They of the High Trails

Garland Hamlin

They of the High Trails

THE AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

Many changes have swept over the mountain West since twenty years ago, but romance still clings to the high country. The Grub-Staker, hammer in hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the hills with hopeful patience, walking the perilous ledges of the cliffs in endless search of gold.

The Cow-Boss, reckless rear-guard of his kind, still urges his watch-eyed bronco across the roaring streams, or holds his milling herd in the high parks, but the Remittance Man, wayward son from across the seas, is gone. Roused to manhood by his country's call, he has joined the ranks of those who fight to save the shores of his ancestral isle.

The Prospector still pushes his small pack-mule through the snow of glacial passes, seeking the unexplored, and therefore more alluring, mountain ranges.

The Lonesome Man still seeks forgetfulness of crime in the solitude, building his cabin in the shadow of great peaks.

The Trail-Tramp, mounted wanderer, horseman of the restless heart, still rides from place to place, contemptuous of gold, carrying in his folded blanket all the vanishing traditions of the wild.

The Fugitive still seeks sanctuary in the green timber – finding the storms of the granite peaks less to be feared than the fury of the law.

The Leaser – the tenderfoot hay-roller from the prairies – still tries his luck in some abandoned tunnel, sternly toiling for his faithful sweetheart in the low country; and

The Forest Ranger, hardy son of the pioneers, representing the finer social order of the future, rides his lonely woodland trail, guarding with single-hearted devotion our splendid communal heritage of mine and stream.

On the High Trail, Spring, 1916.

THE GRUB-STAKER

– hammer in hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the Rockies with hopeful patience, walking the perilous ledges of the cliffs in endless search of gold.

THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS

I

THE GRUB-STAKER

I

"There's gold in the Sierra Blanca country – everybody admits it," Sherman F. Bidwell was saying as the Widow Delaney, who kept the Palace Home Cooking Restaurant in the town of Delaney (named after her husband, old Dan Delaney), came into the dining-room. Mrs. Delaney paused with a plate of steaming potatoes, and her face was a mask of scorn as she addressed the group, but her words were aimed especially at Bidwell, who had just come in from the lower country to resume his prospecting up the gulch.

"It's aisy sayin' gould is in thim hills, but when ye find it rainbows will be fishin'-rods." As she passed the potatoes over Bidwell's head she went on: "Didn't Dan Delaney break his blessed neck a-climbin' the high places up the creek – to no purpis includin' that same accident? You min may talk and talk, but talk don't pay for petaties and bacon, mind that. For eight years I've been here and I'm worse off to-day than iver before – an' the town, phwat is it? Two saloons and a boardin'-house – and not a ton of ore dug – much less shipped out. Y'r large words dig no dirt, I'm thinkin', Sherm Bidwell."

Bidwell was a mild-spoken man who walked a little sidewise, with eyes always on the ground as though ceaselessly searching for pieces of float. He replied to his landlady with some spirit: "I've chashayed around these mountains ever since I got back from Californey in fifty-four and I know good rocks. I can't just lay my pick on the vein, but I'm due to find it soon, for I'm a-gettin' old. Why, consider the float, it's everywhere – and you know there's colors in every sand-bar? There's got to be a ledge somewhere close by."

The widow snorted. "Hah! Yiss, flo-at! Me windysills is burthened with dirty float – but where's the gould?"

"I'll find it, Mrs. Delaney – but you must be patient," he mildly replied.

"Pashint! Me, pashint! Sure Job was a complainin' mill-wheel beside me, Sherm Bidwell. Me boarders have shrunk to five and you're one o' the five – and here you are after another grub-stake to go picnicking into the mountains wid. I know your smooth tongue – sure I do – but ye're up against me determination this toime, me prince. Ye don't get a pound o' meat nor a measure o' flour from Maggie Delaney – "

Bidwell sat with an air of resigned Christian fortitude while the widow delivered herself. To tell the truth, he had listened to these precise words before – and resented them only because spoken publicly.

The other boarders finished their supper in silence and went out, but Bidwell lingered to wheedle the mistress while she ate her own fill at the splotched and littered table. The kerosene-lamp stood close to her plate and brought out the glow of her cheek and deepened the blue of her eyes into violet. She was still on the right side of forty and well cared for.

Bidwell shot a shy glance at her. "I like to stir you up, Maggie darlin'; it makes you purty as a girl."

