Читать книгу The Parowan Bonanza - B. M. Bower - Страница 8

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In the beginning of mining booms, accident and freaks of chance are popularly supposed to play the leading rôle. A mule, for instance, played fairy godmother when it let fly its heels and kicked a nub off a ledge of fabulous richness in gold. A man threw a rock at a jack rabbit, and then realized that the rock was heavier than it should be; sought its mates and found a mine. Or a man takes an inadvertent slide down a ledge and lands upon a bonanza.

These things do happen occasionally; and, being ready-made romance, they are seized upon avidly by the teller of tales. So the public comes to believe that chance, and chance alone, discovers the precious minerals and leads men like blind children to the spot; a sort of "Shut-your-eyes-and-open-your-mouth" game played by Fate.

In reality, more mines are found by careful prospecting than are ever given to the world by sheer accident. More and more is science turning prospector, and men go carefully, reading geologic formations, following volcanic breaks and mineral outcroppings. Your desert prospector may eat with his knife and forget to take off his hat in the house, but he can talk you blind on intrusions and sedimentary deposits and the dips, angles and faults of certain mineral formations he knows. Chlorides, "bromides," sulphides,—these things are the shop talk of desert and mountains. Men speak of one another with praise or disparagement, as "knowing rock" or as not knowing rock. And the man who does not know rock is the man who goes about praying for a mule to kick the dirt off a gold outcropping for him.

Bill Dale knew rock. He had spent two years, more or less, prospecting on the southern slope of Parowan, because there was a "break" running across, and because, in the lower end of a wash that had many feeders wrinkled into the mountainside, he had picked up a few pieces of "float" carrying free gold in such quantity that it would mean a real bonanza if he found it "in place," which means in a continuous vein leading to the main body that produced it.

As a bystander he had observed the boom at Goldfield, Tonopah, and at other lesser points. His father had been rich in a boom town for a few weeks. Then he had been a broken, old pauper until he died. Wherefore, Bill Dale did not want a premature boom, nor any boom at all. He wanted to find the ledge or vein that had produced that float, so that he would have something tangible to offer Doris Hunter,—in case he ever found courage enough to offer her anything. He knew that he was liked by the Hunters; but he also knew that as a prospective husband for Doris he was never for one moment seriously considered. Don Hunter, her father, was a stockman. He did not believe much in mines, and he looked askance, from a business viewpoint, at any man who spent good, working days in prospecting the desert. It was the most insidious, the most hopeless form of gambling, according to Don Hunter. He would rather see a man sit down to poker and play for a living than to see him wallowing around like a badger, digging holes in a sidehill looking for wealth.

Bill had done a great deal of pecking and prying, up this wash and that. He believed he knew where the float had come from, but there seemed to be an overburden of soil, probably the result of some beating storm and consequent slide, which had covered the ledge that had at one time been an outcropping. It was slow, tedious work, but Bill was a patient man. Prospectors have to learn patience, or quit the game.

Flaunting desert lilies, dainty blue bells, the deep magenta bloom of the cacti gave way to the tiny pink and pale lavender blossoms that cling close to the arid soil. The sky was brazen with heat, or it turned deep shades of slate as the thunderheads poked over Parowan and rumbled warningly at the desert. Bill worked on through the hot days and practised scales and simple melodies in the evening, and quarreled with Luella and confided to her many things which he would not want repeated.

One sultry evening he brought into camp several pieces of rock and held them where Luella could gaze upon certain telltale, yellow specks. Bill's perspiring face glowed. His eyes were dancing with something akin to mirth.

"We've struck it, old girl! What I've been looking for all this while. Biggest thing yet, from the looks. We're rich, I tell you! Doggone, thundering rich! You watch Parowan go on the map. Biggest thing in the country. If I showed that rock in Goldfield, they'd be down here like flies." He laid the rock down and broke a dry stick across his knee, meaning to start a fire. But he was excited and kept on talking,—now definitely to Luella, now to himself.

"It's the kind of thing I've been hunting. I knew it should be here somewhere. This district is entitled to a big mine. It's got all the earmarks. I've got her traced, now. That rock is in place, or I'm a Chinaman. I tell you, old girl, we're rich! I've got a nugget in my shirt pocket that I didn't show you, for fear you might swallow it."

