

full of uneven joins and sudden angles. Time and again I ran off the

track, but after the first day I became quite an expert at the business.

My spirits rose. I was on the way of becoming a miner.