She caught up a loaf of bread and heaved it at him. He caught it deftly and inquired, guilelessly: "Is this the first of my grub-stake, lassie?"

"It is not! 'Tis the last crumb ye'll have of me. Out wid ye! Grub-stake indade! You go out this night, me bucko!"

Bidwell rose in pretended fright and shuffled to the door. "I don't need much – a couple o' sacks o' flour – "

She lifted an arm. "You tramp!"

He slammed the door just in time to prevent a cup from flying straight into his smiling eyes. After a moment of silent laughter, and with a wink at the men in the "office," he reopened the door and said:

"Ye're a warm-hearted, handsome girl, Maggie. Two strips o' bacon – "

A muffled cry and a crash caused him to again slam the door and withdraw.

Coming back to the middle of the room, he took out his pipe and began to fill it. One of the younger men said:

"You'll get that grub-stake over the eye; the widdy is dangerous to-night."

Sherm seemed not much concerned. Having fired his pipe, he took a piece of rock from his pocket. "What do you think o' this?" he inquired, casually.

The other examined it eagerly, and broke out: "Jee – cripes! Why, say! that's jest rotten with gold. Where'd you find it?"

"Out in the hills," was the placid reply; "a new vein – high up."

The third man took the rock and said: "That vein has got to be low down – that can't come from high up. We're on the wrong trail. Think o' Cripple Creek – mine's right under the grass on the hills. Yer can't fool me."

"But we know the veins are high – we've seen 'em," argued the other men.

"Yes – but they're different veins. This rock comes from lower down."

"What do you say to that, Sherm?"

"One guess is as good as another," he replied, and moved away with his piece of ore.

"The old man's mighty fly this evenin'. I wonder if he really has trailed that float to a standstill. I'd sooner think he's stringin' us."

Bidwell went out on the edge of the ravine, and for a long time sat on a rock, listening to the roar of the swift stream and looking up at the peaks which were still covered with heavy yellow snow, stained with the impalpable dust which the winter winds had rasped from the exposed ledges of rock. It was chill in the cañon, and the old man shivered with cold as well as with a sense of discouragement. For twenty years he had regularly gone down into the valleys in winter to earn money with which to prospect in summer – all to no purpose. For years Margaret Delaney had been his very present help in time of trouble, and now she had broken with him, and under his mask of smiling incredulity he carried a profoundly disturbed conscience. His benefactress was in deadly earnest – she meant every word she said – that he felt, and unless she relented he was lost, for he had returned from the valley this time without a dollar to call his own. He had a big, strong mule and some blankets and a saddle – nothing further.

The wind grew stronger and keener, roaring down the cañon with the breath of the upper snows, and the man's blood cried out for a fire (June stands close to winter in the high ranges of the Crestones), and at last he rose stiffly and returned to the little sitting-room, where he found the widow in the midst of an argument with her boarders to prove that they were all fools together for hangin' to the side of a mountain that had no more gould in it than a flatiron or a loomp o' coal – sure thing!

"What you goin' to do about our assays?" asked young Johnson.

"Assays, is it? Annybody can have assays – that will pay the price. Ye're all lazy dogs in the manger, that's phwat ye air. Ye assay and want somebody else to pay ye fer the privilege of workin'. Why don't ye work yer-silves – ye loots? Sit around here expectin' some wan ilse to shovel gould into yer hat. Ye'll pay me yer board – moind that," she ended, making a personal application of her theories; "ivery wan o' ye."

If any lingering resolution remained in Bidwell's heart it melted away as he listened to Mrs. Delaney's throaty voice and plain, blunt words. Opening the door timidly, he walked in and without looking at the angry woman seized upon his bundles, which lay behind the door.

The widow's voice rang out: "Where ye gawun wid thim bags?"

Bidwell straightened. "They're my bundles, I reckon. Can't a man do as he likes with his own?"

"Not whin he's owin' fer board. Put thim boondles down!"

The culprit sighed and sat down on the bundles. Even young Johnson lost his desire to laugh, for Bidwell looked pathetically old and discouraged at the moment, as he mildly asked:

"You wouldn't send a man out in the night without his blankets, would you?"

"I'd send a sneak to purgatory – if I c'u'd. Ye thought ye'd ooze out, did ye? Nice speciment you are!"