"Aw, cut it out!" Luella snapped at him. She was a pessimistic bird, as a rule.

Bill burrowed deeper and found more gold. Rock so rich that he could break it up by hand and pan it in the spring, and glean gold enough for another grubstake, more equipment. He was in no great hurry to proclaim his fortune to the world, and he did not mean to show himself in town until his grub was gone. Then he would make a trip, buy more supplies, perhaps hire a man if he could find one whom he could trust. He did not want the harpies to know about Parowan,—yet.

He relieved his inner excitement by talking to Luella, and by tootling on the saxophone and dreaming of Doris Hunter, who did not seem quite so unattainable, now that he had found the mine he had wanted to find and was proving it richer than his most lavish expectations.

With the first discovery he had put up his location notices on three claims, calling them simply Parowan Number One, Parowan Number Two and Parowan Number Three. And in compliment to the girl of his dreams he had located another, called it the Evening Star and signed Doris Hunter's name as the locator. Which is a chivalrous custom observed quite commonly among prospectors.

He did the location work on all four claims, put up the corner and side-line monuments required by law, and then, having eaten most of his supplies, he cached the remainder and started for Goldfield, his mind at ease, his heart singing and his lips wearing an unconscious half-smile all the way.

It was in Goldfield, while Bill was in the recorder's office, that the news leaked out where it shouldn't. Luella, like others of her sex, began talking, inspired by an audience of four men, one of whom was Jim Lambert, who had betrayed some curiosity over Bill Dale's affairs when Bill was last in town.

"Bill Dale's outfit. Hello, Luella," Jim greeted.

Luella looked down at him, seemed to recall having seen him before, and began her pigeon-toed march up and down Wise One's spinal column.

"Boy, we've struck it rich!" she began, chuckling in vivid imitation of Hopeful Bill's tone when he was particularly pleased. "Got her traced now. Richest thing in Nevada. Goldfield can't show stuff like this. Tell you, old girl, we're rich! Doggone, thunderin' rich! Can't tell anybody. Don't want a boom. Git a move on! They'd be down here like flies. Hez! Hez'll have a gold collar. Gold perch for you. Luck's turned; luck's patting us on the back." Luella laughed, then, just as Bill laughed.

Jim and his three companions had stood perfectly still, listening. Jim turned his head and looked at the others, who stared back at him inquiringly.

"Inside dope, boy, believe me." Jim plucked the nearest man by the sleeve. "Bill Dale's parrot has give us the real dope on Bill, if you want my opinion. Come on. We'll lay low, and I'll feel Bill out. He's inside—recording claims, I'll bet. Anyway, I've got a claim to record, come to think of it. I'll git all I can outa the recorder. Bill Dale's parrot has tipped Bill's hand. I'll see the recorder."

They went away. Five minutes later, Bill came down the steps to his burros and discovered Luella toeing it up and down, up and down, practising new sets of words.

"Bill Dale's parrot has tipped Bill's hand. I'll see the recor'," she muttered, over and over.

"You damned huzzy," Bill reproved her, when he had got the full significance of her speech. He picked up Wise One's lead rope and went thoughtfully down to the store.

"We'll lay low," Luella continued, bobbing her head as Wise One's empty pack swayed and lurched under her feet. "Come on. We'll lay low. I'll feel Bill out. Bill Dale's parrot has tipped Bill's hand. I'll see the recor-r'——" She worried over the final syllable that defeated her powers of enunciation.

Bill looked back at her speculatively. At the store, the first thing he asked for was a large, pasteboard carton. Having found one which he thought would do, he plucked Luella unceremoniously off her perch and shut her up, with the box lid tied firmly in place with much heavy twine.

"Fellow tried to steal her, last time I was in," he explained good-humoredly. "She's a pet I'd hate to lose. I'll give you a dollar if you'll let me put her away somewhere till I'm ready to leave town."

"Sure! Keep the dollar, though. It ain't any trouble—if you feed her yourself." Bill was a good customer. He bought largely when he did buy, and he never hinted at credit; which was more than could be said of most prospectors.