Bidwell was roused. "If I had planned to sneak I wouldn't 'a' come into the room with you a-standin' in the middle of the floor," he replied, with some firmness. "You ordered me out, didn't you? Well, I'm goin'. I can't pay you – you knew that when you told me to go – and I owe you a good deal – I admit that – but I'm going to pay it. But I must have a little time."

The other men, with a grateful sense of delicacy, got up and went out, leaving Bidwell free space to justify himself in the eyes of the angry woman.

As the door slammed behind the last man the widow walked over and gave Bidwell a cuff. "Get off thim boondles. Gaw set on a chair like a man, an' not squat there like a baboon." She pitched his bundles through an open door into a small bedroom. "Ye know where yer bed is, I hope! I do' know phwat Dan Delaney w'u'd say to me, housin' and feedin' the likes o' you, but I'll do it wan more summer – and then ye gaw flyin'. Ye hear that now!"

And she threw the door back on its hinges so sharply that a knob was broken.

Bidwell went in, closed the door gently, and took to his bed, dazed with this sudden change in the climate. "She's come round before – and surprised me," he thought, "but never so durn sudden as this. I hope she ain't sick or anything."

Next morning at breakfast Maggie was all smiles. The storm of the evening before had given place to brilliant sunshine. She ignored all winks and nudgings among her boarders, and did not scruple to point out to Bidwell the choicest biscuit on the plate, and to hand him the fattest slice of bacon, all of which he accepted without elation.

"Old Sherm must be one o' these hypnotical chaps," said Johnson as they were lighting their pipes in the sitting-room. "He's converted the widow into another helping. He's goin' to get his flour and bacon all right!"

"You bet he is, and anything else he wants. Beats me what she finds in that old side-winder, anyhow."

"Oh, Sherm isn't so worse if he had a decent outfit."

Bidwell was deeply touched by Maggie's clemency, and would have put his feelings into the best terms he was familiar with, but the widow stopped him.

"The best way to thank me is to hustle out and trail up that flo-at. If it's there, find it. If it's not there, give o'er the search, for ye are a gray man, Sherm Bidwell, and I'm not the woman I was eight years ago."

In the exaltation of the moment Bidwell rose, and his shoulders were squared as he said: "I'm a-goin', Maggie. If I find it I'll come back and marry you. If I don't – I'll lay my useless old bones in the hills."

"Ah – go 'long! Don't be a crazy fool!" she said, but her face flushed with pleasure at the sincerity of his tone. "Ye've made such promises ivery time before."

"I know I have, but I mean it now."

"Aho! so that's the way of it – ye didn't mean it before? Is that phwat ye're sayin'?"

His proud pose collapsed. "You know what I mean – only you're such a tormentin' little devil."

"Thank ye for the compliment, Mr. Bidwell."

Bidwell turned. "I'm going after old Nebuchadnezzar," he said, firmly. "I can't waste time on a chicken-headed woman – "

"Out wid ye before I break the measly head of ye!" she retorted.

An hour later, with his mule packed with food and blankets and tools, he moved off up the trail. The other men stood to watch him go, consumed with curiosity, yet withholding all question.

The widow did not so much as look from the door as her grub-staker disappeared.

II

Three days later Bidwell crept stealthily down the trail, leading his mule as silently as possible. He timed his arrival so that Mrs. Delaney would be in the kitchen alone with the Chinaman, getting the dishes ready for breakfast.

"Who is ut?" called the widow as he softly knocked.

"Me – Sherm," he replied.

"Saints in hevin! What's the matter? Are ye sick?" she gasped as she flung the door open.

"'Sh! Don't speak so loud," he commanded. "Sit down; I want to speak solemn-like to you."

His tone impressed her deeply. "Have ye struck ut?" she asked, tremulously.

"I hain't found it yet, but I want to tell ye – I believe I've had a hunch. Send the 'chink' away."

Something in his tone stopped all scornful words upon her lips. Ordering the Chinaman to bed, she turned and asked:

"Phwat do ye mean? Spake, man!"

"Well, sir, as I started up the trail something kept sayin' to me, 'Sherman, you're on the wrong track.' It was just as if you pulled my sleeve and nudged me and said, 'This way!' I couldn't sleep that night. I just lay on the ground and figured. Up there high – terrible high – are seams of ore – I know that – but they're in granite and hard to get at. That's one gold belt. There's money in a mine up there, but it will take money to get it. Then there's another gold belt down about here – or even lower – and I've just come to the conclusion that our mine, Maggie, is down here in the foot-hills, not on old Blanca."

The air of mystery which enveloped and transformed the man had its effect on the woman. Her eyes opened wide.

"Was it a voice like?"

"No, it was more like a pull. Seemed to be pulling me to cross the creek where I found that chunk of porph'ritic limestone. I couldn't sleep the second night – and I've been in camp up there in Burro Park tryin' to figure it all out. I hated to give up and come back – I was afraid ye'd think I was weakening – but I can't help it. Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do – I'm going to make a camp over on the north side of the creek. I don't want the boys to know where I've gone, but I wanted you to know what I'm doing – I wanted you to know – it's plum ghostly – it scared me."

She whispered, "Mebbe it's Dan."

"I thought o' that. Him and me were always good friends, and he was in my mind all the while."

"But howld on, Sherm; it may be the divil leadin' ye on to break y'r neck as did Dan. 'Twas over there he fell."

"Well, I thought o' that, too. It's either Dan or the devil, and I'm going to find out which."

"The saints go wid ye!" said the widow, all her superstitious fears aroused. "And if it is Dan he'll sure be good to you fer my sake."

III

Sierra Blanca is the prodigious triple-turreted tower which stands at the southern elbow of the Sangre de Cristo range. It is a massive but symmetrical mountain, with three peaks so nearly of the same altitude that the central dome seems the lowest of them all, though it is actually fourteen thousand four hundred and eighty feet above the sea. On the west and south this great mass rises from the flat, dry floor of the San Luis Valley in sweeping, curving lines, and the piñons cover these lower slopes like a robe of bronze green.

At eight thousand feet above the sea these suave lines become broken. The piñons give place to pine and fir, and the somber cañons begin to yawn. It was just here, where the grassy hills began to break into savage walls, that Bidwell made his camp beside a small stream which fell away into Bear Creek to the south. From this camp he could look far out on the violet and gold of the valley, and see the railway trains pass like swift and monstrous dragons. He could dimly see the lights of Las Animas also, and this led him to conceal his own camp-fire.

Each day he rode forth, skirting the cliffs, examining every bit of rock which showed the slightest mineral stain. Scarcely a moment of the daylight was wasted in this search. His mysterious guide no longer touched him, and this he took to be a favorable omen. "I'm near it," he said.

One day he hitched his mule to a small dead pine at the foot of a steep cliff, and was climbing to the summit when a stone, dislodged by his feet, fell, bounced, thumped the mule in the ribs, and so scared the animal that he pulled up the tree and ran away.

Angry and dispirited (for he was hungry and tired) Bidwell clambered down and began to trail the mule toward camp. The tree soon clogged the runaway and brought him to a stand in a thicket of willows.

As Bidwell knelt to untie the rope his keen eyes detected the glitter of gold in the dirt which still clung to the moist root of the pine. With a sudden conviction of having unearthed his fortune, the miner sprang to his saddle and hurried back to the spot whence the tree had been rived. It was dusk by the time he reached the spot, but he could detect gold in the friable rock which lined the cavity left by the uprooted sapling. With a mind too excited to sleep he determined to stay with his find till morning. To leave it involved no real risk of losing it, and yet he could not bring himself to even build a camp-fire, for fear some one might be drawn from the darkness to dispute his claim.

It was a terribly long night, and when old Blanca's southern peak began to gleam out of the purple receding waves of the night the man's brain was numb with speculation and suspense. Hovering over the little heap of broken rock which he had scooped out with his hands, he waited in almost frenzied impatience for the sun.

He could tell by the feeling that the ore was what miners of his grade call "rotten quartz," and he knew that it often held free gold in enormous richness. It was so friable he could crumble it in his hands, and so yellow with iron-stains that it looked like lumps of clay as the dawn light came. A stranger happening upon him would have feared for his reason, so pale was his face, so bloodshot his eyes.

At last he could again detect the gleam of gold. Each moment as the light grew the value of the ore increased. It was literally meshed with rusty free gold. The whole mound was made up of a disintegrated ledge of porphyry and thousands of dollars were in sight. As his mind grasped these facts the miner rose and danced —but he did not shout!