"Wait! I'll just put the turtle in with her. Then she'll be more at home, and won't try to break out." Bill went out and returned, swinging a headless, footless, tailless mass of gray turtle insouciantly by the string. "Bunch of boys was after Sister Mitchell too, last time," he observed. "I hate to have trouble, and I can't always keep an eye on things in town. Got quite a lot of running around to do."

He carried the turtle to the back of the store, opened the box and slid her in with little ceremony.

"What the hell!" Luella ejaculated, but Bill slipped on the cover and left her in darkness, so that Luella subsided into throaty mutterings. She never talked in the dark, as Bill knew very well.

"How's prospecting?" the storekeeper asked when Bill returned. "Found anything?"

"Well, I've got a dandy prospect," Bill confided, lowering his voice and glancing sidelong toward the door. "I want to do some more digging, though, before I throw up my hat. Just recorded three claims, as I came past the courthouse. I've got to go in on a lead, and I want the work to count as location work. In fact," he further elucidated, "I've recorded what work I've done as location. No use digging for nothing, and even if they don't pan out rich enough to pay now, so far from transportation, there's enough showing of mineral to pay for hanging on awhile."

"Um-hmm." The storekeeper nodded. "Pity all prospectors don't take the pains to make sure uh what they got. They come in here blattin' about their strikes—and want more grub on credit. I used to fall for it. What's your claims? Gold?"

"Showing of gold," Bill told him unhesitatingly. "The formation entitles me to gold, too, so that's what I'm looking for. Here's a piece of rock. Take a look at it."

The storekeeper tilted the specimen to the light and squinted. Bill obligingly lent him a miner's glass, and with his finger pointed to a certain spot on the sample. "Right there—at the edge of that iron stain; there's a speck of color."

"Mh-hmm—yeah—I see it. Well, it's good, live-lookin' rock, Bill. I think you're wise to dig into it." He returned the sample, weighing it in his mind as he held it out.

"I'm keeping quiet about it—to outsiders," Bill said, dropping the rock into his pocket again. "Don't want any stampede. But I do want a couple more burros, and a hundred pounds of powder, and four boxes of Six-X caps, and five hundred feet of fuse. If you can get me all the stuff I need, and get the two extra burros packed and headed down the trail with orders for the fellow to camp and wait till I show up, I'll make it right with you. This town's got big ears and big eyes. And—you can maybe remember why I hate boom stampedes that don't pan out. I'll give you ten per cent. on every dollar's worth of stuff and the cost of the burros you get to—say to Hick's Hot Spring for me, and twenty-five dollars for a good, trusty man that can swing a single-jack and throw a mess of sour-dough bread together."

The storekeeper ruminated.

"Why, I'll do it for nothing, Bill. You're a good customer, and if you do make a strike I guess I won't lose your trade by treating you white. Trade's slidin' into the credit class more'n what I like to see. You're hard cash when you buy. Just give me your order, and I'll fill it. And what's more, I'll keep my damn mouth shut. And glad to accommodate yuh, Bill."

"Say, you're a white man!" Bill looked full at him and grinned appreciation. But he did not confide further in the storekeeper, nevertheless. "Don't let anybody hang around my pets, and don't say who's to own the burros. You buy 'em, and I'll buy 'em from you, same as I do bacon. And be careful, pickin' that man, will yuh? I want one that can swing something besides his tongue."

"I getcha, Bill. How about booze?"

"All right—if he can do without for a month or two at a stretch. I don't pack any jugs into the desert, as you maybe know."

"That's why I asked. Town's full of good men, but they are mostly booze-punishers. Well—how long you expect to be in town?"

"Just until I'm hooked up with what I need."

"Well—I can get yuh out to-morrow, maybe."

"Just in case you happen to run shy,——" Bill wrote a check on a Reno bank and handed it over. "Any balance, either way, we'll straighten up before I leave."

He purloined a handful of withered lettuce leaves and dropped them into the box for Sister Mitchell and Luella, and went out to idle here and there through town and discover, if he could, just how much damage Luella had done to his plans.