All that day he worked swiftly, silently, like an animal seeking to escape an enemy, digging out this rock and carrying it to a place of concealment in a deep thicket not far away. He did not stop to eat or drink till mid-afternoon, and then only because he was staggering with weakness and his hands were growing ineffective. After eating he fell asleep and did not wake till deep in the night. For some minutes he could not remember what had happened to him. At last his good fortune grew real again. Saddling his mule, he rode up the creek and crossed miles above his newly discovered mine, in order to conceal his trail, and it was well toward dawn before he tapped on the widow's window.

"Is that you, Sherm?" she asked.

"Yes. Get up quick; I have news!"

When she opened the kitchen door for him she started back. "For love of God, man, phwat have you been doin' wid yersilf?"

"Be quiet!" he commanded, sharply, and crept in, staggering under the weight of a blanket full of ore. "You needn't work any more, Maggie; I've got it. Here it is!"

"Man, ye're crazy! What have you there? Not gould!"

"You bet it is! Quartz jest rotten with gold. Where can I hide it?" His manner would not have been wilder had his bag of ore been the body of a man he had murdered. "Quick! It's almost daylight."

"Let me see ut. I do not believe ut."

He untied the blanket, and as the corners unrolled, disclosing the red-brown mass, even her unskilled eyes could see the gleaming grains of pure metal. She fell on her knees and crossed herself.

"Praise be to Mary! Where did ye find ut – and how?"

"Not a word about that. I'm scared. If any one should find it while I am away they could steal thousands of dollars. Why, it's like a pocket in a placer! Get me every sack you can. Give me grub – and hide this. There are tons of it! This is the best of it. We are rich – rich as Jews, Maggie!"

They worked swiftly. The widow emptied a cracker-barrel and put the ore at the bottom, and then tumbled the crackers in on top of the ore. She set out some cold meat and bread and butter, and while Bidwell ate she brought out every rag that could serve as a sack.

"I'll have more for ye to-morrow. I wish I c'u'd go wid ye, Sherm. I'd like to set me claws at work at that dirt."

"I need help, but I am afraid to have a man. Well, I must be off. Good-by. I'll be back to-night with another load. I guess old Sherm is worth a kiss yet – eh – Maggie!"

"Be off wid ye. Can't ye see the dawn is comin'?" A moment later she ran up to him and gave him a great hug. "There – now haste ye!"

"Be silent!"

"As the grave itself!" she replied, and turned to brush up the cracker-crumbs. "That Chinese divil has sharp eyes," she muttered.

IV

It was inevitable that the golden secret should escape. Others besides the Chinese cook had sharp eyes, and the Widow Delaney grew paler and more irritable as the days wore on. She had a hunted look. She hardly ever left her kitchen, it was observed, and her bedroom door had a new lock. Every second night Bidwell, gaunt and ragged, and furtive as a burglar, brought a staggering mule-load of the richest ore and stowed it away under the shanty floor and in the widow's bedroom. Luckily miners are sound sleepers, or the two midnight marauders would have been discovered on the second night.

One day John, the cook, seized the cracker-barrel, intending to put it into a different corner. He gave it a slight wrench, looked a little surprised, and lifted a little stronger. It did not budge. He remarked:

"Klackels belly hebby. No sabbe klackels allee same deese."

"Let that alone!" screamed Mrs. Delaney. "Phwat will ye be doin' nixt, ye squint-eyed monkey? I'll tell ye whin to stir things about."

The startled Chinaman gave way in profound dismay. "Me goin' s'eep lound klackel-ballell, you sabbe?"

"Well, I'll do the sweepin' there. I nailed that barrel to the flure apurpis. L'ave it alone, will ye?"

This incident decided her. That night, when Bidwell came, she broke out:

"Sherm, I cannot stand this anny longer. I'm that nairvous I can't hear a fly buzz widout hot streaks chasin' up and down me spine like little red snakes. And man, luk at yersilf. Why, ye're hairy as a go-at and yer eyes are loike two white onions. I say stop, Sherm dear!"

"What'll we do?" asked Bidwell in alarm.

"Do? I'll tell ye phwat we'll do. We'll put our feets down and say, 'Yis, 'tis true, we've shtruck ut, and it's ours.' Then I'll get a team from Las Animas and load the stuff in before the face and eyes of the world, and go wid it to sell it, whilst you load y'r gun an' stand guard over the hole in the ground. I'm fair crazy wid this burglar's business. We're both as thin as quakin' asps and full as shaky. You go down the trail this minute and bring a team and a strong wagon – no wan will know till ye drive in. Now go!"